small quiets
I began Madeline L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light yesterday; I'm reading it again for the first time in maybe twelve years. My chief impression/memory from the first reading is that it was a book I kept itching to get back to, whenever I was pulled away for family obligations. I remember I read it over a Thanksgiving break, a library copy, sneaking up in my room and laying across my bed to grab just a few more pages, and being called down because my father had returned with our grandmother, Nana Petes, and I needed to help with setting the Thanksgiving table. It was a cloudy day, and cold. And I remember being awed by not only the story, but the way Madeline wrote the story, and the way the narrator, Vicky, would remember impressions and lines of poetry as she faced new challenges, or new insights, so that everything self-references in the most beautiful, even profound, of ways. I remember thinking, I want to do that in my stories.
When Madeline died in 2007, I was heartbroken. I composed my thoughts on her books, and on the woman herself, and reading it now I realize I had forgotten how much she meant to me. And how much she means to me, even now. More than Tamora Pierce, who I read voraciously in middle school, or even Robin McKinley, who I greatly admire now, Madeline L'Engle shaped the way I write, and the way I knew I wanted to write.
So returning to her words has been a welcome, and even healing, experience for me. I'm in something of a funny place right now, uncomfortable-funny, with too many things filling my head and heart, and what feels like too little solid ground upon which to stand. Reading A Ring of Endless Light now, over a decade later, gives me new insights into ideas I'd missed, as a twelve-year old, or maybe just hadn't grasped as fully as I am now. I see now that the whole book is about saying goodbye, to friends, to places, and to old sides of yourself. And I know about this now, so much more than I did as a sixth-grader. Though my sixth grade self still felt deeply enough, and understood enough, to realize that reading such a book on a cloudy November day was absolutely right, and that talking, afterwards, filling space with trivial words, was not. I remember being very quiet that whole weekend. I don't know if I actually was, but the feeling is there, still, and the memory of an acknowledgment that this book deserved space.
Maybe there are details my older self now picks up and automatically criticizes, little spots of too-handy conveniences, or dialogue that feels too mature for the character, but even as I notice those things, I discard them immediately. They're not why I'm reading this story. And indeed, the story is far bigger than those details. As Robin said (Robin who was until recently an intern here), "Some of the romantic stuff can get a little silly, but I love the heart of that book so much." And I absolutely agree. Some of the vehicles for Vicky's revelations - for Madeline's points - are dated, or hokey, or slightly unbelievable. But those revelations, the deep stuff, is so awesome that I cannot really criticize the rest. All put together, it's a really, really good book.
So I'm glad I am reading it now. I'm glad it was sitting on top of the pile of library books I have on my windowsill, and I'm glad I listened to it calling me. It was the right time, again, to read it again.
When Madeline died in 2007, I was heartbroken. I composed my thoughts on her books, and on the woman herself, and reading it now I realize I had forgotten how much she meant to me. And how much she means to me, even now. More than Tamora Pierce, who I read voraciously in middle school, or even Robin McKinley, who I greatly admire now, Madeline L'Engle shaped the way I write, and the way I knew I wanted to write.
So returning to her words has been a welcome, and even healing, experience for me. I'm in something of a funny place right now, uncomfortable-funny, with too many things filling my head and heart, and what feels like too little solid ground upon which to stand. Reading A Ring of Endless Light now, over a decade later, gives me new insights into ideas I'd missed, as a twelve-year old, or maybe just hadn't grasped as fully as I am now. I see now that the whole book is about saying goodbye, to friends, to places, and to old sides of yourself. And I know about this now, so much more than I did as a sixth-grader. Though my sixth grade self still felt deeply enough, and understood enough, to realize that reading such a book on a cloudy November day was absolutely right, and that talking, afterwards, filling space with trivial words, was not. I remember being very quiet that whole weekend. I don't know if I actually was, but the feeling is there, still, and the memory of an acknowledgment that this book deserved space.
Maybe there are details my older self now picks up and automatically criticizes, little spots of too-handy conveniences, or dialogue that feels too mature for the character, but even as I notice those things, I discard them immediately. They're not why I'm reading this story. And indeed, the story is far bigger than those details. As Robin said (Robin who was until recently an intern here), "Some of the romantic stuff can get a little silly, but I love the heart of that book so much." And I absolutely agree. Some of the vehicles for Vicky's revelations - for Madeline's points - are dated, or hokey, or slightly unbelievable. But those revelations, the deep stuff, is so awesome that I cannot really criticize the rest. All put together, it's a really, really good book.
So I'm glad I am reading it now. I'm glad it was sitting on top of the pile of library books I have on my windowsill, and I'm glad I listened to it calling me. It was the right time, again, to read it again.