RIP Madeleine L'Engle 1918-2007

[intertext]

Please read curtana's beautiful post, though it may make you cry, as it did me.

I loved Madeleine L'Engle's work. Strangely, the novels of hers I loved best were not the fantasy series, beginning with A Wrinkle in Time, though that was the first of her books I read and of course the most famous. I thought her best books were the ones in a series of

Comments

[noveldevice]

I too am sad. I still remember the first time I read A Ring of Endless Light. I got it from the library in that edition with the cover art that had Vicky and the dolphin in a ring bisecting the horizon line of sky and sea. It had a good weight, and the comforting smell of eighties library paper. I knew before I opened it that I would love it.

The religious sensibility that permeated her books--of a sort I don't share--turned me off sometimes, but for the most part, she never let her faith get in the way of a good story. Sort of like the anti-CS Lewis.

[intertext]

I know what you mean about the religious sensibility. I think that's why I wasn't as fond of the fantasy novels, where it was more overt, and grew more so as the series continued. Somehow the suspense books, even with a Canon as a main character, were more about values of a general kind than specific Biblical religion.

[wordweaverlynn]

I am so sorry to hear this.

[sjkasabi]

The news is all over my flist tonight. I'm sad, and also guiltily aware that this means I'll be able to catch up with her. Her books have been rather difficult to get hold of here for the last ten or fifteen years.

The Young Unicorns was the second book of hers I read and has always been my favourite; when I finally get to New York in the flesh, I'll see it through a filter of the images she put in my head.