L'Engle: a primer for the adult

[cahn]

This post is for ollipop, who asked where to start with reading L'Engle.

...It depends!

For the remainder of this post, I'll use L'Engle's terms of kairos (the Murry/O'Keefe books) and chronos (the Austin books), and connection books (books that aren't focused on the O'Keefes or Austins, okay, I can't remember if this is exactly what she called them, whatever).

Kids' books: I would recommend an adult not starting with the original kairos quartet (Wrinkle in Time, Wind in the Door, Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters) unless you've already read them as a child, in which case rereading is totally cool and encouraged. These books are weird. Really awesome, but weird. The first one, for example, involves an angel-centaur who quotes Isaiah as well as an evil giant brain. Really. As a kid it didn't even occur to me to be weirded out by this, but an adult probably would be.

There's also a fifth book, An Acceptable Time, which I don't like as much. However, it may still be worth reading -- but it would be good to read A Ring of Endless Light and A House Like a Lotus first (see YA books).

The other kids book L'Engle wrote that I highly recommend is the chronos book Meet the Austins, which is a delightful little family book. This is definitely a lighthearted book for children (well, mostly; there is a death offscreen), written from the POV of a child, so as long as you don't go in expecting a lot of depth you should be good. This isn't required to read the other chronos books, but because of its more simplistic nature I'd recommend reading it before the other chronos books instead of after -- and if you do read it afterwards, realize that it's a kids book. (I read it in opposite order, and was disappointed.)

YA books: This is actually where I'd recommend starting for maximum impact as an adult (or, of course, a YA).

Chronos books: The Moon by Night is good solid teen travelogue/angst "What does the universe mean?" YA; good if you like that sort of thing (and in my opinion L'Engle does it really well -- I adore this book), skippable if you don't. If you do read it, it would be best to read it before Ring of Endless Light, although not required.

A Ring of Endless Light is the first Chronos book I read and the best one, in my opinion -- it's about death and the struggle to make meaning of death and life, and is wonderful. Highly recommended. From the POV of a 16-year-old, so, you know, be warned. Also you may want to read Arm of the Starfish before this one, so you know what's up with Adam, but if you choke on that one go ahead and read this one. I'm pretty sure I read this before either Starfish or Moon, myself. (ETA 9-23-14: luzula reminds me that Ring has sentient dolphins. In general I would caution you that L'Engle's science is extremely horrible. She had a very... umm... unscientific view of science.)

Kairos books: A House Like a Lotus, which should be read after Ring -- about Meg and Calvin's oldest daughter as a teenager, was a formative book for me because it was one of the few, maybe the only, mainstream book I read (Mercedes Lackey doesn't count) that depicted a positive, loving, realistic romantic relationship between two women, and the only one that made the important point that flaws in the people involved in such relationships are exactly that: flaws in people, not flaws in the lifestyle. I love this book. But of course today such a message would probably not hit a YA like a ton of bricks, like this one did me. So keep that in mind. It's also about dealing with disastrous events and putting people on pedestals and trust and love and betrayal and forgiveness and AAAAH, I love this book, one of the reasons this post took so long was that I had to go back and reread it. I also must say that the Greece-workshop subplot in the last third of the book doesn't really grab me, and in fact I usually skim right by it (I am also sort of realizing that I have an embarrassment squick).

And Both Were Young is a bit of an outlier, one of the "connector" books, about Phillipa (Flip) Hunter (who has a cameo in Severed Wasp but otherwise as far as I know doesn't show up in any other L'Engle) going to boarding school. It's not the best book ever? BUT BOARDING SCHOOL BOOK YES, y'know? I love this one. I eat up boarding school books.

YA-books-that-aren't-really: By this I mean that I don't think these are best read as an adolescent, although they feature adolescents.

The Young Unicorns, a Chronos book (and a thriller), I reviewed here. I really like this one now, although it does display distinct signs of being written in the 60's.

The Small Rain: This is a book about the childhood/adolescence of Katherine Forrester, who gets a sequel in A Severed Wasp. It was L'Engle's first book, but it's better than a lot of the ones she wrote after this. I really like this one. It's flawed, it's clearly not perfect, but it's good, you can see that she's a good writer. And it's nice to read this one before you read Severed Wasp, which I totally recommend.

"Thriller" books: I personally don't care for L'Engle trying to do thrillers. Here I principally mean The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters, and Troubling a Star, the first two of which are kairos and the third of which is chronos. I dunno. They're not bad? Starfish is a good one to get revved up for Ring of Endless Light, though, because it explains a lot about Adam that maybe wouldn't be clear in Ring otherwise; and Sheila O'Malley, whose taste I really respect, really liked it (and the other thrillers). I wonder if, like Young Unicorns, if I read these again as an adult I'd really like them. So.

Adult books: ...L'Engle wrote a lot of adult books, all of which I've read, but a lot of which I wouldn't recommend. Certain Women, for example, is extremely forgettable, and in fact I have forgotten it. (I mean, I remember it was about a modern-day retelling of David and his wives... and they were all annoying and obnoxious... but that was about it.)

The one that is absolutely wonderful is A Severed Wasp, which is a sequel to Rain. You get to find out what happened to Katherine, she's the most fascinating of L'Engle's adult heroines, L'Engle has a lot to say about work and love and relationships and how all these things interact, and you get the feeling that she's thought a lot about it and is writing from a good deal of experience.

Nonfiction: I highly, HIGHLY recommend L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals (autobiographical-ish) series, A Circle of Quiet, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, The Irrational Season, and Two-Part Invention. These can be read in any order and interspersed with any of the fiction. TPI is about L'Engle's marriage and her husband's death. SGG is about her mother. They're all fabulous.

Note that L'Engle was a Christian, if a radical one, and all her stories are told from a perspective of faith in a loving God (she doesn't beat you over the head with it, but it's definitely a clear influence of her worldview), and this is particularly true of the nonfiction and the Murry-kairos books. (The protagonist of Small Rain/Severed Wasp is not religious, nor are the O'Keefe family to my knowledge, or at least not exactly, so those would be good places to start if you'd rather not read from that worldview.)

In conclusion: all the nonfiction, Ring of Endless Light (you may want to read Arm of the Starfish and The Moon By Night first, and you definitely want to read House Like a Lotus after), and Small Rain/Severed Wasp.

And read all of Sheila O'Malley's writing on L'Engle. (Scroll down about halfway down the page to get to her book discussions.)

Comments

[philomytha]

I haven't read all of L'Engle by any means, but I did reread A Wrinkle in Time recently and yeah, the giant brain and the angel-centaur did sort of startle me, all the more because they seemed perfectly reasonable when I was twelve. Though the boys bouncing their balls in time were creepy when I was twelve and are creepy now. I've been holding off rereading 'A Ring of Endless Light' because I'd been worrying that it would be similarly confusing as an adult, but now I think I will go back to it. And I'd never heard of 'House Like a Lotus' - must track that one down sometime.

[jelazakazone]

I have read most of her books, and several of them too many times to count. Ring of Endless Light was one I read every year for many years. I LOVE that book. Most of the Austin books are great, actually.

[cahn]

Heh, yeah. A friend in college pointed out to me that it was weird to have a giant disembodied brain as one's antagonist. I protested strenuously, but when I reread, I had to confess that he was actually right.

I agree about the boys bouncing their balls, though. Always been creepy, always going to be creepy.

I do think you could totally go read Ring again and like it! And Lotus, if only because you get to see Meg and Calvin's firstborn, almost grown up. And I think you would very much like A Severed Wasp.

[jelazakazone]

Here via network. OMG. This post is made of so much win. I should go back and re-read the Crosswick Journals. I haven't read them in a long time.

I am not Christian, but I adore L'Engle nonetheless. She's the kind of Christian that gives Christianity a good name, in my opinion.

I know And Both Were Young is not supposed to be great, but I always loved it. I love the Vicky Austin books. I love Meg. Hunh. I am just realizing that L'Engle may have been the only author I read growing up who wrote strong girls. 0.o.

I also adore her themes.

Thanks for doing this post.

[cahn]

She's the kind of Christian that gives Christianity a good name, in my opinion.

I'm glad you think so! Yes, I feel like she really tries to live (and write) her best self, which is all kinds of awesome.

Yeah, I adore And Both Were Young -- like, I can see rationally that it's not particularly deep, but it's not really trying to be. And yes on Meg and Vicky! And if you've read Wasp, it's also lovely to see grown-up Suzy :)

Thanks for the lovely comment! It's lovely to "meet" another person who loves L'Engle :)

[jelazakazone]

She wrote about themes that have probably influenced me to this day, come to think about it. I love things having to do with nature and science and those big questions about who are we and what are doing here.

*shakes your metaphorical hand* Very nice to meet another fan:D

[thistleingrey]

This is really interesting. I started with Wind in the Door (hard going) and Swiftly Tilting Planet (instant love) because my cousin hadn't wanted her copies, then found Dragons in the Waters (fine but not great), and only then Wrinkle.... Bounced off Ring and one other Austin book I tried, which felt artificially sunny somehow, and found Lotus meh, and stopped. It's probable that I was slightly too young for Lotus psychologically if not in calendar age. I blogged Planet as much as I'm ever likely to do here.

The O'Keefes are only implicitly religious, yes. Deist more than anything: one cannot have "All these I place by God's almighty help and grace between myself and the powers of darkness" without a god, which together with the label of "St. Patrick's rune" lays a fairly clear claim to a Catholic tradition--but it's not emphatic. I wonder in fact whether this was a way of having implicitly Catholic O'Keefes without weirding out assumed-mainstream Protestant readers.

[cahn]

It kind of sounds like you don't take well to plotless-episodic-sunny books in general? (Basing this also off of your comment in the link that it took you a while to get through the Anne books, which I ate up like candy.) In this case I can totally see why the Austin books didn't work for you, because they definitely follow that tradition. It's also true that the Deist attitudes come through really strongly in Ring, probably more strongly than any other mainstream book of hers I can think of, which might also have put you off it?

And yes, the first time I read Lotus I was pretty bleah about it, especially after all the narrative awesomeness of the Time quartet. But I kept going back to it, and now I like it a lot (except for that last third).

Yes, when I said the O'Keefes were not religious, I was thinking more of the later (less supernatural) books about Meg and Calvin's kids, where I think they are sort of vaguely Deist but it never really comes up at all. The Time books (Wrinkle, Wind, Planet, and for goodness sake Waters) hit the God button pretty heavily to me, even if the characters aren't explicitly religious.

Hm. I always figured L'Engle just thought those kinds of things (the rune, and so on) were really cool, not that she was thinking explicit Catholicism, but... now that you mention it, I could certainly see that.

[thistleingrey]

Episodic is fine, but I guess I want sunny to have some sort of diegetic underpinning. :) And deism doesn't bother me particularly. At the time that I first read L'Engle, I was attending Methodist and Presbyterian churches sporadically and a bit grimly. (I'm an agnostic who'd read the King James translation by 12 in self-defense because it was a permitted activity while sitting with various relatives during church services; that book has a few covert penciled drawings in the back, too, but no matter.)

Somehow I'd thought that Planet had been published during the '60s, when electing JFK-the-Catholic-guy was a big deal. For 1978, now that I've looked it up, my guess makes less sense to me (though Wrinkle was 1962, which is perfect in broad strokes). hmm. I do persist in reading Murry-meets-O'Keefe as residually transgressive; she didn't give Meg's family the Irish surname and Calvin's the WASP one, did she (and Mortmain is a great tangle by itself). What's especially neat in all this to me as an adult is that she doesn't quite exoticize the Irish and Welsh strands, though much of what follows her books does.

[cahn]

Hm. Maybe I should go back and read Ring, which I didn't feel was unduly sunny, although I can see why one might think that about the other Austin books.

she doesn't quite exoticize the Irish and Welsh strands, though much of what follows her books does.

Interesting... what do you mean by this? Are you thinking of the explosion of dire Arthurian lit in the 80's? Mists of Avalon was early 80's, wasn't it? Did you ever read the Kenneally books? Talk about exoticism... I absolutely adored them at the time, mind you, and it probably was a big influence on me, but it's a bit embarrassing now.

[(Anonymous)]

I meant the Austins generally; in my small and long-ago taste they felt more carefree somehow than the Murrys and O'Keefes, which may or may not be true across the total respective arcs....

Yes, not only Arthlit but the Celtic Twilight phenomenon in general, whereby suddenly it was Really Great in the US to be of Irish heritage or writing about Irish traditions, in some cases with zero knowledge of present or past actual Irish tradition (and thus often unthinkingly appropriatively). Mists was 1983; see also Morgan Llywelyn's histfic output during the 1980s, and Anne McCaffrey's The Lady (1988, mild contemporary romance) following upon her US-set gothics; arguably, see also the likes of Leon Uris (1970s into '80s) and the appearance in the US of Maeve Binchy's novels (from 1982), with their echt Irishness yet US-compatible sensibilities.

It is also apt that most people who read a bunch of historically influenced/mythic/high fantasy "missed" Katharine Kerr's early Deverry books, which are very Welsh-inspired and not culturally appropriative, IMO. Too heavily Welsh for most readers of fantasy, I guess. The first four were 1986-90.

Okay, now I feel as though I am ranting, but I am not ranting at you....

[thistleingrey]

Oops, that's I, and I don't know why it logged me in but failed to sign the comment.

Forgot to say: I did read a bit of Kenneally, though not till the '90s. I think that the infusion? revival? of Irish trad music in the US dates to the '80s and early '90s as well, and it bleeds over into the Bordertown stories--did you read those? Not particularly recommended but an interesting phenomenon in its own right.

[cahn]

I agree with what you say about Austins vs. O'Keefe/Murry; the Austin books are definitely much, much more carefree. I mean, Vicky has much more mundane troubles than Meg, so that's part of it.

Katherine Kerr! I loved those books! The first three or four, anyway, and then I did rather get tired of them (that was probably around the time I dropped epic series in general). I was sort of staggered to find out recently that she was still writing them (although I think she's finally done? or almost done?)

I did read a bit of Bordertown. I think I was too young for them, and in addition there wasn't anything about them that made me go back to them later (as has happened with some books I was too young for). Perhaps fortunately, I missed reading Morgan Llywelyn -- I even think I have a couple of her books at my parents' house, but I just never actually read them. I read Binchy quite a while ago and liked it, although I see what you mean.

And then, of course, there was the Dark is Rising sequence, which is without doubt the heavy Welsh influence of my childhood, but which predates all of these :)

[thistleingrey]

I haven't read Kerr's Deverry books past book four, either--four is what there were when I was paying attention, and somehow I never went back when she picked up again. Yes, finished now.

The Dark Is Rising doesn't predate Wrinkle, though yes, formative for many. I didn't meet it till after a lot of other things. Earlier still (and my first encounter, coincidentally): Lloyd Alexander's 1960s Prydain books, which I think we've touched upon before.

[luzula]

Oh, excellent! I'd been thinking of searching out some L'Engle besides the Kairos quartet (or quintet), which I read and loved as a kid. Thanks for the guide to her works!

[cahn]

You're very welcome! I think you would particularly like Severed Wasp (because it is the one of all her books the one that reads most like LeGuin to me -- I mean, they are totally different writers, of course, but there's something to the smoothness of the prose that just vaguely reminds me of her).

[ollipop]

Oh my goodness, can I read them ALL first? I remember the children's books fondly, and now that I'm reading your canon review, I'm realizing that there's probably very little of the supernatural element that was so prominent (for an eight-year-old reader of) the original kairos quartet. I think that's where I got bored with adult L'Engle as a kid.

I remember my mother and grandmother steering me away from House Like a Lotus as a teenager. That makes me want to go back to that one before anything else. I will take your advice and read Ring first! And now that I'm grown up, I can't very well continue whining that there are "too many Austins".

Thank you for this post!

[cahn]

hee! Yeah, most of her other stuff doesn't have the wild supernatural element, although a lot of it has much more subtle SF-nal-ish elements.

Hmmmm! Interesting that your mother and grandmother steered you away from Lotus. I guess it's certainly true that I read it a bit early (I didn't really understand why Poly was so traumatized, not really), but, well. I will be very curious to see what you think!

[ollipop]

Sigh, I think they probably thought they were doing me a favor. (bites back a long rant on my own childhood issues)

I'm really enjoying your conversation above with thistleingrey about religious/cultural overtones, apparently THIS is what it takes to get me to go back and read actual novels.

[cahn]

...oh wait, I know exactly why they steered you away. Shall I assume that they were a bit prudish about sex? (Spoiler: there is a sex scene in this book. Very tastefully done, very non-explicit, but it is there, and, shockingly, there are no negative repercussions and a good time is had by all, and then it's agreed with no drama or fanfare that this is a bit strong for now and perhaps they should wait a bit on further adventures. This was also a hugely valuable book to me in that sense, because I definitely was not getting healthy (or non-DRAMA, or good-communication) sex messages from my non-book surroundings.

[ollipop]

Bit prudish about sex? Not particularly... this is the same grandmother that slipped me lots of Anne McCaffrey books at that age. I believe that both of them thought that if no one explained that occasionally loving and intimate relationships happened between two women, that I wouldn't figure it out. (pulls a face) They thought they were helping, they really did.

(This is actually just one incident in a pattern of behaviors that I've just now--in my thirties--begun noticing. My mother was nearby, last year, when it finally dawned on me that I had had a huge crush on my best friend in middle school, and I managed to blurt out something to that effect in my mom's hearing. She said, "We'd just moved in. I'm sure you were just really lonely." OMGWTF, Mom. "Lonely" does not involve sex fantasies. But THANK YOU for instilling that strong sense of denial, Mom, it's helping me so much now.)

(Okay, I guess we are going to talk about my childhood issues. Facepalm.)

ANYway, I think the thing that I remember fondly--and the thing that made me drift away from L'Engle as a teen--is that running theme of healthy communication and integrity. Most other YA authors I was reading (and have since read, cough, Westerfeld, cough) choose to reflect the drama-riffic communication patterns that come naturally to the YAs. And there's a fine line between presenting viable alternatives, a la L'Engle, and just losing teens' attention.

That's the big take home message I remember from Many Waters, that a lack of communication skills will lead one to harm. I should go back and re-read to see if I am making that up.

[cahn]

heeeeee, McCaffrey. Right. Well, my parents would have objected to both things, had they only known it :) But, ow. I do understand that -- in my family I imagine the same would have happened had I ever expressed such sentiments, which I didn't (I didn't talk to my parents much in general about anything important), with extra side helping of scorn ("Well, that's a stupid way to think about it.") -- er, yeah, that's the reason I don't talk to my parents much about anything important.

Though relevant to Lotus: one thing my parents did right is that I got to read a LOT of stuff as a kid, mostly because my parents were immigrants and I read a lot, and my parents couldn't keep up with me and mostly just trusted me not to screw it up too badly. Except for my mom's romance novels, which she did try to keep hidden, but I found them anyway that summer I was super bored, but I digress...

Ahahahaha Westerfeld. Oh, yes, healthy communication and integrity. And the problems that families have even when one tries to emphasize those things. It's one of the things I love most about L'Engle. I want the families she has in her books.

Huuuuuuh, that's interesting, I don't think I'd ever articulated the theme of Many Waters that way, but you may be right. There also being a lot of family and integrity in that book too, of course!

[cahn]

Oh, and I think I made this clear in the post, but trigger warnings for both Ring and Lotus in terms of death or talking about death. (I think Lotus has no actual explicit death, just discussion of same, but there is an onscreen and offscreen death in Ring, though not of a main character.)

[alwaystheocean]

Here via a link, this is so helpful!

I read 'A Wrinkle in Time' as a kid and it was incredibly formative for me. I had a copy of 'A Ring of Endless Light' but I never read it, a) I think it was poss a bit too old for me though I NEVER would have admitted that at the time, and b) I got the impression from the blurb there were other books but had no means of seeking out what they were.

I only found out quite how MANY other books there are related to Wrinkle as an adult, and I've been toying with reading them ever since.

If I've read Wrinkle, would you suggest the rest of that quintet first? I like to read in some sort of order, and I'm trying to decide on the merits of chronological or publication order.

[cahn]

Oh hi, this is cool that people are still reading my post! :) Wrinkle was also incredibly formative for me!

I would suggest a combination of chronological/publication/series order :) My suggestion is to read the rest of the quartet (but not the quintet) first (Wind in the Door, Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters). I would, however, then jump to the Austin books (Meet the Austins if you don't mind cute children's books, although this is skippable; Moon By Night; Ring of Endless Light; Troubling a Star (which I don't like quite as much); you might also read Arm of the Starfish before Ring). Then I would jump back to House Like a Lotus and Acceptable Time. This is mostly-chronological (except that the Austin books take place roughly at the same time as the Murry books) and in particular you'll get the full chronological arc of what, say, the deal is with Zachary, or (in Starfish and Ring) with Adam.

However, it is definitely true that by doing it in this order, you are sacrificing some progression in terms of the book audience. Lotus is a way more adult book than Acceptable Time, for instance. And obviously some of the books are much better than others; for instance, I don't think Troubling a Star and Acceptable Time (both late chronologically and publication-wise) are nearly as strong as earlier books in the series, so it may be a bit of a let-down to end at that point. If those don't bother you (they don't bother me) I think you'd enjoy this order.

[alwaystheocean]

I DON'T mind children's at all. And OK, that's useful caveats to have about the weaker ones. Hee, OK, this actually does sound like an order that would work awesomely for me, thank you so much! I'll let you know how I get on. :)