RIP: author Madeleine L’Engle

Snip from NYT obituary (urls added):

Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

Her death, of natural causes, was announced today by her publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ms. L’Engle (pronounced LENG-el) was best known for her children’s classic, “A Wrinkle in Time,” which won the John Newbery Award as the best children’s book of 1963. By 2004, it had sold more than 6 million copies, was in its 67th printing and was still selling 15,000 copies a year.

Link (thanks, Marc Powell)

• [Tavie]

  I can barely concentrate on work, I am so grieved. She was by far my favorite author, ever.

  I have a letter from her somewhere, wish I could find it. She was the only author I ever wrote to.

• [CountD]

  Why must 2007 kill all of my favorite writers? Robert Anton Wilson, Vonnegut, and now L’Engle. I swear, if something happens to Mark Z. Danielewski, I will hunt down and kill the year 2007.

• [thejynxed]

  @Yamara: Wow, you had to write a letter to her as well? Central Dauphin School District was still making students write letters to various approved authors even into the 90′s….and we had to write her a letter for English/Creative Writing class in 9th grade. Our class had to write Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut at various stages of our publik edumakashun in that oh-so-wonderful school district.

  Disclaimer: Central Dauphin East class of 95′.

• [DKNC]

  I too am in shock almost… I feel somehow responsible, no that is too strong, rather “negligent” as if guilty that over the years as my life grew busier and she grew older, I hadn’t called her for so long, well EVER… Can you feel extremely close to a person whom you have never met? And yet, how can I not? A Wrinkle in Time was actually written expressly for me! I had lost my father the previous year and I found it strangely comforting to think of him as not really dead, but rather on an important mission battling with good & evil in a far-away galaxy. Not only that, but Meg was me, as in “I” not really M.E. – Madeleine L’Engle as the author has claimed in speeches. I was awkward, wore braces, and felt too often that either everything in the world was wrong or I was wrong in this world. Enter Charles Wallace and all the Mrs. W’s, and Ms. L’Engle’s entire galaxy of good, evil, purpose, mission, love, life over death and so many rich themes that reverberated from this novel and through my 4th-grade brain. I felt I had to hide the book from my family because it was more like a personal diary of my secret life. I could not put it down; I read it in one sitting. When Meg says “I love you, Charles Wallace” actual tears flowed down my cheeks in a cathartic release – it was so simple, yet so difficult a concept. The mixture of hate and love, fighting and weakness. Book smart vs. intuitiveness.
  In time, I went on to read most all of her other works and loved them as well, but never forgot my first love, A Wrinkle in Time. I made sure that both my own sons read it when they were in 4th grade – actually they are smarter and better readers so they probably read it even earlier, but then also studied it in school – I was so pleased it had held up to the test of time – pun intended, I suppose!
  God be with you Ms. L’Engle. The world is a better place for your having been in it… à dieu.

• [Susan Kitchens]

  It’s sad news, though hers is a life long and well-lived. It’s good to read remembrances and tributes by others who’ve read and loved her work.

  I wrote a story about meeting Madeleine L’Engle at a book signing at Vroman’s in Pasadena. The book event was for one book, but I wanted her to sign my copy of A Circle of Quiet — bought from a library discard sale. The bookstore didn’t want her to sign more than one of the new books, so it took a little speaking in code from Circle to get her attention and to get her to sign it.

• [Foolster41]

  I remember reading her first book on the insistance of her brother. I loved it. Besides jsut being a downright good story with good characters, it has a charming sens eof humor to it.
  She will be missed.

• [Foolster41]

  Doh. Sorry. on the insistence of MY brother. I don’t know M. L’ingle. Sorry for confusion. I will try to rpoofread my posts better for nwo on.
  *hides head in shame*

• [pr10n]

  A Wrinkle in Time was the first book of ideas I remember reading, and the first book that scared me witless, so much so that I had to stop reading for a few days and then creep back to it. A great loss to my personal pantheon.

• [Anonymous]

  perhaps it’s petty, but “weaved”?? Surely the Great Writer deserved a half-second’s copyediting in her obit . . .

  indeed a sad passing. thanks for the news.
  acm

• [Laurie]

  Everything that has been posted so far rings absolutely true with me. I just wanted to recommend one more of her books. I, too, go back to them periodically for a “quick, comforting read.” When I went back to read Arm of the Starfish again as an adult, I was floored by how that book so accurately described my moral relationship to the world. We are very lucky that her words will not die with her.

• [Bookworm]

  If anyone is interested, I’ve created a post here (http://bookworm.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/requiascat-in-p.html)
  to link to obituaries, blog posts, articles of interest, etc.

• [JacobDavis]

  A Wrinkle in Time served as my introduction to multidimensional geometry as a young kid. It was through Ms. L’Engle’s simple description of creating a cube from a line that it first dawned on me that there were “bigger” dimensions that what I could see, and that I could think of them in similar terms. That simple lesson has stuck with me all my life. If only for that small insight in my very young life, I admire her.

• [Tavie]

  Arm of the Starfish is a favorite. Also Dragons in the Waters. Breathtaking.

  She’s one of the authors who changed how I saw the world.

• [CailetLS]

  My 5th grade students will be reading A Wrinkle in Time in a couple of weeks. I always envy my kids the experience of reading it for the first time.

  As I looked for a way to be a Christian that was different from my fundamental upbringing, it was with joy and relief that I discovered people like Madeleine L’Engle, who live their faith with compassion and reason.

• [A New Challenger]

  A Wrinkle In Time is one of those books I had heard of as a young’un but never got around to reading. I think I may have to track a copy down.

  @CountD

  2007 has robbed the world of a lot of people that I’m sad are gone. Vonnegut, Tom Poston, Mr. Wizard, and my grandfather, and then my cat went missing while I wasn’t home. I’m quite ready for 2008.

• [Anonymous]

  Try Circle of Quiet, Irrational Season, or a Two Part Invention. By the way, I have found A Two Part Invention to be a lovely gift to share with a friend who has lost a spouse.
  Throughout the past 30 years I have come back to M.E. many times. She was special.

• [Anonymous]

  I was waiting for this day, knowing she was old and would eventually pass on…..

  Try “A House Like a Lotus” if you haven’t already.

• [Flying Squid]

  Sorry to hear it. She was one of the few authors who put their Christian beliefs into their works that I still enjoyed reading despite my atheism.

• [Rzo]

  Truly a tragedy. I remember voraciously reading the whole Wrinkle in Time series as a geeky pre-teen hermit. I still go back to those books for a quick, comforting read.

• [Yamara]

  That’s terrible. Yet, she did more to further kids cherishing their independence and liberty of thought than many other authors.

  Who can forget the terrible tyranny of IT in A Wrinkle in Time? The image of a street of identical children bouncing the same exact ball in the same exact way—except for one, who kept at it after the allotted play period, and whose mother rushed out and dragged the poor thing inside, terrified of the consequences.

  Our class in school read Wrinkle, and we all wrote—handwrote, mind you, ye webkinder—to Ms. L’Engle, who had a policy of returning every letter written her with a letter of her own.

  She wrote back only one for our class, to me personally (possibly by alphabetical order of my last name? I don’t recall what I wrote her) and she asked that I thank the rest of my class for her, and apologized for not having time to write one to each of us. But her letter arrived after summer vacation began, and next year’s classes of course had different students.

  So if there are any classmates of the Central Dauphin School District Class of 1980 I didn’t mention this to before, Madeleine L’Engle sends her kindest thanks.

  Sweet journeys, ma’am.