Writing Quotes

A New Wrinkle

The first adaptation of "A Wrinkle in Time" I ever saw was when I was in middle school in the mid-1970's; it was a classroom filmstrip. And what is a filmstrip, you ask? Here is how Wikipedia defines it:

The filmstrip was a common form of still image instructional multimedia, once commonly used by educators in primary and secondary schools (K-12)...
A filmstrip is a spooled roll of 35 mm positive film with approximately thirty to fifty images arranged in sequential order. Like 16 mm film, a filmstrip was inserted vertically down in front of the projector aperture, rather than horizontally as in a slide projector...
The instructor would turn on a filmstrip projector that would show the first frame (image) of the filmstrip. The instructor then turned on a 33 RPM record or cassette tape containing the audio material for the filmstrip which included narration. At the appropriate point, a tone would sound, signaling the instructor to turn a knob, advancing to the next frame.

So we watched it, and I liked it, and I went on (sometime later) to read more of Madeleine L'Engle's young adult novels, and then her non-fiction and autobiographical works. In 2003 a film adaptation made by a "collaboration of Canadian production companies" was distributed by Disney, on television. I was not particularly impressed by it as an adaptation. According (once more) to Wikipedia, "In an interview with Newsweek, when L'Engle was asked if the film "met her expectations", she said, "Yes, I expected it to be bad, and it is." "

Now Disney itself is venturing their own version of a film adaptation. I, of course, have not seen it, so I can't make any final judgements, but I must confess to feelings of unease from the film trailers I've seen. I can't help but feel (again, from only what is shown) that they have missed a basic element of the work itself. How so? Let me make a few comparison.

In the book, this is how L'Engle describes Mrs. Whatsit:

"It seemed small...The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colors were tied about the head, and a man's felt hat perched atop..black rubber boots covered the feet." She takes off the hat and scarves, and "Under all this a sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy knot on the top of her head. Her eyes were bright, her nose a round, soft blob, her mouth puckered like an autumn apple."

The movie gives us this:

Mrs. Who, from the book:

"...a plump little woman...She wore enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as Meg's..." and later she is described as having a "clawlike hand."

The movie gives us this:

In the book, Mrs. Which, the most senior and wisest of the three, gets even less of an manifestation:

"...in a circle of silver something shimmered, quivered..."

And later she solidifies for a moment, as a joke, into the stereotypical appearance of a Halloween witch.

The movie gives us this:

It could be argued that a film adaptation needs this sort of bezazzlement; a ripple of light does not play well on the big screen. And, after all, the three Mrs. W.'s appearances are in fact just that: appearances assumed for the comfort of their interaction with humanity. They can be assumed and doffed again, as demonstrated in Mrs. Whatsit's transformation into a flying centaur that so impresses Meg. But the point of the forms they assume is that they are not there to overwhelm with majesty and authority of presence, but to persuade and encourage -- as all good "guardian angels," as Charles Wallace calls them -- should. What I do like is their diversity. It gives off that medieval "Three Kings" vibe in which all nations have a part in the Nativity.

But, as troubling as this element appears to me, I have not seen the movie yet. Perhaps they appear in humbler forms at first, which are just not shown in the trailers lest we be confused as to who is what. But the way they are being presented in the trailers seems to emphasize their being more like goddesses than angels. We shall see; the proof is in the pudding, not necessarily the crust.

Always Becoming

Quotes Applicable to Fantasy

The grandest philosophic myths, those Socrates tells in the Platonic dialogues, are end-myths; they consummate the dialectical argument with the high of a cosmic vision. Now, in contemporary philosophy, grandeur being out of favor, mini-myths, flairless, little thought-constructs, are placed throughout the logical argument: Martians, counter-earthlings, brains-in-a-vat and possible worlds in­habited by that one-and-only unicorn whose affliction is non-existence. Finally, there are the real myths, the ones that are not made but re-told, and these are good as preludes to philosophy: In the Metaphysics (A) Aristotle says: “Wonder is the beginning of philosophy,” “myths are composed of wonders,” and so “the myth lover (philomythos) is somehow a philosopher (philosophos).”-- Eva Brann

[Lin Carter] turns to a discussion of Amadis of Gaul, and his admiration for it. As he explains, the popularity of Amadis sprung a wealth of new romances, mostly imitators. Most of those works which followed the Amadis became so convoluted with the idea of topping the last, that they became dreary and nearly unintelligible. --"Kilsern"

Quotes on Imagination and Belief

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
― J.G. Ballard


“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.”
― John Keats

“It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his mighty actions comprehensible to our finite minds.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

10 Books A Day: #61

The Ordering Of Love: The New And Collected Poems...Madeleine L'Engle...Shaw



Glimpses Of Grace: Daily Thoughts And Reflections...Madeleine L'Engle...HarperSanFrancisco



Trailing Clouds Of Glory: Spiritual Values In Children's Books...Madeleine L'Engle with Avery Brooke...Westminster Press



Walking On Water: Reflections On Faith And Art...Madeleine L'Engle...Shaw



Certain Women...Madeleine L'Engle...Harper Collins



A Circle Of Quiet: The Crosswicks Journal Book 1...Madeleine L'Engle...Harper & Row



The Summer Of The Great-Grandmother: The Crosswicks Journal Book 2...Madeleine L'Engle...Harper & Row



The Irrational Season: The Crosswicks Journal Book 3...Madeleine L'Engle...Harper & Row



Two-Part Invention: The Story Of A Marriage...Madeleine L'Engle...Farrar Straus Giroux



Diary Of An Old Soul...George MacDonald...Augsburg Publishing House



Belloc: A Biographical Anthology...Hilaire Belloc, ed. Herbert Van Thal...Knopf


Madeleine L'Engle was more than a writer of "juvenile fiction." She was a novelist, poet, author of spiritual biographies, and commentator on the relationship of faith with creativity. To read her books is to see the difference between a Christian who writes books and a Christian author; the one forces the religion down into the work, the other raises the craft up into the Christianity. In the works of a Christian author the religion ennobles and empowers the writing, and the writing mediates and illuminates the religion, to the glory of both, and Madeleine L'Engle was a true Christian author. I came to regard her as a sort of spiritual mother, a female voice in counterpoint and contrast to the dry, skeptical, technically enlightening Ursula K. LeGuin, and in her devotion to the craft of writing an inheritor of Dorothy L. Sayers.



One of my treasured possessions is now my copy of Glimpses of Grace. I bought it used, at Hastings, and was surprised when I got it home to find that it was inscribed "Much Grace. Madeleine L'Engle." Three days later, I found out she had passed away. It was one of those odd synchronous happenings, that some people call chance, and some little operations of God. A small wave good-bye, touching those words as close as ever I will ever come physically to one of my favorite writers.

Book Count: 779.

10 Books A Day: #31

The Book of Three...Lloyd Alexander...Dell

The Black Cauldron...Lloyd Alexander...Dell

The Castle of Llyr...Lloyd Alexander...Dell

Taran Wanderer...Lloyd Alexander...Dell

The High King...Lloyd Alexander...Dell

A Wrinkle in Time...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell

A Wind in the Door...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell

A Swiftly Tilting Planet...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell

Many Waters...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell

An Acceptable Time...Madeleine L'Engle...Dell


We're dealing with two series of books today. Both were printed by Dell. Both have had volumes that won awards (The High King and A Wrinkle in Time got the Newberry Award). Both had their premiere volumes made into disappointing films (The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron were squeezed into the most forgotten Disney animated movie ever made, while Wrinkle got a made-for-TV adaptation).

Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (as is the series over-all name) deals with the life and adventures of Taran, a foundling boy, who begins life as a pig-tender and ends up as King of Prydain. These are good books; I enjoyed reading them, and sought out any related stuff, like The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain. But if the series suffers from any drawbacks it is that it is too perfect, too architecturally complete. There is little wiggle room for the imagination, all mysteries are explained; all the characters, admirable in themselves, learn their due lessons and fulfill their destinies. In the end, magic goes away and the heroes must use the lessons they've learned in real life, yadda yadda yadda. The series ends, not with triumph or the sense of doors opening up to elsewhere, but with weariness, drabness, and the prospect of hard labors to come. Realistic, perhaps, but hardly satisfying.

Madeleine L'Engle's "cosmic" books, on the other hand, are not so much one long tale (except insomuch as all history is one long tale) as it is episodes in the lives of members of the Murray family, and they are as full of mysteries and open doors and wide vistas as anyone could ask for. In the end Meg Murray and her family have to use the stuff they've learned in "real life" as well, but we are left with the feeling that the "magic" hasn't gone away when they are done; it is rather where it has always been, close by, hidden, welling up and out and there if we need it.

In the end, I think the difference between these two sets of books comes down to belief. Alexander builds his world almost like a model train. It is cunning, and crafted, and fascinating, and runs around the tracks as it is designed to do. As such, it is an admirable work of fun, but I don't think Alexander ever actually believes in it. L'Engle grows her books like a garden, though, and they are full of fruits and flowers whose seeds were gathered from afar, in eclectic, uneven growth, but full of nourishment and pleasure. L'Engle believes in her garden; at least, she has faith in what she has sown. And these are qualities and differences I do not think I would ever have realized if it weren't for their chance proximity on my bookshelves.