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 vaguely mystery suspense stories, starting with The Young Unicorns, and continuing through The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. Who can forget Canon Tallis, a marvellous character?

And A Ring of Endless Light is probably her best book of all. It's a lovely novel, less well known than it should be.

Her work was always thoughtful and filled with light. Her death is a sadness, but we have a great legacy in her books.

Comments

[sjkasabi.livejournal.com]

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.