Madeleine L’Engle

I first read A Wrinkle in Time at age 10. Runty, bespectacled and generally unsure of my place in the world, I was immediately hooked. The main character in the book was Meg Murry, and I saw a great deal of myself in this character who shared my name and my general sentiments about school and friends and life. I fell in love with her little family, her brilliant mother who cooked up stews and cutting-edge science projects in her lab and kept an absurdly messy house; her extraordinarily wise little brother Charles Wallace; the shockingly normal twins Sandy and Dennys; and her father, lost in space and time.

With the help of a few intergalactic creatures, Meg, Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin O’Keefe go off in search of Mr. Murry, and in order to do so, they must “tesser” – travel using the fifth dimension, known as a “tesseract” – the cube of a cube, cubed, if you will.

For a brief, illuminating second Meg’s face had the listening, probing expression that was so often seen on Charles’s. “I see!” she cried. “I got it! For just a moment I got it! I can’t possibly explain it now, but there for a second I saw it!” (A Wrinkle in Time)

… and so did I. Just for a second, my tiny ten-year-old brain glimpsed these other dimensions, and in a flash, they were gone. I was convinced for a time that science was in my future, and though I eventually discovered that a knack for foreign languages would eclipse my scientific brain, I’ve always remained a fervent consumer of “pop physics” and general scientific advances.

It’s worth noting that L’Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time in 1959 and published it in 1962. Quantum physics theories were by no means common knowledge and the space race was barely even on (Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, didn’t go up until 1961). Her science wasn’t all correct – she explained that time was the fourth dimension and that the tesseract was the fifth, when in fact, time dimensions and space dimensions are now seen as separate, and the tesseract is actually the fourth dimension of space (a hypercube). Got that?

Last year at Light in Winter, physicist Lisa Randall explained the potential existence of as many as ten or more dimensions in her presentation, sharing her cutting-edge findings with perhaps as much clarity as possible for an audience of primarily laypeople. As she spoke and explained these theories, I got it – just for a second, I got it. I can’t possibly explain it now, but there for a second, I saw it. A childlike moment of wonder arose in me, and I realized that I hadn’t thought deeply about multiple dimensions since I was a child, curled up on the couch reading Madeleine L’Engle’s books.

It’s also worth noting that L’Engle was not just in the business of explaining science to youngsters (and adults), she also tied in themes of art, music, history, and religion. In nearly every book, she talks about the songs the planets and stars sing as they make their movements through the heavens.

Meg looked about. Ahead of her was a tremendous rhythmic swirl of wind and flame, but it was wind and flame quite different from the cherubim’s; this was a dance, a dance ordered and graceful, and yet giving an impression of complete and utter freedom, of ineffable joy. As the dance progressed, the movement accelerated, and the pattern became clearer, closer, wind and fire moving together, and there was joy, and song, melody soaring, gathering together as wind and fire united.

And then the wind, flame, dance, song cohered in a great swirling, leaping, dancing, single sphere.

Meg heard Mr. Jenkins’s incredulous, “What was that?”

Blajeny replied, “The birth of a star.” (A Wind in the Door)

A constant running theme of L’Engle’s work was that art, music and science could conquer evil – she frequently referred to “light” conquering “dark”. Are the arts and sciences the light that can conquer the darkness that seems so ever-present in this world? We think so, and that’s why the Light in Winter Festival strives to bring you the finest presentations, exhibits, concerts and interactive workshops that can help you find the artist and the scientist within yourself.

Madeleine L’Engle died on September 6, 2007 (my birthday), at age 88, leaving behind a tremendous body of work that has inspired so many people in so many ways. She was a Light in Winter-y kind of gal, and how fortunate we are that she took so many spins with us on this planet of ours.

Categorized: General