Music I heard with you was more than music / And bread I broke with you was more than bread
Thus did Hugh Franklin propose to Madeleine L’Engle, beginning the union chronicled in Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, book four of the The Crosswick Journal series of L’Engle’s autobiographical writings. This is a sweet book that reminisces about her early life and marriage and becomes more and more preoccupied with Franklin’s illness in the author’s present. In fact, the second part of the book more than anything journals L’Engle’s attempt to cope with his deteriorating condition, trying to balance hope, acceptance, and normalcy.
What surprised me about this book is how religious L’Engle was. Not terribly so, mind you, but in this book she does talk about her belief in Jesus and the solace and inspiration that she finds in religion. I suppose it’s not unexpected, since the only books of her that I read were the Time Trilogy, which have an underlying spiritual theme. I always interpreted that theme to be generically (rather than theistically) about good and evil, love and hate, though in retrospect I was taking it metaphorically where possible (the need to Deepen) and suspending my disbelief elsewhere (“he calls them all by name”).
This leads me to my meta-reaction: little atheist me chuckles on reflecting that some of my favorite books growing up are (yes, present tense) ones that deal with Big Themes by authors who turn out to be decidedly theist. L’Engle is one, of course; C. S. Lewis pops to mind as another. I suppose the main attraction lies with the fantasy and science-fiction elements, not to mention the archetypal fight between Good and Evil. It also helps that these are works of fiction, which live in a separate universe where I can suspend my disbelief. For though I know that the physical world that we share is mathematically and scientifically fascinating but unsentient, I can also inhabit inner worlds where magic and Epic Struggles do exist. And really, who wants to live without magic?
