The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

L'Engle's memoir of the summer her 90-year-old mother took a steep decline into dementia (and ultimately passed away). I reacted to this book on three different and almost entirely separate levels:

1. It is impossible for me to talk about this book without mentioning the fact that my 89-year-old grandmother is currently undergoing a similar (but slower) decline. Some parts were eerily, almost uncomfortably familiar -- both the ways her mother is affected by her dementia and L'Engle's reactions to the situation. Her insights and... I want to say "confessions," often brought tears to my eyes. If this is not something you've experienced, I don't know whether this book would touch you the way it touched me, though L'Engle's gift of show more storytelling makes it possible. Which brings me to...

2. This book brought home to me exactly (or nearly) how good a writer L'Engle really is. I became familiar with her writing as a preteen and always knew there was something special about her books, but about few of them do I have any sort of adult perspective. The Summer of the Great-Grandmother is a memoir, and yet it reads like a novel in the best way. The characters are complex and deep; L'Engle must have a gift of understanding other people to bring them alive the way she does. Ironically, it's harder to write about real people in a vivid way than it is to write about characters. The combination, here, of that fictional character depth with factual recounting was startlingly effective.

3. As someone who is very, very well acquainted with L'Engle's oeuvre, I also found it fascinating to see how much in her stories is pulled from her real life. Which is not to discount or denigrate those stories; she blends her real experiences with fiction in a completely seamless way. But on almost every page I encountered a plot point, a place, or a name that was familiar from her novels, and it always made me smile. show less

It's always a treat to hear L'Engle's voice, and she imparts wisdom and shows the reader her world and her life and her family during the intense season in which her mother is with her family at Crosswicks in ill health. She values and loves her mother, and arranges for many others to help support and love her mother. This in itself is worth knowing and imitating.

On the other hand, I didn't enjoy reading about her privileged ancestors. It just felt like someone rambling on about people in whom I have no interest. It did provide background to understand her unusual upbringing. I suppose this is what I get for reading someone else's journals!

After reading, and enjoying the first of the Crosswicks Journals, 'A Circle of Quiet', I was pleased to be able to borrow the second of them from a friend. This is the story of the summer when Madeleine L'Engle's mother was in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, frail and forgetful, yet still an important member of the family.

The book consists of reflections about the past, anecdotes from the author's childhood, stories she had heard about her mother and her own grandparents and many other relatives. I found the number of different people mentioned to be a bit overwhelming and easily lost track of who was whom - but nonetheless, enjoyed the writing. It's thoughtful, sometimes moving, and gives an intriguing picture of the simpler show more life of the previous decades.

Recommended. show less

Every morning I spend a little time reading before I begin the real work of the day, which is writing. I choose the books I read in this time slot for inspirational value, either spiritual or psychological or artistic. This morning I finished The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, by Madeleine L’Engle, which is the second of the “Crosswicks Journal” series, was chosen for a mixture of the three, and it does not disappoint.

L’Engle is best known for her marvelous children’s books (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, etc.), but these memoirs are beautifully written and thought-provoking. Here, she writes about the summer during which her mother did the hard work (for all concerned) of dying, at the family vacation home of show more Crosswicks, a Connecticut farmhouse.

Because my own mother, 92 years old at the time of this writing, is involved in her own such struggle and has been for the past two years, I read this with much interest, looking for guidance on how to cope with my own conflicted feelings. While I perhaps did not exactly find guidance in a practical sense – my mother is in a nursing home in another country, while L’Engle was able to provide round-the-clock care for her mother in a family setting – I did find I was not alone in the feelings I have, of (to name a few) despair, shame, frustration, grief, resentment and pity. . .

To read the rest of the post, please visit my website here: http://laurenbdavis.com/2013/04/the-solace-of-ousia-and-of-reading/ Thank you. show less

Somewhat boring. Maybe family histories just are. Her mom dying with dementia, so her personality is gone. Her mom told her stories of her family going back to before the civil war.

Pretty good. Better than part one.