Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A Book, too, can be a Star


A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.
--Madeleine L'Engle

I first saw this quote on Lu's blog, Regular Ruminations (a great blog, btw, that you should totally read), and it intrigued me. So much so that I sought out the source of the quote in order to read the context.

The quote is from Madeleine L'Engle's Newberry Award Acceptance Speech in August, 1963, entitled "The Expanding Universe" and is available in full here.

It is absolutely worth reading in its entirety, but I found this bit here to be particularly brilliant.

...I took a course in college on Chaucer, one of the most explosive, imaginative, and far-reaching in influence of all writers. And I’ll never forget going to the final exam and being asked why Chaucer used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote in a white heat of fury, “I don’t think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these thing. That isn’t the way people write.”
I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn’t done deliberately.
... I heard a famous author say once that the hardest part of writing a book was making yourself sit down at the typewriter. I know what he meant. Unless a writer works constantly to improve and refine the tools of his trade they will be useless instruments if and when the moment of inspiration, of revelation, does come. This is the moment when a writer is spoken through, the moment that a writer must accept with gratitude and humility, and then attempt, as best he can, to communicate to others.
...Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination; it’s their own world, the world of their daily life, and it’s our loss that so many of us grow out of it....

14 comments:

Ann Finkelstein said...

Thanks for sharing this.

lotusgirl said...

I love what she said about Chaucer. Too many times I think we over-analyze what authors intended with certain words, etc. Generally, I think it just happens naturally.

Davin Malasarn said...

Beth, thanks for researching this and for posting the excerpt. I wish I had the guts to say something like that in an exam. Of course, at the time when I was taking exams, I wasn't yet a writer, so I probably didn't know this! But I do think it's true now.

Unknown said...

So true! She seems like a very fascinating person. Thanks for sharing!

Tere Kirkland said...

Thanks for this. She's been one of my favorite authors for years.

Love the star pictures!

Bethany Wiggins said...

I love anything that has to do with the start. That is where my imagination soars!

Elana Johnson said...

I so agree. People have asked me where I come up with stuff, and I have no answer. It's not deliberate. It's just...there.

PJ Hoover said...

Awesome quotes, Beth!

Christine Fonseca said...

Excellent!!!

Kelly H-Y said...

The last sentence is perfectly stated! That picture ... I think that's the same one (along with the article) we cut from our newspaper and took into my son's class this morning ... they're studying space, and we thought it was a great fit!

Heather Zundel said...

They are all excellent, but I love the last quote best of all.

Leslie @ This is the Refrain said...

Hey that's me! Thanks for finding where this came from. I should have been a better fangirl and known where it was from but I did not. It's so beautiful!

Christina Farley said...

Oh this is perfect for your book. Great post.

Nishant said...

love what she said about Chaucer.

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