Those of you familiar with A Circle of Quiet know that it was first published a lifetime ago—in 1972. But I have to tell you that it holds up. Sure, there are some words that reference the era—kids glued to their transistor radios, for instance, and people fighting for change by fighting the Establishment—but substitute today’s versions of those words and the writing remains fresh and relevant.
Readers learn on the first page of the book that L’Engle’s home contains more than 3,000 books. Of course, this draws my interest. But it’s on the second page that I get really hooked:
“Vacuum cleaners are simply something more for me to trip over … . The sight of a meal’s worth of dirty dishes, pots, and pans makes me want to run in the other direction. Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody—away from all these people I love most in the world—in order to regain a sense of proportion.”
Ah. Here was someone like me. L’Engle wrote Circle after logging 50+ years of life. Having reached that point myself, Circle offers more to me now, I believe, than it would have 20 years ago.
I’m more than halfway through the book and have flagged one passage after another that holds meaning for me. Even when I don’t share the same view as L’Engle, I do puzzle over the same subject. This is more than I expected to get out of A Circle of Quiet, which may exempt it from my Read-and-Release program. At least for a while, anyway.
[Art: The Intruder by Andrew Wyeth.]
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