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Title: The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0-06-254506-X Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A gentle disappointment
Comment: Having read and loved "A Circle of Quiet" (the first of four in the Crosswicks Journals) I had high hopes for this second volume. Curiously, though, this book made me reconsider continuing with the series. L'engle's accounts of her extended family read like historical revisionism -- does any extended family function as well as she claims? I would think a creative and brilliant group of people probably clash more than this book would suggest.
As with "A Circle of Quiet" there are little gems along the way -- L'engle is a gifted writer, and reading her thoughts is a privledge. Overall, though, I found her style dispassionate and erudite, not what I would have expected from a personal memoir.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great journal of decline and death
Comment: I'm a big fan of Madeleine L'Engle's non-fiction (regrettably, I have not yet read any of her fiction); I began with Walking on Water, and then moved on to A Circle of Quiet, from which I arrived here, at The Summer of the Great-Grandmother. There are themes that carry over from Walking and Circle, but for the most part, Summer is a different animal altogether.
Like A Circle of Quiet, the book is autobiographical and takes place at "Crosswicks," the L'Engle/Franklin home in Connecticut. As the title indicates, L'Engle's mother, freshly a great-grandmother, is living with them, and her health and cognitive ability is swiftly declining. Throughout the book--really, like A Circle of Quiet, a collection of journal entries--the author deals with losing the mother that she used to know to senility and incontinence, as well as the effects and ramifications of death.
I've never had anyone close to me die, so I can't relate to this book as much as I could to A Circle of Quiet or Walking on Water, but it's superbly written (L'Engle's words always seem to be alive and breathing), and I imagine that it would be a great comfort to those who are dealing with death.
Rating: 3
Summary: A lovely tribute
Comment: This is a lovely book that underscores the potential beauty of death as well as our responsiblity to the dying. Madeline writes this book as a tribute to her mother and to her mother's life during the summer that her mother lays dying in Madeline's Crosswicks home. The book has very strong echoes (read repetitive)of A Circle of Quiet and therefore should not be read immediately after reading that one. While I found her story interesting and sometimes fascinating, I did get bogged down in some of her listings of her family tree. But this was overall another lovely book that was thouroughly Madeline
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Title: The Irrational Season (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 3) by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0866839461 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0062545035 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4) by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0062505017 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 18 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Glimpses of Grace: Daily Thoughts and Reflections by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0060652810 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 14 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Small Rain : A Novel by Madeleine L'Engle ISBN: 0374519129 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1985 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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