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# 2025-10-24 - And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle |
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Cover image (1949) |
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Initially i thought this was a romance, but after reading it i would |
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classify it as a coming of age novel. It is set just after WWII and |
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it reminds me a little of Heidi and The Secret Garden. I found it |
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easy to identify with the protagonist, who is nicknamed Flip by her |
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father. Several elements of the story were variations of themes in |
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the author's memoir A Circle of Quiet. |
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A Circle of Quiet by Madeline L'Engle |
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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett |
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Flip is an introvert who found herself in an all girls boarding |
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school. She does not like this institutional setting and felt |
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tension between name and number, and between student and teaching. |
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To hold doctrine more important than the person who it is taught |
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to is to be dogmatic. Flip valued herself as an individual. She |
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liked that she cared about and noticed what her peers did not. This |
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awareness helped her artistic talent, but more importantly, it |
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helped her to experience her life as fun, magical, and worth living. |
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This worthiness had a ripple effect, calling in the better natures of |
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those around her. |
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In one scene, Perceval took over the religious service in the |
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chapel and brought it to life for Flip and her class mates. |
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> But one evening Madame Perceval took the service, reading in her |
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> sensitive contralto voice, and Flip found herself for the first |
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> time listening to the beauty of the words: "Make a joyful noise |
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> unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and |
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> sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the harp, and the voice of a |
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> psalm ... let the hills be joyful together." And Flip could feel all |
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> about her in the night the mountains reaching gladly towards the |
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> sky; and the sound of the wind on the white peaks must be their song |
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> of praise. The others, too, as always when Madame Perceval was in |
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> charge, were quieter, not more subdued but suddenly more real; when |
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> Flip looked at them they seemed more like fellow creatures and less |
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> like alien beings to fear and hate. |
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This reminds me of the passage in the Narada Bhakti Sutra where it |
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says that scriptures and places of pilgrimage are not holy in |
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themselves, but are made holy because of people who are holy. This |
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is the opposite of being dogmatic and in contrast the student is more |
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important than the teaching. |
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Another yoga story illustrates this truth that the student is more |
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important than the teacher. In the Mahabharata, Ekalavya seeks to |
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learn archery from Dronacharya, but is refused because of his low |
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class. So he trains himself using a clay statue of Dronacharya as a |
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guide. Later, Ekalavya displays archery skill superior to |
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Dronacharya's best student. He accomplished this thanks to his inner |
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teacher. |
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Ekalavya |
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A dogma, like a clay statue, is a dead and static thing. A person, |
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like reality itself, is alive and dynamic. |
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author: L'Engle, Madeleine, 1918-2007 |
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detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/And_Both_Were_Young |
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LOC: PZ7.L5398 An |
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source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/7/2/4/0/72403/ |
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tags: ebook,fiction,holocaust |
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title: And Both Were Young |
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# Tags |
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ebook |
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fiction |
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holocaust |
