“I Name you Echthroi. I Name you Meg.
I Name you Calvin.
I Name you Mr. Jenkins.
I Name you Proginoskes.
I fill you with Naming.
Be!
Be, butterfly and behemoth,
be galaxy and grasshopper,
star and sparrow,
you matter,
you are,
be!
Be caterpillar and comet,
Be porcupine and planet,
sea sand and solar system,
sing with us,
dance with us,
rejoice with us,
for the glory of creation,
seagulls and seraphim
angle worms and angel host,
chrysanthemum and cherubim.
(O cherubim.)
Be!
Sing for the glory
of the living and the loving
the flaming of creation
sing with us
dance with us
be with us.
Be!”
~ from A WIND IN THE DOOR
There are certain people you never want to think about dying, and Madeline L’Engle was one of them.
***
I saw this in the print version of Publishers Weekly, and was so struck by by what Ms. Valente said, I had to go see if it was available online. And it was:
Oh, absolutely. I�m interested in outcasts, in liminal figures, in deformities, so I�m always going to write about monsters and monstrosity. When I look at the corpus of fairy tales from different cultures, there�s always a monster in every story, whether it�s a horrific dragon or a very broken person or a witch. Existing within the culture that fairy tales require, which is that traditional patriarchal kind of world that we view in traditional fantasy, you�d have to be conscious of your own monstrosity. While nobody considers themselves to be beyond redemption, everyone who exists on the margins is aware of their own marginality. I think that that�s true in the real world and true in fairy tales. And I always want to talk in the monster�s voice. I don�t really have all that much interest in the princess in the tower unless she turns out to be a monster, too. I wanted my monsters to be aware, instead of just sort of dumbly roaring and lurching toward the hero. When you look at a traditional fairy tale structure, the one who seems not self-aware is the prince, the prince without even his own name, who just mutely follows the commands of a father or the idea of being a prince. That�s not being self-aware. But if you eat enough maidens, you start thinking about it: who am I? why am I here? why do I eat maidens?