I was unprepared for how I would feel when reading The Joys of Love. This novel by author Madeleine L'Engle was just published, over 60 years after it was originally written, but less than a year after L'Engle's death at the age of 88.

So its presence in my hands felt like a bittersweet marvel. I was so delighted to hold a "new" work by one of my favorite authors, even though it was actually a very "old" work. Although I knew that she had undoubtedly left behind work in progress, I had not hoped that another completed novel would ever be released. Having grown up reading and collecting L'Engle (I have two long shelves full of her fiction, non-fiction, children's books and poetry) I treasure many memories of the first time I sat down to read certain works. Knowing she's no longer with us on this earth and yet holding a "new" story that bears her name honestly brought me to tears.

And reading the book was a wonderful experience. When you know the work of an author almost backwards and forwards, and when that author is one who plays certain themes over and over again (albeit in many different forms and ways) it's not surprising to find yourself slipping into the pages of the story as easily as you'd slip into a comfortable outfit you've worn dozens of times. It took almost no time for me to know the characters' voices and to have a deep and satisfying sense of what was probably coming next. Sweet familiarity.

The Story

With that said, The Joys of Love (not a very good title, I'm afraid) is not one of the most memorable of L'Engle's novels. I think one has to bear in mind that it was written very early in her career. She was in her 20s and 30s while working on it; when she started writing it in 1942 she was 24 and had only one novel published. Like her first novel, A Small Rain, this one concerns the theater, though even more centrally.

As her granddaughter Lena Roy points out in the introduction, the main character, Elizabeth, is perhaps the most transparently autobiographical character L'Engle ever wrote. Lena recalls with delight how much she adored this book at the age of ten, when she and her younger sister were given the gift of reading their grandmother's unpublished manuscript. They knew then that they were being given a glimpse of their grandmother from a much older era: their grandmother as she'd been as a young woman working in the post WWII-theater of the 1940s. Their hope in publishing it now is to give many of her fans that same penetrating glimpse.

The entire plot takes place during a summer season of theater in New York. A young Smith College graduate named Elizabeth has landed an apprenticeship there. Mostly second-tier professionals work this theater, up and coming actors and actresses, many of whom don't give the time of day to the small group of apprentices who primarily spend the summer slaving as glorified "gofers." The apprentices sell tickets at the box office, usher patrons to their seats, make coffee, set tables in the cafeteria. In exchange for this kind of work, they're allowed to take acting and voice classes with some of the theater regulars, and to sometimes sit in on rehearsals of actual plays. They're promised that if all goes well, they'll be allowed at least one walk-on role before the summer is over.

All of the apprentices desperately want to find their big break, but some of them are more doggedly determined than others. Elizabeth has more to lose than most, not only because she passionately loves acting, but because she doesn't have much of a life to go back to if she fails. She's an orphan, and the spinster southern Aunt who put her through college can't abide the theater as a profession and doesn't offer much practical help to her young charge. Elizabeth's closest friend Jane has had more breaks and more theater connections. She's a good actress but seems to lack Elizabeth's burning drive. Elizabeth also becomes close with Ben, a young man who has a family background in theater. Ben is sweet but insecure, fiercely protective of Elizabeth. It soon becomes clear to the rest of the theater folks that he cares deeply about her, though she herself is too blind to see it, mostly because she's completely dazzled by the summer's professional leading man, an older actor named Kurt.

Its Place in L'Engle's Canon

The novel is strongly reminiscent of all of L'Engle's earliest writing. I mean that in both good and bad ways. She's always written appealing and likable adolescent or young adult women characters, though they often seem almost too innocent and inexperienced to be believable. Elizabeth is no exception (can she really not see what a cad Kurt is?) Wow!

Elizabeth is gawky, introspective, naive, and incredibly earnest. (She's also tall and very self-conscious about her height, a real clue to the autobiographical nature of the character!) Her passion for the theater comes across as authentic but also a trifle over-inflated...she takes everything so deeply and seriously. She's also totally clueless about love: what it is, and how one expresses it. Like many of the young characters in L'Engle's early fiction (Katharine Vigneras and Philippa Hunter especially come to mind) Elizabeth has never been taught to be open about her emotions, so she tends to stuff them and feels ashamed when she cries.

The novel struggles to find a shape and a pace. It drags a bit. It reads more like a play (perhaps not surprising, given its subject matter) relying heavily on dialogue with very little exposition or description. Romance seems subsidiary to the coming of age elements of the story. Young girls growing up to face life, loss and love, learning to come to grips with grief and to open themselves to joy -- these kinds of characters are the staple of most of L'Engle's first books. I confess most of them worked far better for me when I was an adolescent or young adult myself. Not all of them have held up well to repeated re-readings (though some have, and nearly all of her early work has scenes and moments that you want to go back to).

It will be interesting to see if The Joys of Love will find an audience with adolescent girls today. I think it's being marketed as a young adult novel, though I can understand why publishers in the 1940s and 50s felt that it was perhaps a bit too adult for that audience. Young people today will likely find it dated...none of the references to the time period have been edited in any way that I can see. Will many teenagers warm to a mostly coming of age tale where the characters listen to 78 RPM records on a Victrola? I don't know.

I suspect The Joys of Love will find its main audience with people like me, who love L'Engle's work and wanted this book for its autobiographical elements and to add to my collection. Certainly anyone who has ever read L'Engle's journal Two-Part Invention (the true story of her early years in theater, and how she met her actor husband Hugh Franklin) will find much in this novel that feels familiar. If you're familiar with her earliest work, it's also interesting to see where this book falls within her development as a writer. It's reminiscent of her first novel, better than her second (Ilsa, now out of print) but doesn't seem to achieve the stronger narrative shape and more descriptive prose elements of Camilla or And Both Were Young.

None of which ultimately mattered a whole lot. I just was so glad to hold this book in my hand. If you've never read a L'Engle novel, this isn't the book you'll want to start with, but longtime L'Engle fans will treasure it for what it is.

~befus, 2008

The Joys of Love
by Madeleine L'Engle
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008
0374338701

Note: I've gone back and forth on whether to give this three or four stars. My reading experience, due to the emotional import of this book, was clearly far above average, but I'm trying to judge (fairly) the story itself. So I've decided to go with three stars but hope it's clear that the rating is relative: most of Madeleine's books would garner four or five stars from me in a heartbeat.

Recommended: Yes