Customer Reviews

The Irrational Season (Crosswicks Journal, Book 3)

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I have been a fan of Madeleine L'Engle since I discovered A Wrinkle in Time in the 5th grade. As an adult, I have come to appreciate her non-fiction and adult novels. Irrational Season is probably the best of her non-fiction. The story follows the litergical year and in keeping with the seasons and holidays takes the reader through pain and joy while always maintaining hope. This is an excellent book for anyone who has sometimes felt overwhelmed and questioned their faith only to find that their questioning makes them stronger.

To gain a sense of the various stages of L'Engle's life, read the Crosswicks Journals in order of publication. In The Irrational Season, Book 3, L'Engle does not give any easy spiritual answers, yet somehow a sense of comfort prevails throughout the pages. Never preachy, this is a book to savor again and again. We share L'Engle's struggle as she grapples with age-old questions. One is awed by the grace with which this woman deals with conflict, both internal and external, even as she is sharing her deepest doubts. As we read, we become a part of L'Engle's spiritual quest and we make it our own.

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to reconcile their belief in God with their intellect. Lyrical and moving (I cried several times), The Irrational Season can be read on its own, or as part of the four-book series.

I started this book on Christmas Eve...and who knew that this is almost precisely where L'Engle starts the book off at! It was a joyous, challenging, beautiful and often unnerving book that made me flip page-after-page in wonder and awe at the author's very wise words.

Sure, L'Engle sounds a bit like a Christian universalist in some of these pages, but they come from the heart and like all of our hearts, not every thought is theologically right on. So I can easily forgive her for this.For those people getting married, or thinking of getting married, or about to get married within the next 6 months, I'd recommend reading the first 60 pages of this book at least as it will fill you with wisdom, guidance and many wonderful descriptions of what true, ever-lasting love looks like.

Out of "A Circle of Quiet," "The Summer of the Great-Grandmother" and "The Irrational Season," this book comes in a close second out of the three. It's tender, warm, and just what I needed after the holiday season.

I always find it sad (although somewhat amusing) that many children's authors are treated as if they were inferior writers, looked down upon by those "serious" authors. Madeleine L'Engle is best known for her children's books, and her adult novels and non-fiction are not very well known, but L'Engle knew enough to recognize that it is children who are open to the wonders of the world and can accept incomprehensible logic without requiring proof. Perhaps this is why Jesus insisted on having faith like a child because that is when we understand and accept more easily and openly. And this is part of the journey L'Engle examines in "The Irrational Season," the third of her Crosswicks Journals series.

This third diary follows L'Engle throughout the liturgical year as she examines her life, past and present, and her faith, matching chapters up with different events on the church calendar, beginning and ending with Advent. L'Engle was always a gifted writer, and fans of hers will appreciate the candor and openness with which she laid herself bare in this work. She openly explores her struggles with faith and occasional bouts of atheism (likened to catching the flu at one point, an apt description), but also how she was always able to come back to the truth of her faith. It is an honest and unflinching look at the struggles of maintaining not only a Christian faith but also a Christian attitude in an ever-changing (mostly for the worse) world. L'Engle combines her thoughts on faith with her thoughts about writing, language, family, music, art, friendship, and much more. It is, perhaps, her most intimate work, and one for which fans of hers or anyone who struggles with similar questions will be thankful for.

"The Irrational Season" is a moving portrait of a very human woman who daily struggles to understand her life and her faith in light of a fallen world. L'Engle combines her diary-like entries with her poetry, much of which reflects biblical characters who most likely struggled with similar issues. It is an intimate, powerful, uplifting, and challenging read that is well worth the journey.

I've enjoyed many of Madeleine L'engle's books, this among the best. I was a bit surprised that I liked this one, since L'Engle turns the old rule about autobiographies -- bag limit of one -- on its head, writing yet again about her "non-eventful" life: kindness, love of animals, imagination and scientific curiosity, honest, hard-thought Christian humanism.

Other reviewers have mentioned other things they liked about the book; let me say something about the poems. The first almost scared me off: poems are sometimes a good writer's self-indulgence. (I skip most the poems in Tolkien.) But here they are jewels in the crown. Her poem of the wind and the star (p. 165-6) is magnificent. Unsentimental but hopeful, too, the gritty realism (reminiscent of the biblical Christmas narratives) of the communion poem that begins:

"Come, let us gather round the table.
Light the candles. Steward, pour the wine.
It's dark outside. The streets are noisy
with the scurrying of rats, with shoddy
tarts, shills, thugs, harsh shouting."

This is a diary of a different sort. I read it in the evening, a few pages at a time, a few moments conversation with a kind Christian lady of intellectual integrity to end the day.

This is classic L'Engle, full of thoughtful observations and solid spiritual food. It's a good book for meditation and healing. And always L'Engle poses questions that give one pause.

One of my favorite reads about the church seasons. You get all this talented author's talent plus her personal experiences. Add the poetry and it is very special. I read this book soon after it was first published and have found myself going back over the years to read it. Sometimes it was a poem I remembered and wanted to read, sometimes a story, sometimes just a section on a church season. When my first copy finally fell apart from use, I ordered another....I'm sure it will get just as many readings.

Oh, my. Another of L'Engle's wonderful nonfiction books! This one deals almost equally with her journey as a writer and her journey as a Christian. L'Engle's work has been speaking to me ever since I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was a young girl. I'm finding that her Crosswicks Journals speak to me now even more effectively than her fiction, perhaps because I'm at the stage of life where she was when she wrote them.

Hers is not a faith of easy answers, or of easy acceptance for the hard ones. Her struggles with God sound painfully yet reassuringly familiar, and although the details of this book reflect the period of its writing - the 1970s - it is anything else but dated. I'm going to donate my copy to my church's library, after I've loaned it to someone who is waiting to read it next.

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of 2005 EPPIE science fiction winner "Regs"

Lovely spirituality and gentle musings by the author of a childhood favorite: "A Wrinkle in Time".