A Ring of Endless Light
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| A Ring of Endless Light, first edition | |
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
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| Cover Artist | Fred Marcellino (hardback) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Austin family |
| Subject(s) | love, death, growing up |
| Genre(s) | Young Adult |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
| Released | 1980 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 324 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-374-36299-8 |
| Preceded by | The Young Unicorns |
| Followed by | Troubling a Star |
A Ring of Endless Light is a 1980 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. The book tells of a girl named Vicky and her struggle to understand life as she deals with her dying grandfather, while at the same time finding love.
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[edit] Plot Summary
Fifteen year old Vicky Austin is spending the summer on Seven Bay Island with her family to visit her maternal grandfather who is dying of Leukemia. At the beginning of the story, Vicky is seen standing at a funeral for Commander Rodney, a family friend. Nearby stands the commander's wife, and his two oldest sons, Leo and Jacky who own a launch boat business. It is at the funeral that Vicky first meets Adam Eddington, an intern at the Island's research base and a friend of Vicky's brother, John. When Vicky and her family return home she sees Zachary Gray, an old friend whom her family does not particularly like. It was Zachary who caused Commander Rodney's death; the commander had drowned saving Zachary from suicide. The news of this sets Vicky on a train of thought that continues throughout the book; the mysterious and (to Vicky) frightening topic of death.
During the course of the story, Vicky finds herself in a tangle of three romances; one with Leo, one with Zachary, and one with Adam, whom she is helping with a project on dolphin and human communication (ESP) with three dolphins: Basil, Norberta, and Njord. Vicky discovers a remarkable rapport with the dolphins, a rapport that teeters on telepathy. Also, her grandfather has been hemmorhaging, and Vicky often goes with Leo to pick up blood. There at the hospital, she meets a girl named Binnie who is sick with a type of leukemia and has seizures.
One night, her grandfather starts to hemorrhage and is sent to the hospital. Vicky is on a date with Zachary, and does not know about her grandfather until they come to the dock and see that Leo is not there to pick them up. Once in the hospital, Vicky waits in the emergency room and sees Binnie. Binnie has just fainted because she had a seizure, and is thrust into Vicky's arms as Binnie's mother goes to find a nurse. In Vicky's arms, Binnie has a convulsion and dies. At that moment, she is sent into a wave of darkness, wherein she is trying to hold on to the real world, learning that Zachary left her alone in the hospital, and constantly thinking of Adam. At that moment she feels hands on hers - Adam's. He tells her that she "called" him (meaning with ESP) and he came. During the next day, Vicky is still in a wave of darkness, and no one seems able to get her out. Finally, Adam has an idea. He takes her to the dolphins she works with, and she plays with them, breaking the darkness. At the end of the story, Vicky finally finds refuge in Adam's arms.
[edit] Major themes
The primary theme of the story is death, and continuing to appreciate and choose life in the face of it. Vicki is surrounded by death during the summer of the story, and the people around her have their own responses to it as well. Slowly dying from leukemia, Grandfather Eaton encourages Vicky to enjoy life while developing her talent for writing, and only gradually begins to make unreasonable demands as his own mental clarity starts to fail. Having lost his father, Leo Rodney questions his previously comfortable faith, while taking responsibility for the family's income. Zachary, whose mother died recently, alternately courts death - driving too fast, flying recklessly in a plane - and runs away from it. Adam, who holds himself responsible for the death of Joshua Archer the previous summer (in The Arm of the Starfish) because he trusted a girl, is reluctant to open his heart and risk being hurt again. In addition to the deaths of Commander Rodney and Binnie and the impending death of her grandfather, Vicky meets a dolphin researcher who nearly dies in an accident, sees a dolphin swim with her dead baby, and even worries about baby sparrows in a shallow, ill-placed nest.
[edit] Series notes
This is the fourth full-length novel about the Austin family, continuing a series that began in 1960 with Meet the Austins. (There are also two shorter works that each take place at Christmas time.) Vicky first meets Zachary in the second novel, The Moon by Night, as he follows her from campgound to campground on a cross-country trip. In the next book, The Young Unicorns, Zachary is mentioned only in passing. Concurrent with The Moon by Night is The Arm of the Starfish, a book from the O'Keefe family series that takes place the same summer as the Austins' camping trip. The Arm of the Starfish introduces as its protagonist Adam Eddington. Adam continues his relationship with Vicky Austin in the sixth (and to date, final) Austin family novel, Troubling a Star.
[edit] Awards and honors
A Ring of Endless Light was named Newbery Honor Book in 1980, and was nominated for a Newbery Medal in 1981. It also won the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award American Book Award, the California Young Reader Medal (1982) and the Colorado Children's Book Award (1983).[1]
[edit] TV movie
In 2002, the Disney Channel made A Ring of Endless Light into a made-for-TV movie starring Mischa Barton and Ryan Merriman. The film's plot veered substantially from that of the book. Vicky's parents are conveniently absent for much of the movie. Vicky's astronomy-minded elder brother John is not mentioned, and Suzy is interested in astronomy instead of medicine. Grandfather Eaton's illness is undisclosed at first (instead of being the reason the family is spending the summer with him). Other examples of death and dying are absent entirely from the movie, along with such characters as Leo Rodney and his family, and the dying child Binnie. Whole-cloth additions to the story include Adam and Zachary teaming up to save dolphins from illegal drift nets, and Vicky being under pressure to study science in order to gain permission to an elite school.
[edit] References
- ^ Chase, Carole F. (1998). Suncatcher: A Study of Madeleine L'Engle and Her Writing. Innisfree Press, Inc., pg. 171. ISBN 1-880913-31-3.
