L'Engle's Two-Part Invention
A Powerful Marriage Memoir from the Author of A Wrinkle in Time
Past and present are interwoven throughout this book, and the result is a unique glimpse into a living, breathing marriage and the lives of two fascinating people. L'Engle, who passed away in 2007, was a famous writer, and Franklin, who passed away in 1986, was a famous actor.
Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage chronicles their history together, from their first meeting to their final goodbye, offering L'Engle's advice and wisdom at every step. The pair met on the set of a Broadway play by Anton Chekov. Franklin played the lead, while L'Engle was a lowly understudy. They courted and later married.
Children and Success
Though they left New York City to live in the country for a time and raise their three children - Josephine, Maria, and Bion - they eventually moved back to the City after the children were grown. Throughout her life, L'Engle wrote and published many books, including (the most famous) A Wrinkle in Time.
After an impressive number of roles on Broadway, Franklin went on to become Dr. Charles Tyler on the soap opera All My Children. Despite many ups and downs, the two had a happy, healthy marriage, which the book depicts eloquently.
The Best of Friends
It is clear that L'Engle highly valued her rapport with her husband. From the beginning of their relationship, the two were good friends, being able to talk for hours and hours on end. They were both reserved people, artists who were sensitive to the world around them, and L'Engle cites their "simultaneous recognition of wonder" as part of what made their marriage strong (76).
She also notes that a "long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship" (76). Later in the book, L'Engle compares any kind of marital interaction to making love, including cooking dinner or reading the newspaper aloud. For her, passion is linked with both sexual and emotional intimacy.
Atypical Marriage
Perhaps because they were artists, or perhaps because they were just very open-minded people, L'Engle and Franklin had very egalitarian ideas about marriage. Though they lived in a time in which patriarchy was still by and large the dominant family structure, theirs was a marriage of equality and flexibility.
Not only did they know each other, but they respected each other, and were even grateful and eager to share more of each other. L'Engle and Franklin were partners, making every decision together, from how many children to have to what to cook for dinner. Through self-revelation, they became very close, "accepting each other's edges and corners" (89).
The Ultimate Loss
The intimacy of the bond between L'Engle and Franklin came through perhaps most clearly in L'Engle's description of Franklin's illness, and eventually his death. She spent nearly every day at the hospital by his side for a very long and difficult time and the two understood each other and communicated without even seeming to - that was how well they knew one another.
In their close relationship to their children, the open-minded practices of the couple shone through, as they applied rather modern parenting approaches, letting children take part in decisions after a certain age. As a result, the family was not only close, but healthily so, with competent communication skills that showed themselves most dramatically in their coming together during Franklin's declining months.
Conclusion
To close, Two-Part Invention is the inspiring story of a wonderfully flawed, real marriage, expressed in the simple prose of a talented writer. Publisher's Weekly rightly called reading the book "a profound spiritual experience."
Reference
L'Engle, Madeleine. Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.
