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Camilla
Life had always been easy for fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson. But now her parents, whom she had always loved and trusted, are behaving like strangers to each other and vying for her allegiance. Camilla is torn between her love for them and her disapproval of their actions.
Then she meets Frank, her best friend's brother, who helps her to feel that she is not alone. Can Camilla learn to accept her parents for what they are and step toward her own independence?
Then she meets Frank, her best friend's brother, who helps her to feel that she is not alone. Can Camilla learn to accept her parents for what they are and step toward her own independence?
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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2470 people want to read
About the author
Madeleine L'Engle
170 books9,193 followersMadeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.
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September 10, 2014
A reviewer at the Saturday Review compared Camilla to The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield and Camilla Dickinson, the protagonists in question, are a bit like Romeo and Juliet: he gets some terrific lines and flails around memorably, but she's the one who grows and matures and doesn't have an ego so huge it could eat New York City without having to open its mouth all the way.
Anyway.
I don't understand why Camilla isn't better known. As in, it doesn't seem to be known at all. It's a beautifully written story, first published in 1951, about a girl becoming a woman. That doesn't mean sex or love or even deciding on a career, though she does experience her first romantic interest and physical attraction in the course of the novel, and she is quite decisive about becoming an astronomer. Womanhood means the end of childhood, and for Camilla that means understanding that her parents were not put on this earth simply to be Mother and Father to a solemn-eyed girl.
As Camilla puts it, "It is a much more upsetting thing to realize that your parents are human beings than it is to realize that you are one yourself."
The romance aspect of this novel hasn't aged well. Frank Rowan, the boy Camilla falls for and the brother of her best friend Luisa, is a dud. He's a pompous, self-important, patronizing, sexist pig. He treats Camilla like absolute garbage. He asks her questions and sneers at her answers, probably because all he wants from her is for her to say, "Oh, Frank, that's wonderful!" Which she generally does. It's painful.
Here's a perfectly representative passage. Frank has just spent the last million pages talking about his ideas about life, the universe, and everything. Seriously, his speeches go on for page-long paragraphs. I think he grows up to be John Galt. Anyway, he finally pauses for breath long enough to offer to take Camilla somewhere they can get a bite to eat.
But I wasn't hungry. I shook my head. "No. But you go on and have something if you want to."
"Me, you think I could eat?" Frank turned on me and his voice was suddenly savage. "You think I could eat when the minute you're born you're condemned to die? When thousands of people are dying every minute before they've even had a chance to begin? Death isn't fair. It's – it's a denial of life! How can we be given life when we're given death at the same time? Death isn't fair," Frank cried again, his voice soaring and cracking with rage. "I resent death! I resent it with every bone in my body! And you think – you think I could eat!"
He looked at me as though he hated me. He jammed a coin into the slot and pushed me ahead of him onto the New York-bound ferry and stood with his arms crossed in bitter and passionate anger. He did not look at me; he did not talk. Once when the ferry slapped into a wave and I was thrown against him he pulled away from me as though I repelled him.
Now, those thoughts about the people who never get anything like a shot at a real life are remarkably similar to my own teenage (and post-teen) rantings on the subject. But it's hard to have sympathy or empathy for Frank Who Thinks And Feels So Much More Deeply Than We Do That He Can't Eat when this is his response after he brought up food in the first place. His exact question was, "Want to go somewhere and have a frankfurter or something?" God only knows what he would have done if Camilla had said yes. Taken her on the ferry and promptly thrown her overboard, probably.
So, yeah, the parts with Frank are rough going. And the ending isn't happy, I'm not going to lie to you.
But if you were (or are) a kid who spent a lot of time wondering about the world and your place in it, and who went on walks at night hoping "to talk to someone else who wanted to be out all night walking too," and who would rather have one good friend you could talk about everything to than a bunch of friends who only ever chatted about boys and clothes – you could do a lot worse than read Camilla. Yes, it's a period piece; but so is Catcher, and Camilla's thoughts and struggles are often a lot more engaging than Holden Caulfield running around saying how phony everybody else is.
Anyway.
I don't understand why Camilla isn't better known. As in, it doesn't seem to be known at all. It's a beautifully written story, first published in 1951, about a girl becoming a woman. That doesn't mean sex or love or even deciding on a career, though she does experience her first romantic interest and physical attraction in the course of the novel, and she is quite decisive about becoming an astronomer. Womanhood means the end of childhood, and for Camilla that means understanding that her parents were not put on this earth simply to be Mother and Father to a solemn-eyed girl.
As Camilla puts it, "It is a much more upsetting thing to realize that your parents are human beings than it is to realize that you are one yourself."
The romance aspect of this novel hasn't aged well. Frank Rowan, the boy Camilla falls for and the brother of her best friend Luisa, is a dud. He's a pompous, self-important, patronizing, sexist pig. He treats Camilla like absolute garbage. He asks her questions and sneers at her answers, probably because all he wants from her is for her to say, "Oh, Frank, that's wonderful!" Which she generally does. It's painful.
Here's a perfectly representative passage. Frank has just spent the last million pages talking about his ideas about life, the universe, and everything. Seriously, his speeches go on for page-long paragraphs. I think he grows up to be John Galt. Anyway, he finally pauses for breath long enough to offer to take Camilla somewhere they can get a bite to eat.
But I wasn't hungry. I shook my head. "No. But you go on and have something if you want to."
"Me, you think I could eat?" Frank turned on me and his voice was suddenly savage. "You think I could eat when the minute you're born you're condemned to die? When thousands of people are dying every minute before they've even had a chance to begin? Death isn't fair. It's – it's a denial of life! How can we be given life when we're given death at the same time? Death isn't fair," Frank cried again, his voice soaring and cracking with rage. "I resent death! I resent it with every bone in my body! And you think – you think I could eat!"
He looked at me as though he hated me. He jammed a coin into the slot and pushed me ahead of him onto the New York-bound ferry and stood with his arms crossed in bitter and passionate anger. He did not look at me; he did not talk. Once when the ferry slapped into a wave and I was thrown against him he pulled away from me as though I repelled him.
Now, those thoughts about the people who never get anything like a shot at a real life are remarkably similar to my own teenage (and post-teen) rantings on the subject. But it's hard to have sympathy or empathy for Frank Who Thinks And Feels So Much More Deeply Than We Do That He Can't Eat when this is his response after he brought up food in the first place. His exact question was, "Want to go somewhere and have a frankfurter or something?" God only knows what he would have done if Camilla had said yes. Taken her on the ferry and promptly thrown her overboard, probably.
So, yeah, the parts with Frank are rough going. And the ending isn't happy, I'm not going to lie to you.
But if you were (or are) a kid who spent a lot of time wondering about the world and your place in it, and who went on walks at night hoping "to talk to someone else who wanted to be out all night walking too," and who would rather have one good friend you could talk about everything to than a bunch of friends who only ever chatted about boys and clothes – you could do a lot worse than read Camilla. Yes, it's a period piece; but so is Catcher, and Camilla's thoughts and struggles are often a lot more engaging than Holden Caulfield running around saying how phony everybody else is.
August 28, 2009
I recently went back and reread this, which was an odd experience because I'm now much more familiar with A Live Coal in the Sea, which tells Camilla's story when she's an adult.
One thing I love about L'Engle's worlds is that people actually grow up in them, and also that they're all interconnected -- Frank Rowan, who appears as a secondary but important character in this book as a teenager, shows up as a minor character in A House Like a Lotus when he's middle-aged. Camilla grows up and has children in A Live Coal in the Sea. Meg Murry has several books of her own and then has children who get several books of their own. And then of course there are Adam and Zachary, going back and forth between two universes that ought to be more connected but otherwise aren't.
...which is all really about L'Engle's ouevre as a whole, and here I've stuck it into my review of a book that no one's read where no one will read it.
One thing I love about L'Engle's worlds is that people actually grow up in them, and also that they're all interconnected -- Frank Rowan, who appears as a secondary but important character in this book as a teenager, shows up as a minor character in A House Like a Lotus when he's middle-aged. Camilla grows up and has children in A Live Coal in the Sea. Meg Murry has several books of her own and then has children who get several books of their own. And then of course there are Adam and Zachary, going back and forth between two universes that ought to be more connected but otherwise aren't.
...which is all really about L'Engle's ouevre as a whole, and here I've stuck it into my review of a book that no one's read where no one will read it.
September 15, 2011
Things I liked:
1) A book about a rich girl in 1950s New York. Even if she weren't likable, that would still be a fun read.
2) The characters are flawed, but nice. They are individuals, even if they do stick to their assigned character traits a little too vehemently.
3) The philosphical questions raised about growing up and being an individual were meaningful. Not so much to me, because I'm kind of past those, but they were real.
4) The romance between Camilla and Frank was nice. There were enough misunderstandings and doubts to make it a realistic first love.
5) The titular character's name. Camilla. So beautiful.
Things I didn't like:
1) The dialogue was a little too paragraphic. I think even in the 1950s people didn't really talk like that.
2) As I mentioned in my second "like," it was as if L'Engle wrote down three adjectives for each character, and then that's all they were allowed to be, for the whole book. "Here's the inquisitive, animated, and straight-talking friend." "Here's the resentful, bossy, and mean-spirited housekeeper," etc. That got old.
3) The ridiculous psychoanalysis scene. Seriously? No one has memories like that. Especially conveniently suppressed memories. "Do I remember when I first became aware of myself as an individual? Why, yes I do! Allow me to tell you about it in detail!"
4) Camilla's coming-of-age drama wasn't especially meaningful for me. It wasn't so much that she grew up as that she realized she couldn't choose to remain a child. Also, she's almost 16 in this book. I think the same experiences and thought processes would happen nowadays to a twelve or thirteen year old, rather than a sixteen year old.
5) The ending didn't feel like much of an ending to me. Actually, it made me reflect on other coming-of-age stories I've read, and how none of them really had satisfactory endings, either. I guess that's the nature of the story, since it's a beginning rather than an ending. At any rate, this one just had the feeling of petering out at the end.
I can't be too harsh in my criticism, since this book is clearly written for the young adult crowd (the 1950s young adult crowd, more accurately), but for reading it as an adult, it was decent.
1) A book about a rich girl in 1950s New York. Even if she weren't likable, that would still be a fun read.
2) The characters are flawed, but nice. They are individuals, even if they do stick to their assigned character traits a little too vehemently.
3) The philosphical questions raised about growing up and being an individual were meaningful. Not so much to me, because I'm kind of past those, but they were real.
4) The romance between Camilla and Frank was nice. There were enough misunderstandings and doubts to make it a realistic first love.
5) The titular character's name. Camilla. So beautiful.
Things I didn't like:
1) The dialogue was a little too paragraphic. I think even in the 1950s people didn't really talk like that.
2) As I mentioned in my second "like," it was as if L'Engle wrote down three adjectives for each character, and then that's all they were allowed to be, for the whole book. "Here's the inquisitive, animated, and straight-talking friend." "Here's the resentful, bossy, and mean-spirited housekeeper," etc. That got old.
3) The ridiculous psychoanalysis scene. Seriously? No one has memories like that. Especially conveniently suppressed memories. "Do I remember when I first became aware of myself as an individual? Why, yes I do! Allow me to tell you about it in detail!"
4) Camilla's coming-of-age drama wasn't especially meaningful for me. It wasn't so much that she grew up as that she realized she couldn't choose to remain a child. Also, she's almost 16 in this book. I think the same experiences and thought processes would happen nowadays to a twelve or thirteen year old, rather than a sixteen year old.
5) The ending didn't feel like much of an ending to me. Actually, it made me reflect on other coming-of-age stories I've read, and how none of them really had satisfactory endings, either. I guess that's the nature of the story, since it's a beginning rather than an ending. At any rate, this one just had the feeling of petering out at the end.
I can't be too harsh in my criticism, since this book is clearly written for the young adult crowd (the 1950s young adult crowd, more accurately), but for reading it as an adult, it was decent.
March 9, 2016
I took a little sidetrek in my goal of reading all of the Austin family books. "Camilla" fits in nicely with them, because it has similar themes about growing up, realizing a person's autonomy, religion, the debate over what makes a person matter, and of course lots of discussion about life and death.
One more motif I picked up from this reading is L'Engle's use of cruel adults. In "Camilla" it was the family's maid and the geography teacher who denied having ignored Camilla's pleas to go to the bathroom. In "Meet the Austins" it was the woman who told Maggie that she was silly to believe her parents had gone to another world, and then the ill-humored aunt. In "A Wrinkle in Time" it was the principal at Meg's school. For someone who worked to find the shades in human character, L'Engle seems to believe in real cruelty, too. I find that interesting.
It's a good book, and it as a good experience to compare what I understand now to what I understood when I first read it at eleven years old.
One more motif I picked up from this reading is L'Engle's use of cruel adults. In "Camilla" it was the family's maid and the geography teacher who denied having ignored Camilla's pleas to go to the bathroom. In "Meet the Austins" it was the woman who told Maggie that she was silly to believe her parents had gone to another world, and then the ill-humored aunt. In "A Wrinkle in Time" it was the principal at Meg's school. For someone who worked to find the shades in human character, L'Engle seems to believe in real cruelty, too. I find that interesting.
It's a good book, and it as a good experience to compare what I understand now to what I understood when I first read it at eleven years old.
March 1, 2010
This book is so incredibly underrated. I remember reading this book as a child, and feeling like I WAS Camilla, walking into a record shop to listen to classical music, the teenage excitement of first love, coming home to meet my mother's lover, all of it...I felt it was happening to me and I love this book to pieces.
June 1, 2012
The story of two dysfunctional families and the eponymous character at the middle of it all, Camilla. This is a difficult book to recommend because the writing is excellent, but the characters - Camilla excepted - are horrible people incapable of any meaningful self-reflection. Frank, the brother of Camilla's best friend Luisa, manages to be worse than the terrible parents in both families. Frank is the sort of blowhard that one could imagine had discovered Ayn Rand and had developed his massive self-regard as a result. He is utterly repellant, but that's where L'Engle's talent emerges: he has some good ideas and is just an older teen, but his bitterness exposes a streak of self-seriousness that desperately needs maturity. All of the characters' flaws hide major weaknesses - exposed with deftness by how L'Engle understands their hatred of themselves and others - but these weaknesses are so imposing as to almost swamp the book. Camilla - who let me add is exposed to more condescending bullshit than your usual female character on Mad Men - is the saving grace here as the book is narrated from her perspective. Not yet warped like the other characters, her outlook is a relief. Young and confused like Luisa, she possesses an intelligence full of hope and curiosity. Obviously, she has to grow up, but her strength helps her through the thicket of trouble that is her family situation. She has her own quiet confidence that she will nurture to even greater personal strength. That's the point of the book: her intelligence, hope, srength, and resolve. It almost feels overwhelmed by the people around her. L'Engle never stacks the deck with easy caricature; all of these people are painfully human. They act so badly, though, that they sometimes seem afflicted with a preternatural blindness. It's as fascinating as it's frustrating. L'Engle almost gives Pialat a run for his money in terms of disturbed family dynamics. The parents in both families seem to have entirely abandoned communicating with each other. While this creates some sympathy for Camilla's mom, Rose, it also highlights what makes Luisa and Frank so frustrating as they've inherited their parents worst qualities. L'Engle uses them to illustrate starkly the pitfalls of hate and bitterness. Camilla's survival is less a miracle than a testament to her strength and perseverance. This is a fascinating novel about survival in an emotional and spiritual war zone, but it's a daunting one.
August 28, 2014
Just couldn't find anyone to like in this one.* Not Camilla's cheating mother or emotionally distant father or Camilla herself, even, especially after she ditches her best friend Luisa to spend time with a boy (her best friend's brother Frank, no less!) who was also unlikeable. Why does Camilla think he's so neat-o anyway? He asks her like one thing about herself and then spends the rest of the time being moody and self-absorbed. Yuck. I kinda get that the idea is that everyone is flawed and at some point in our coming-of-age we learn that. But not everyone is quite this flawed or quite so unhappy about it. Interesting as a slice-of-life in post-WWII NY (not historical fiction really, just old) and for those who are really into L'Engle's philosophy (some ideas in later books get trotted out here for a test) but not very enjoyable reading. Disappointingly abrupt ending as well.
*The person I liked the best was the veteran they visit, and I can't think why as he was pretty messed up and slightly creepy... perhaps it was just that it seemed he at least had the most reason to be flawed and he was straight-forwardly obvious about his troubles. That probably says more about me than the book, though, huh? (Analyze that, Luisa!)
*The person I liked the best was the veteran they visit, and I can't think why as he was pretty messed up and slightly creepy... perhaps it was just that it seemed he at least had the most reason to be flawed and he was straight-forwardly obvious about his troubles. That probably says more about me than the book, though, huh? (Analyze that, Luisa!)
April 20, 2012
Madeleine, Madeleine, how could you? From the heights of A Wrinkle in Time to the depths of Camilla. Camilla is the most naive and self-absorbed fifteen year old I've yet encountered (in or out of literature). She's told by umpteen people that she's beautiful and smart and delicious and everyone loves her and she never once says anything positive to her poor friend, Louisa--- but only thinks how much Louisa victimizes her. And Frank!! Frank says to Camilla, "You made me do it" (shake her). What a great set up for spousal abuse. Not to mention the gag-worthy DEEP conversations about God and Life. I kept thinking something would turn around (this is, after all, the author of A Wrinkle in Time) but it never did.
July 20, 2010
Summary: In Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle, fifteen year old Camilla discovers her mother is having an affair. Her parents quarrel and her mother attempts suicide. Camilla's friend Luisa has parents who are also having problems and may even separate. Camilla begins to spend more and more time with Luisa's brother Frank who is seventeen and talks with her about deep subjects like death, life, and God. Unlike Luisa's immature friendship, Frank offers Camilla something more and she begins to have romantic feelings about him. She also discusses her desire to own day become an astronomer. As the novel progresses, Camilla slowly leaves childhood behind and enters the often times cruel world of adults full of heart break and harsh realities.
Review: Madeleine L'Engle's Camilla explores the hardships of growing up. The discovery that parents and adults are not always perfect compels Camilla to accept the reality of the world. L'Engle begins the novel with fifteen Camilla still receiving gifts of dolls and having her father dote on her as though she were still less than ten years old. But within the first two chapters, Camilla no longer views the world in the same way. As Camilla's character develops, she learns that she is beautiful, like her mother, but no longer a naive child. As she develops a relationship with her best friend's brother, learns of other people's difficulties in life and how they survive, and has her heart broken, she proves her resilience to the forces working against her in life.
Review: Madeleine L'Engle's Camilla explores the hardships of growing up. The discovery that parents and adults are not always perfect compels Camilla to accept the reality of the world. L'Engle begins the novel with fifteen Camilla still receiving gifts of dolls and having her father dote on her as though she were still less than ten years old. But within the first two chapters, Camilla no longer views the world in the same way. As Camilla's character develops, she learns that she is beautiful, like her mother, but no longer a naive child. As she develops a relationship with her best friend's brother, learns of other people's difficulties in life and how they survive, and has her heart broken, she proves her resilience to the forces working against her in life.
August 19, 2012
When I noticed Camilla on my local library’s shelf, I knew I had to pick it up because I adore her Time Quartet series featuring A Wrinkle in Time. And when I read the back cover copy and learned that it was about a 15-year-old girl figuring out her place in the world while walking the streets of New York City with her first boyfriend and discussing life, death, religion, and their deepest secrets and dreams, I knew that I had to read it immediately. I love novels set in the Big Apple, and the premise just sounded so lovely – I wish I could have had intellectual conversations with my first crush while exploring NYC!
Although it was originally published in 1965, this novel has an incredibly timeless quality to it – some of the references may be dated, but Camilla’s story could just as easily be transposed into the current day. Camilla’s NYC adventures stem from her need to spend as much time away from her home as possible as she attempts to avoid witnessing her parents’ marital problems. While her parents are busy focusing on their own affairs, they’ve begun to neglect their roles as parents, and Camilla is shocked to realize that they are more than just her mother and father. Until now, Camilla has lived the sheltered life of a wealthy only child, but her parents’ crumbling marriage forces her to grow up fast and question so much more about the world around her than she ever has before. I loved how this book explored so many important questions about life, all through the ever-curious mind of a teenaged girl.
Although it was originally published in 1965, this novel has an incredibly timeless quality to it – some of the references may be dated, but Camilla’s story could just as easily be transposed into the current day. Camilla’s NYC adventures stem from her need to spend as much time away from her home as possible as she attempts to avoid witnessing her parents’ marital problems. While her parents are busy focusing on their own affairs, they’ve begun to neglect their roles as parents, and Camilla is shocked to realize that they are more than just her mother and father. Until now, Camilla has lived the sheltered life of a wealthy only child, but her parents’ crumbling marriage forces her to grow up fast and question so much more about the world around her than she ever has before. I loved how this book explored so many important questions about life, all through the ever-curious mind of a teenaged girl.
January 3, 2024
Trying to gather my thoughts on why I enjoyed this book when, as other reviews have pointed out, there are troubling family dynamics, characters with very real vices and flaws, and a narrator who is very introspective (I would not go so far as to say “self-absorbed” as others have said).
What I come back to is the novel’s themes of what it means to truly be alive, the wonder and beauty of cosmos and music (classic Madeleine!), who God is, and coming to terms with the limitations and brokenness of one’s family. It’s a coming of age novel that asks questions that are just as relevant today as they were in the 1950s when it was first published. And while Camilla and Frank ask, and answer, these big questions, I’m not sure the novel is asking us to take the declarations of a 15- and 17-year old as the final say. Instead, I get the sense this is just the beginning for them, who will, like us, be working this out the rest of our lives.
p.s. after finishing, I found myself thinking of some lines from Tom Hiron’s poem, “In the Meantime.”
“Life tends toward living
And, while death claims all things at the end,
There were such precious times in between,
In which everything was radiant
And we loved again, this world.”
What I come back to is the novel’s themes of what it means to truly be alive, the wonder and beauty of cosmos and music (classic Madeleine!), who God is, and coming to terms with the limitations and brokenness of one’s family. It’s a coming of age novel that asks questions that are just as relevant today as they were in the 1950s when it was first published. And while Camilla and Frank ask, and answer, these big questions, I’m not sure the novel is asking us to take the declarations of a 15- and 17-year old as the final say. Instead, I get the sense this is just the beginning for them, who will, like us, be working this out the rest of our lives.
p.s. after finishing, I found myself thinking of some lines from Tom Hiron’s poem, “In the Meantime.”
“Life tends toward living
And, while death claims all things at the end,
There were such precious times in between,
In which everything was radiant
And we loved again, this world.”
August 20, 2009
This is classic L'Engle - thoughtful, philosophical, family/friend-centered. Camilla is 15 years old, living with her parents in a nice apartment by Central Park not long after WWII. (At first, I thought the war referred to was the Vietnam War.) She has lived a sheltered life so far. Her parents have always been loving, unlike her best friend, Luisa's, parents, who are always fighting. But suddenly, issues that have been simmering for years boil over, and Camilla must figure out how to live her new reshuffled life.
Supporting her and introducing her to new people and new ideas is Frank, Luisa's older brother. Frank and Camilla have these interesting philosophical discussions, characteristic of Madeleine L'Engle's books. Camilla is coming to the realization that her parents are human and that she must adjust her expectations of them. She and Luisa and she and Frank have conversations about God. Frank introduces her to a war veteran who helps her figure out her feelings for Frank and to a family who lost a son who give her a different perspective of death.
Supporting her and introducing her to new people and new ideas is Frank, Luisa's older brother. Frank and Camilla have these interesting philosophical discussions, characteristic of Madeleine L'Engle's books. Camilla is coming to the realization that her parents are human and that she must adjust her expectations of them. She and Luisa and she and Frank have conversations about God. Frank introduces her to a war veteran who helps her figure out her feelings for Frank and to a family who lost a son who give her a different perspective of death.
January 16, 2012
This was my least liked book by Madeleine L'Engle. She began writing romances suitable for a young adult audience and Camilla is one of those; another tale about a teenage girl having trouble with her parents. Camilla lives with these parents in an apartment in New York City. She loves them both though her father is a distant, undemonstrative sort and her mother is childlike.
When Camilla discovers her mother kissing another man right in their living room, she falls into confusion. She has to learn that her parents are people too who have their own troubles and are not perfect. Her best friend and an older boy help her through and she comes out older, sadder, and wiser.
The weaknesses here are a slow moving plot and a bit of a preachy tone about what is important in life. I had not found those weaknesses in any of L'Engle's other early novels.
In any case, I have now read most of those early novels. When I get to 1960 in My Big Fat Reading Project (see the Writing section of my profile), I will be reading the books that made her famous, beginning with A Wrinkle in Time.
When Camilla discovers her mother kissing another man right in their living room, she falls into confusion. She has to learn that her parents are people too who have their own troubles and are not perfect. Her best friend and an older boy help her through and she comes out older, sadder, and wiser.
The weaknesses here are a slow moving plot and a bit of a preachy tone about what is important in life. I had not found those weaknesses in any of L'Engle's other early novels.
In any case, I have now read most of those early novels. When I get to 1960 in My Big Fat Reading Project (see the Writing section of my profile), I will be reading the books that made her famous, beginning with A Wrinkle in Time.
May 13, 2007
This is not one of the better known Madeleine L’Engle books and it’s not about the Murray or the Austen families, and there’s no sci-fi in it. It’s a stand alone novel. A lovely story told from the point of view of the fifteen year old title character. I love all of L’Engle’s books and this one was another beautifully told story. It’s been years since I read it and it might be considered dated now, but there’s nothing that ever gets dated about L’Engle’s great storytelling and sympathy for her characters.
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February 2, 2022Just not a fan of the premise of this story, so I DNF'd after the first chapter. I didn't feel like reading a book about a teenage being manipulated by parents to cover up an affair.
September 7, 2022
L‘Engle never disappoints. A fun, thoughtful, inspiring read. Couldn’t put it down.
December 8, 2013
Camilla is a novella I'm surprised to say I enjoyed.
It was something I thought I would find no similarities in, with myself.
It was advertised at a clumsily coming-of-age romance. I detest these.
But I thought I'd give it a try, seeing as it was entitled "Camilla" and all.
Reading Camilla was like pursuing some parts of my past and the functions of my amygdala in every-day situations.
While the events in this story don't obviously correlate to my life, I found some strikingly similar scenarios in which I find myself in.
This can be said of quite a few books. But I quite literally felt like I was reading about myself in some way.
Maybe you'll find the same conclusion.
Some of her thought processes and analyzations on life--due to her maturing life situations--I've felt strangely connected to, because I've felt the same way.
This could very well become one of my many favorite books.
It was something I thought I would find no similarities in, with myself.
It was advertised at a clumsily coming-of-age romance. I detest these.
But I thought I'd give it a try, seeing as it was entitled "Camilla" and all.
Reading Camilla was like pursuing some parts of my past and the functions of my amygdala in every-day situations.
While the events in this story don't obviously correlate to my life, I found some strikingly similar scenarios in which I find myself in.
This can be said of quite a few books. But I quite literally felt like I was reading about myself in some way.
Maybe you'll find the same conclusion.
Some of her thought processes and analyzations on life--due to her maturing life situations--I've felt strangely connected to, because I've felt the same way.
This could very well become one of my many favorite books.
June 9, 2010
'Oh, my gosh. Why did I just waste those precious minutes?' is what I thought after I read this book. 'Why was I tricked into thinking that Camilla would be interesting? Because she's wearing a blue coat and red scarf?'
Aside from the quirky color choices, which I must credit to the illustrator and not to Camilla, I couldn't bring myself to like Camilla, and I didn't necessarily see her maturation process through the story...and isn't that what a coming-of-age novel is supposed to be all about? The ending...well, let's not get me started on the ending. 'Disappointing' is the least of it. I am going to sell this book back. Soon.
(However, I couldn't bring myself to give this only one star because that would be putting it on the level of "Through A Glass Darkly" and nothing by Madeleine L'Engle deserves that.)
Aside from the quirky color choices, which I must credit to the illustrator and not to Camilla, I couldn't bring myself to like Camilla, and I didn't necessarily see her maturation process through the story...and isn't that what a coming-of-age novel is supposed to be all about? The ending...well, let's not get me started on the ending. 'Disappointing' is the least of it. I am going to sell this book back. Soon.
(However, I couldn't bring myself to give this only one star because that would be putting it on the level of "Through A Glass Darkly" and nothing by Madeleine L'Engle deserves that.)
March 1, 2010
Liked it, although for a great while I found Camilla astoundingly "simple", as if she was 10 years old rather than fifteen. Especially after having read "When you reach me", wherein the 12-year-old protagonist has a more complex and nuanced view of human interaction and relations than Camilla does, I look back on "Camilla" as very dated, in writing style rather than the time when it takes place. It did get more interesting as Camilla broke away from her parents and began to act rather than just react. Also, Camilla's mother's way of speaking made me cringe. Which was perhaps the intent, but it grated.
September 12, 2011
A terrible book the same way that being 15 is terrible, falling in love young is terrible, and becoming an adult instead of a child is terrible. Terrible, terrible. Many of L'Engle's books deal with child protagonist. This is a different kind of novel about the terribleness of leaving childhood behind and becoming an adult. Perhaps I make it's sound as if L'Engle hates adults. No, it is that I cannot forget as I read Camilla that it is not easy to grow up. I cannot forget the terrible sorrow of it or it's inevitable urgency.
It's an older book, which I found insufficient to hold me enthralled. But it is great art, and will not disappoint fans of L'Engle.
It's an older book, which I found insufficient to hold me enthralled. But it is great art, and will not disappoint fans of L'Engle.
October 14, 2011
Sweet and charming. I am disappointed that my 15-year-old self didn't read this, because she would have adored it, but I still enjoyed it very much in spite of the fact that it is a young book (in maturity, not age, but that is not necessarily a fault, for a young adult novel) but just old enough in both setting and age that it feels old-fashioned without quite being old enough to be a classic novel. (In contrast to a Wrinkle in Time, which still feels timeless to me, as do most of Madeleine L'Engle's other books.)
December 8, 2009
This book is so boring. You don't feel anything at all for the characters. Okay, that's not true. Frank, the hero, always says things like "Listen, have you had lunch?" "Listen, do you like coffee?" or "Listen, you shouldn't let Luisa boss you around." This makes you feel something. Specifically, THIS GUY IS SO ANNOYING. Sorry, but this book is recommended only for people who have read the entire library.
June 1, 2019
A vibrant, joyful book. You live and breathe with Camilla Dickinson and believe her and her friends are as real as anything. As always Madeline L’Engle wrote a superb book.
April 7, 2021
I remember getting this from the library when I was about 10, and reading the big hardback with it's crinkly library wrapped cover. I loved it then.
Re-reading it as an adult, I'm not so sure. I mean, this is L'Engle, so there's a lot of great stuff about what it is like when you suddenly discover that your parents are actual people, not just parents. And worse, what it means when you realize you don't respect some of their decisions or behaviours. L'Engle also takes us through what it's like to start conceptualizing God, and how that can be a solitary process. So when I give this three stars, I am somewhat grading on a curve.
BUT. There are some other things I don't like! First of all, Frank is kind of a wang. I did not spot this growing up, but shaking someone until their teeth chatter, or freezing them out for an extended period in public because someone says something you don't like is Not Cool. Also, Camilla does that thing where she meets a boy and totally ditches her best girl friend (it's the friend's brother to boot!), and there's no sense in the narrative that she's done anything wrong. And I hate that in real life and the literary trope.
So, I'm not sorry I picked this back up again. Of course Camilla is well-drawn and her struggles are so relatable. It's also a rather lovely portrait of living in New York in the late 1940s. But this isn't the first L'Engle I'd recommend to teens or adults.
Re-reading it as an adult, I'm not so sure. I mean, this is L'Engle, so there's a lot of great stuff about what it is like when you suddenly discover that your parents are actual people, not just parents. And worse, what it means when you realize you don't respect some of their decisions or behaviours. L'Engle also takes us through what it's like to start conceptualizing God, and how that can be a solitary process. So when I give this three stars, I am somewhat grading on a curve.
BUT. There are some other things I don't like! First of all, Frank is kind of a wang. I did not spot this growing up, but shaking someone until their teeth chatter, or freezing them out for an extended period in public because someone says something you don't like is Not Cool. Also, Camilla does that thing where she meets a boy and totally ditches her best girl friend (it's the friend's brother to boot!), and there's no sense in the narrative that she's done anything wrong. And I hate that in real life and the literary trope.
So, I'm not sorry I picked this back up again. Of course Camilla is well-drawn and her struggles are so relatable. It's also a rather lovely portrait of living in New York in the late 1940s. But this isn't the first L'Engle I'd recommend to teens or adults.
September 24, 2022
Madeleine L'Engle beautifully creates a vibrant coming of age story with some heavy elements. Camilla comes to realize that her parents are imperfect people, and experiences her first kiss.
Tw: attempted suicide, marital affair, divorce
Tw: attempted suicide, marital affair, divorce
August 22, 2015
Blurb from the back of the book: Life had always been easy for fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson. But now her parents, whom she had always loved and trusted, are behaving like strangers and vying for her allegiance. Camilla is torn between her love for them and her disapproval of their actions.
Then she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who helps her to feel that she is not alone. Can Camilla learn to accept her parents for what they are and step toward her own independence?
Reason I picked it up: I watch the movie “Camilla Dickinson” because it was based on a Madeline L’Engle book, wasn’t terribly impressed, and then I found the book at my local used bookstore and decided to read it, hoping it was better.
Thoughts: I’m not really sure how I feel about this book. I generally enjoy L’Engle’s style and voice, but this one seemed to be a rush of long sentences. In some situations this worked well – the urgency surrounding Camilla’s feelings about her mother and father being their own people, or when Jacques showed up at the apartment, or when she got angry with Luisa. Other times, in the slow moments with Frank or David, during her own musings, the descriptions jarred me out of my suspension of disbelief. Perhaps it’s because she uses such simple language, and the frequent use of the word “and.”
It’s really unfortunate the pace she sets in some scenes because there are gems scattered all through this book. L’Engle tosses in bread crumbs of life wisdom wrapped up in quick moving narrative and one gets used to reading so fast that one nearly misses them.
“A daffodil pushing up through the dark earth to the spring, knowing somehow deep in its roots that spring and light and sunshine will come, has more courage and more knowledge of the value of life than any human being I’ve met. Model yourself after the daffodil, Camilla. Have the courage to push your head up out of the darkness.”
It’s not just the one-liners, either; it’s whole passages that build this picture of emotion the reader can fully appreciate. A prime example is the memory Camilla tells Luisa to illustrate when she realized she was her own person and no one else was her, but neither was she anyone else. L’Engle spends several paragraphs describing the feelings and observations of a young Camilla, so that when she ends her story, the reader is left with this profound sense of freedom and loss.
And she sneaked in this little nugget: “Mother and Father’d always made me feel that I was important, and now all of a sudden I realized I wasn’t. How can you be important if nobody knows about you? It’s very frightening to realize all of a sudden that you aren’t important after all.”
I did have a few things I didn’t like about this book, other than the writing style. Frank was too violent for me. He can be moody all he wants – that’s his prerogative – but when he lays hands on a girl and grips her so hard it hurts, especially when he’s angry, that’s not acceptable. I like the Frank in the movie better – he didn’t scare Camilla. I felt like if book Camilla stayed longer with book Frank that she’d get stuck in one of those abusive relationships where he’d do something to hurt her, but she doesn’t leave because “she loves him.”
The dynamic between Camilla's parents interested me quite a bit, largely because I can identify with both Rose and Rafferty. One absorbs her self-worth from the adorations of others, and the other treats emotional displays as weakness of character. How could two utterly different people have ever gotten married? I recall a line from "Pride and Prejudice" where Mrs. Bennett tells her daughters that she won their father by looking pretty and holding her tongue. Given how much wagging her tongue does throughout the book, we come to pity Mr. Bennett for being taken in by a pretty face. I feel that may have been the way it was for Rafferty.
There was a character in this book not included in the movie – a veteran named David, 27 years old and had both legs amputated. He came alive for me on the pages. I liked him quite a bit, though his interaction with Camilla when they were alone made me wonder if he treated her that way because she was innocent, or because she was life and vigor and movement and he wasn’t, and if maybe somehow he could absorb from her what he couldn’t make for himself. Maybe. I want to know more about David.
I suggest borrowing this book from the library first before deciding if you want to purchase it. But then, you could get it at your local used bookstore for a couple bucks. Your choice.
Then she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who helps her to feel that she is not alone. Can Camilla learn to accept her parents for what they are and step toward her own independence?
Reason I picked it up: I watch the movie “Camilla Dickinson” because it was based on a Madeline L’Engle book, wasn’t terribly impressed, and then I found the book at my local used bookstore and decided to read it, hoping it was better.
Thoughts: I’m not really sure how I feel about this book. I generally enjoy L’Engle’s style and voice, but this one seemed to be a rush of long sentences. In some situations this worked well – the urgency surrounding Camilla’s feelings about her mother and father being their own people, or when Jacques showed up at the apartment, or when she got angry with Luisa. Other times, in the slow moments with Frank or David, during her own musings, the descriptions jarred me out of my suspension of disbelief. Perhaps it’s because she uses such simple language, and the frequent use of the word “and.”
It’s really unfortunate the pace she sets in some scenes because there are gems scattered all through this book. L’Engle tosses in bread crumbs of life wisdom wrapped up in quick moving narrative and one gets used to reading so fast that one nearly misses them.
“A daffodil pushing up through the dark earth to the spring, knowing somehow deep in its roots that spring and light and sunshine will come, has more courage and more knowledge of the value of life than any human being I’ve met. Model yourself after the daffodil, Camilla. Have the courage to push your head up out of the darkness.”
It’s not just the one-liners, either; it’s whole passages that build this picture of emotion the reader can fully appreciate. A prime example is the memory Camilla tells Luisa to illustrate when she realized she was her own person and no one else was her, but neither was she anyone else. L’Engle spends several paragraphs describing the feelings and observations of a young Camilla, so that when she ends her story, the reader is left with this profound sense of freedom and loss.
And she sneaked in this little nugget: “Mother and Father’d always made me feel that I was important, and now all of a sudden I realized I wasn’t. How can you be important if nobody knows about you? It’s very frightening to realize all of a sudden that you aren’t important after all.”
I did have a few things I didn’t like about this book, other than the writing style. Frank was too violent for me. He can be moody all he wants – that’s his prerogative – but when he lays hands on a girl and grips her so hard it hurts, especially when he’s angry, that’s not acceptable. I like the Frank in the movie better – he didn’t scare Camilla. I felt like if book Camilla stayed longer with book Frank that she’d get stuck in one of those abusive relationships where he’d do something to hurt her, but she doesn’t leave because “she loves him.”
The dynamic between Camilla's parents interested me quite a bit, largely because I can identify with both Rose and Rafferty. One absorbs her self-worth from the adorations of others, and the other treats emotional displays as weakness of character. How could two utterly different people have ever gotten married? I recall a line from "Pride and Prejudice" where Mrs. Bennett tells her daughters that she won their father by looking pretty and holding her tongue. Given how much wagging her tongue does throughout the book, we come to pity Mr. Bennett for being taken in by a pretty face. I feel that may have been the way it was for Rafferty.
There was a character in this book not included in the movie – a veteran named David, 27 years old and had both legs amputated. He came alive for me on the pages. I liked him quite a bit, though his interaction with Camilla when they were alone made me wonder if he treated her that way because she was innocent, or because she was life and vigor and movement and he wasn’t, and if maybe somehow he could absorb from her what he couldn’t make for himself. Maybe. I want to know more about David.
I suggest borrowing this book from the library first before deciding if you want to purchase it. But then, you could get it at your local used bookstore for a couple bucks. Your choice.
July 25, 2018
At its heart Camilla deals with the absolute and total lack of control that adolescents have over their own lives, and the injustice that comes from being in a place where you have strong feelings and dreams and absolutely no say in your present situation.
January 21, 2025
I love this author. Love her. A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books from childhood. Her The Crosswicks Journals: A Circle of Quiet, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, The Irrational Season, and Two-Part Invention have informed my understanding of the fragility and resistance of family and faith.
But this book did not do it for me.
I kept thinking about how some of the things that were so charming about her other works of fiction were pretentious and self-absorbed here. I've never liked the term "navel gazing" before, but it's the only way I can think of to describe the interminable conversations between Camilla and Luisa and Camilla and Frank. And it's adolescent navel-gazing, so you know it's unironically earnest and short-sighted and painful (and I listened to the audiobook, so imagine that!). Camilla is privileged in a way that will be familiar to readers of L'Engle's other books. Her family lives in a posh New York apartment with a nanny and a maid. Her father is a successful architect and her mother is a philandering socialite whose main occupation is being pretty. They seem to view Camilla as an accessory, although her father seems slightly more interested in her. (So much of this storyline can be explained by accounts of the author's early years, but that's another review, maybe). She has a close friend who is implied to be a negative influence, which, of course, because she's middle class, living in a much less desirable area with parents who argue loudly. There's the obligatory boarding school, for both Camilla and Frank at different times, which would have been seen as de rigueur in the particular social set to which L'Engle - and many of her characters - belonged.
Camilla was spoiled, sheltered, and overly protected; at the same time, she was allowed to roam around parts of New York by herself. It was a different time. But her parents were also absorbed in their own domestic drama (and that too is very autobiographical) and at times were only concerned with each other. Camilla was left to navigate adolescence on her own, with the sometimes near-frantic interference of her mother, who was, after all, only concerned with being adored herself. But meandering through adolescence alone would be the norm, if not for the overshadowing presence of her parents and her mother's partner, Jacques, who in one memorable scene, attempts to explain her mother to Camilla.
I really wanted to like this, but I cringed through most of it. There was none of the urgency or universal importance of the Time Quartet; this was pure domestic drama, overlaid with adolescent life disguised as introspection. This wasn't even the insular family saga of the Austins or the younger O'Keefes. I really just wanted to smack Camilla and remind her that her life was really completely normal and not the existential crisis she was creating in her mind. But teenagers - what are you going to do with them?
Frank was a bit of a problem - his sister needed to psychoanalyze him, I think. Camilla dodged a long-term bullet with him. He was manic and mean and arrogant and self-important. Camilla may have been a bit of a twit, but she still deserved better.
But this book did not do it for me.
I kept thinking about how some of the things that were so charming about her other works of fiction were pretentious and self-absorbed here. I've never liked the term "navel gazing" before, but it's the only way I can think of to describe the interminable conversations between Camilla and Luisa and Camilla and Frank. And it's adolescent navel-gazing, so you know it's unironically earnest and short-sighted and painful (and I listened to the audiobook, so imagine that!). Camilla is privileged in a way that will be familiar to readers of L'Engle's other books. Her family lives in a posh New York apartment with a nanny and a maid. Her father is a successful architect and her mother is a philandering socialite whose main occupation is being pretty. They seem to view Camilla as an accessory, although her father seems slightly more interested in her. (So much of this storyline can be explained by accounts of the author's early years, but that's another review, maybe). She has a close friend who is implied to be a negative influence, which, of course, because she's middle class, living in a much less desirable area with parents who argue loudly. There's the obligatory boarding school, for both Camilla and Frank at different times, which would have been seen as de rigueur in the particular social set to which L'Engle - and many of her characters - belonged.
Camilla was spoiled, sheltered, and overly protected; at the same time, she was allowed to roam around parts of New York by herself. It was a different time. But her parents were also absorbed in their own domestic drama (and that too is very autobiographical) and at times were only concerned with each other. Camilla was left to navigate adolescence on her own, with the sometimes near-frantic interference of her mother, who was, after all, only concerned with being adored herself. But meandering through adolescence alone would be the norm, if not for the overshadowing presence of her parents and her mother's partner, Jacques, who in one memorable scene, attempts to explain her mother to Camilla.
I really wanted to like this, but I cringed through most of it. There was none of the urgency or universal importance of the Time Quartet; this was pure domestic drama, overlaid with adolescent life disguised as introspection. This wasn't even the insular family saga of the Austins or the younger O'Keefes. I really just wanted to smack Camilla and remind her that her life was really completely normal and not the existential crisis she was creating in her mind. But teenagers - what are you going to do with them?
Frank was a bit of a problem - his sister needed to psychoanalyze him, I think. Camilla dodged a long-term bullet with him. He was manic and mean and arrogant and self-important. Camilla may have been a bit of a twit, but she still deserved better.
April 2, 2025
"It is a much more upsetting thing to realize that your parents are human beings than it is to realize that you are one yourself."
A tender, but somewhat unsuccessful, coming-of-age tale of a teenage girl in New York. Her mother is having an affair due to her unhappy marriage, and at the same time, Camilla is dealing with her own first romance. A lot of the plot points have not aged well (Camilla's first kiss is when she's 15, to a 27-year-old..? ugh), and the story overall could be a bit tighter, since it meanders quite a bit -- but it isn't a bad read, necessarily.
The awkward feeling of finding yourself and growing up are captured well, although Camilla does seem a bit flat sometimes. That being said, the metaphors and similes that peppered the language were a true delight to read... "the sky sagged down between buildings" and "I felt terribly isolated the way I imagine a stranger in a foreign country would feel because I did not know what to say to either my mother or my father."
Camilla wants to become an astronomer (unsurprising for a novel by L'Engle), but many of the other themes in the book are around God and spirituality, morality, and just general unhappiness at life. I would have liked Camilla to take more ownership -- mostly stuff just happens to her and she thinks about it. (In fact, one section reminded me vividly of Claire Keegan's writing tic!) I don't mind the musing, but it is a good bit of the book. But it's certainly decently relatable, and there is a kindly softness without being patronizing that I could see being comforting if you read this as a teen. And the seeds of L'Engle's future novels are here.
"Fifteen is a strange number of years to be; it is so convenient for my mother and father that I am fifteen because they can always say that I am too young or too old whenever they want to say no about anything.... you lose all the privileges of being a child and get none of the privileges of being a grown-up."
This is unrelated to the meat of the novel, but I checked this out from my public library and I was delighted to see it was the first printing of the novel, 1951, still in active circulation. Not only was it clearly bound very well, I liked thinking of all the others who have held this book. This book is older than my parents. The author's bio doesn't even include "Wrinkle in Time" because it hadn't been written yet. Public libraries are, in my opinion, one the greatest institutions in all of human history. Public libraries connect us to information, connect us to history, connect us to each other. And sometimes it's just really, really nice to hold a book and remember that.
March 23, 2017
Really enjoyed this book! I loved the characters and the drama and the deep questions. However the ending was such a let down and the sequel doesn't even have frank and Camilla together. Other than that it was a lovely read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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