A House Like a Lotus

There's a lot to unpack here, especially with respect to sexual assault, grooming and CSA.

I want to preface my review by emphasizing that I do think it's possible to write a book where multiple grown adults make sexual advances toward a 16-year-old, the 16-year-old doesn't think the adults did anything wrong, and the narrative still makes it very clear that the adults were in the wrong even if the 16yo doesn't think so, because of power dynamics and grooming. This is not a book that successfully communicates “All of these people were in the wrong, not just the obviously creepy ones.”

It's really seriously concerning to me that the narration seemingly makes excuses for these 20something aged men openly expressing to a 16 year old girl that they want to fuck her because she's “so mature” that they “forget” she's 16. If you're in your 20s and you “forget” someone's 16, that's a huge red flag for grooming.

What was L'Engle thinking when she wrote a scene where Polly, having run away from an attempted sexual assault and having been groped by a classmate hours later, tells Remy (sp) what happened and Remy wordlessly undresses her and thinks “now is the time to ~make love~ to Polly”... And the narrative presents this as a healing experience for Polly. Where she seems to dissociate.

(I'm not denying that sexual activity can be a healing experience after sexual assault, but at the bare minimum the person who had the trauma needs to independently communicate “I want to do this”, the other person needs to constantly and explicitly check in and be ready to abruptly stop without judgment if the person with trauma dissociates or wants to stop for any reason, and they need to have some kind of aftercare and debriefing. And both people need to be near enough in age that there isn't a power dynamic where grooming is possible, like between a doctor doing his residency and a 16-year-old, or between a college junior and a high school junior.)

Even though Remy the next day says it was wrong of him to pursue Polly sexually, he blames Polly in a way and repeats that she's so Mature™ that he “forgot” she was a minor. The authorial commentary on this seems to be that it's a potentially valid excuse for sexual advances toward minors, and the narrative appears to want us to sympathize with Polly, who in that particular moment doesn't think Remy did anything wrong. I'm seriously questioning what L'Engle was thinking in this book ostensibly written for an intended audience of teens near Polly's age.

Zachary is much more forward with his intentions toward Polly but I worry that his function in the narrative was partly to make Remy look better. Zachary makes Polly feel uncomfortable and he repeatedly crosses boundaries in ways the narrative does hint are inappropriate, but the narrative doesn't seem to present Zachary's “I won't do anything you don't want me to” as a problem. It's a big problem when the responsibility is put fully on the recipient of sexual advances to stop unwanted ones, because it feeds into the idea that men are just unable to control themselves and if a man crosses a woman's boundary it's her fault for not stopping him. It's unclear if the authorial commentary actually disagrees with this, because it's made clear that Polly's classmate in the truck scene was being inappropriate, that it wasn't Polly's fault when Max attacked her, and that Zachary should stop hassling Polly about sex.

In the time L'Engle grew up, it was an established social script that in order to say yes to premarital sex, a woman would need to be coy and flirtily say no, but Zachary is interpreting Polly's discomfort (from her very recent trauma of three people making inappropriate or unwanted sexual advances toward her within the same 24 hour period, which she understandably doesn't want to describe to a guy who repeatedly expresses his annoyance at her saying she's not ready for sex with him) as her just being coy.

Zachary's sexual intentions toward Polly are also not presented as inappropriate even though he's implied to be like, 20? They're closer in age than Remy and Polly but there's still a power dynamic involved and their age difference is enough that Zachary knows he'd be breaking the law. No one but a groomer will compliment someone they're pursuing with “you're so mature for your age that I forget you're only 16.”

I also found it very difficult to understand L'Engle's decision process for why everyone insists that Polly should forgive Max just because Max is a dying old woman who only tried to attack her when drunk, and Polly does just that in the end. The authorial commentary on this seems to be “drunk people aren't themselves” and “it's wrong to suddenly cut ties with a dying elderly person no matter what.” I found it troubling that Ursula seemed to know that Max was a predator when drunk, and nothing in the narrative indicates that a reader should find it disturbing that everyone views Max as not responsible for her actions when drunk.

I also found it troubling that in the flashback Polly has to a time when a classmate exposed himself and assaulted her in the lunch line in elementary/middle school, Meg's response is to tell Polly the same thing happened to her and that there's nothing anyone could have done (uh, the boy could have NOT assaulted her). I know that at the time of publication, schools wouldn't have done anything , but it's so bleak and horrible that the authorial commentary here is that you have to accept it and move on, while the aggressor faces no consequences and isn't even told they need to respect boundaries. I can't imagine how a reader with CSA trauma before my time would have responded to this incredibly bleak outlook on how girls should expect their boundaries to be treated by boys, and by adults in their lives going forward, and that they just have to suffer through it and move on.

This whole book can be summed up as “At least four people fail to respect Polly's boundaries and bodily autonomy, at least three adults groom her, and the narrative commentary is that legality and potential pregnancy are the only problems when an adult makes sexual advances toward a minor they've groomed to want it. Also if a sick dying person attempts to assault you, you're obligated to forgive them and continue having an interpersonal relationship with them because they're dying.” What on earth was L'Engle thinking??

It's difficult to tease out which parts of this book would have been radically progressive, because the ultimate conclusion of Polly forgiving Max muddles any possibility of suggesting that Polly deserved to have her boundaries unquestionably accepted by all the adults in her life. Perhaps it was radical to have a complex and sensitive portrayal of lesbians, where even though one was dying, the relationship was portrayed as the same kind of bond shared by a married man and woman? I didn't get the impression that L'Engle wanted readers to come away thinking that gay people are inherently predatory, because Polly's parents' opinions about lesbians would have been considered radical acceptance and the narrative presents Max's actions as due to her trauma of witnessing her father sexually abusing her sister.

I'm not sure if the narrative is suggesting that Max's not forgiving her father, or her frequently expending energy on a grudge, made her become like him. That would explain the ultimate message of it being important for Polly to forgive Max, but the narrative's message there could also be explained by the kind of radical forgiveness expected in many types of Christianity. But the meaning of forgiveness in the narrative seems to be saying “You did nothing wrong” or “You didn't cause me harm,” instead of “You hurt me but I'm not holding a grudge.” Or the narrative seems to be expressing that cutting someone out of your life counts as a grudge, even if it's to preserve your own safety and well-being.

Tldr: What was L'Engle thinking??

Book Review - A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle - I love L'Engle but this book reads more like an after school special from the 1980s than one of L'Engle's better books. On the whole it is a meditation on forgiveness but some of the things that the main character is concerned about don't seem that big of a deal and there are others that are big deals but completely ignored. There are moments where L'Engle's brilliance shines, but the book as a whole disappoints.

My full review is on my blog where I give more details and some spoilers at http://bookwi.se/house-like-lotus-madeleine-lengle/