I’ve been
meaning for a while to do a nostalgia tour through some of my favorite genre
fiction from my younger days, and where better to start than with Madeleine
L’Engle’s time quartet? I still have
such vivid memories of my mom reading all the books in this series to me when I
saw a kid, but especially this one. As
early as the first chapter, I knew there was something special here: “Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.” Yes!!
Meg Murry,
awkward tween extraordinaire, has a lot of anger to direct everywhere – at her
own dissatisfaction with herself, at the neighbors who sneer at her little
brother Charles Wallace (who they call an idiot, when he’s actually a genius,)
at the world that’s taken her father from her with no hint of what happened to
him. Her world changes late one night,
however, when she’s introduced to Charles Wallace’s new friends, the mysterious
Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which.
The three ladies prove far more than meets the eye, and they talk Meg
and Charles Wallace – along with Calvin, another new friend – on a fantastical
journey to recover their father and to battle the very forces of evil itself.
Reading
it again as an adult, there are a few bumpy spots that don’t escape my
notice. There are points where the
“lessons” are pretty fairly telegraphed, and it makes me chuckle that the
ultimate force of pure evil in the universe, as expressed in this Cold War-era
book, basically looks like communism.
(Yes, it’s implied that the Black Thing encourages moral ills of all
sorts, but Camazotz, the most dramatic example of a planet that’s “fallen” to
the Black Thing, is a classic dystopian communism metaphor packaged in a way
that’s accessible for kid readers.)
But any
complaints here are minor. I love this book. All the characters are wonderful. I’ve written before about the deep, beautiful
relationship between Meg and Charles Wallace, who both dazzle in their own ways
individually and together. I love Meg
for her faults, and I love Charles Wallace for his otherworldly knowing and his
manner that’s somehow totally precocious but 100% natural at the same
time. Calvin is such an earnest picture
of kindness and hope, and the Mrs. W’s, L’Engle’s own weïrd sisters, are each shiningly
unique, at once absurd and tremendous.
The book is littered with golden character moments, perfect lines and
little details that fit each like a glove.
The
characters, for me, are the main attraction here, enough that I would probably
love a story about them no matter what they were doing, but in this case,
they’ve got a pretty darn good plot to work with as well. Although the whole idea of tessering is
mostly similar to opening worm holes, the way it’s done and described in the
book is entirely its own, and the different worlds, peoples, and creatures
explored here are all really neat. And
really, the ending can’t be beat. I love
A Swiftly Tilting Planet almost as
much as this one, but in the end, I always keep coming back to A Wrinkle in Time, and it’s in no small
part due to the pure beauty of that ending.
Warnings
Scary
moments for kids and thematic elements.
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