In my
reread of Madeleine L’engle’s time series, I think A Wrinkle in Time is cementing its place as my favorite over A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Don’t get me wrong – I love Charles Wallace
as a character, and it’s neat to have him as main lead here, but I think he’s
more intriguing in the first two books when he’s still a little boy. Also, I have serious love for Meg, and even
though she’s involved, it’s not quite the same as when she’s in the thick of
the adventure. That said, it’s still a very good read (premise spoilers.)
On
Thanksgiving, the Murrys get word that the world is on the brink of disaster –
the festive atmosphere is fractured by the knowledge that an unstable dictator
in South America is looking to start a nuclear war. The only hope, unlikely as it seems, may lie
with 15-year-old Charles Wallace. Armed
with a mythic rune and aided by Meg, who remains at home but stays linked through
kything the whole way, Charles Wallace rides the winds through time on the back
of a unicorn (which is less cheesy than it sounds, trust me,) sifting through
history in order to save the future via the past.
There’s a
ton of interesting stuff here. The
sections set at different points of the past are all mostly excellent. If I had to pick a favorite, it’s probably
the sequence with Beezie and Chuck, but there’s neat plotting and cool
characters in pretty much every period Charles Wallace visits. As an adventure/quest story, it’s maybe a
little deceptive, since Charles Wallace’s hand isn’t felt significantly
throughout the process. He tries to
reason with Gaudior, the unicorn, about when and where they should try to go,
but once they arrive anywhere (or, more accurately, anywhen,) Charles Wallace
is sent Within one of the people there and is mostly submerged inside
them. Yes, he influences them in subtle
ways, but in a way, he’s not exactly the hero.
Madoc and Brandon and Chuck and Matthew are, and Charles Wallace is just
the tie that connects them. However,
this fact doesn’t really bother me. I’m
so interested in the idea of the future hanging in the balance due to a past
that’s still happening, which sounds like a weird, recursive thing to say, but
that’s what this book is about, and it’s pretty cool how they go about it.
The
aspect of it that I don’t like,
though, is the notion of ancestry and the same traits echoing through
generations. It’s most pronounced, of
course, in looking at the difference between Madoc and Gwydyr’s lines, but it’s
more than that. It’s an idea that echoes
throughout the book: all the O’Keefes
are bad, all the Mortmains are horrible.
I understand putting forth the theme of the future hinging on the past,
but if that past is still in flux, then why does it seem like the roles are
preassigned? Why do one man’s sins taint
his entire line and doom his descendents to greed and malice? These “bad” lines are all the more
disappointing because the “good” line, Madoc’s line, is still complex and
imperfect – there, we find characters who wrestle with knowing the right thing
to do, or, knowing it, struggle to summon the courage to do it. They get nuance, but the bad lines
don’t. It’s not something I really
noticed reading the book as a kid, but it stands out to me now, and I think
having even just one character from a bad line who rejects those traits would
have gone a long way toward showing that we’re influenced by those who came before us, not defined by them.
Warnings
Scary
moments for kids, violence, and strong thematic elements.
No comments:
Post a Comment