A Wind in the Door (1973)

Even though I know it’s not in the same league as A Wrinkle in Time or A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I still have a soft spot for A Wind in the Door.  It might be the most out-there of the time quartet, and for a series whose first book features the likes of Mrs. Whatsit, that’s saying something.  There’s a lot of neat stuff here, even if it doesn’t quite come together as well as it should.

Meg is worried about her little brother Charles Wallace.  At first, she thinks it’s just the awfulness of him being a super-genius 1^st grader in a town full of people who are suspicious of anyone different, but it’s more than that.  There’s something wrong with Charles Wallace, deep within his cells – there’s something wrong with the universe, in fact, at both the macro- and microscopic levels.  With the aid of a mysterious otherworldly “Teacher” and an awesomely-monstrous-looking cherubim, Meg and Calvin fight to save Charles Wallace from the forces that would destroy and erase.

In a way, this book is a bridge between A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  It gets a lot more into kything, the type of deep soul telepathy that Meg and Charles Wallace have been doing unconsciously, and brings it forth as a conscious practice, which factors big into A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  I like the kything scenes between Meg and Proginoskes, and it all pays off well when our heroes are in Yadah, where everything is conducted through kything.  The book also introduces the Echthroi, who, again, are a big deal in A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  Their MO between the two books seems a little different, and on the whole, I’d say they’re freakier and more menacing here.  The whole concept of X-ing is really eerie, and that first scene with the false Mr. Jenkins seriously wigged me out when I was a kid.

There are a lot of interesting bits here:  the idea of farandolae “living” within a mitochondrion, whose human host is like a galaxy to them; Proginoskes and his whole slightly imperious but genuinely caring vibe; Meg toiling to discover the real Mr. Jenkins.  However, it’s undoubtedly messier than A Wrinkle in Time, and I think it succeeds with overarching themes and individual details more so than with a cohesive plot.  It’s weird – even though there are many different threads to pull at in A Wrinkle in Time, the book never really feels disjointed or overly busy to me, but it doesn’t work quite as well here.

It doesn’t help that Charles Wallace, while very important to the story, doesn’t have a very big role within it.  Little-boy Charles Wallace is such a knockout of a character, and this book sidelines him for much of the time.  We get a little of him being inscrutable and amazing, like with the “drove of dragons” in the first chapter, but not nearly as much as I’d like.  Not that I don’t love Meg and Calvin, because I really do; however, it’s the dynamic between the three of them that I love best of all.

Warnings

Scary moments for kids, sci-fi/fantasy violence, and thematic elements.