I decided to reread A Wrinkle in Time again because I am also going to reread the remainder of the Murry/O'Keefe series and I am one of those people who needs to begin at the beginning. I don't have anything to add to this review, except that I remain in awe of Madeleine L'Engle's extraordinary humanity. She was a remarkable woman, and I'm not sure that we deserved her.

 

Rereading the book inspired me to rewatch the movie, as well. Maybe this weekend!

 

Review from 3/24/18:

 

I decided to reread after seeing the new Ava DuVernay adaptation with my daughter. I read the book as a child of the 1970's - probably a bit more than decade or so after the initial 1963 publication, around 1977, when I was 11. I fell in love with the book then, seeing much of myself in Meg Murry, the ordinary, often grumpy, young woman. I revisited L'Engle in 2015, and found that, while some of her books had not held up with reread, many of them did. 

 

This book is part of my personal canon, one of the books that shaped my childhood and had a part in making me who I am today.

A Wrinkle in Time is a bit of a period piece, to be sure. Girls today are stronger, more self-aware, more cognizant of the pressures of an often sexist society, and more willing to buck convention in order to be authentic to themselves. Not all girls, of course, but some girls. Our culture, today, at least struggles to understand these pressures and to acknowledge that they exist, even if we often fail to genuinely confront them.

The DuVernay adaptation succeeds in a way that, after reading alot of L'Engle, and a fair amount about L'Engle, I believe that she would appreciate. Casting Meg Murry as a biracial young woman was an inspired decision, the relocation of the plot to a more diverse location in California, the addition of Charles Wallace as an adopted child, to me really work to illuminate some of the themes that L'Engle was writing about - alienation and dangers of extreme social conformity in particular. 

There are parts of the book that are quite different from the movie, of course. In the book, the Murry's have two additional children, a set of male twins who are effortlessly socially competent. They are capable of fulfilling society's expectations with little work. Meg, on the other hand, is prickly, defensive, occasionally angry, and fearsomely intelligent - all things which 1963 America couldn't really cope with in girls. Heck, we still struggle with girls who are prickly, defensive, occasionally angry and fearsomely intelligent. 

A Wrinkle in Time shines light into dark places. For that alone, it's worth reading.

It's been a while, but I am back! I finally finished the Time Quintet. It took me a while but I finally did it! I've had a lot of issues with this series and for that, I did not feel motivated to finish this last book. However, I am here today with my review of An Acceptable Time. Let's get this show on the road!

 

In this book, we follow Meg and Calvin's daughter named Polly. She moved in with her grandparents to get a better education with them when she discovered a time portal to the past. Intrigued, she makes it her personal mission to find out more about her connection to the people living 3000 years in the past and what her friend from the present, a sick boy named Zachary, has to do with it all. 

 

Alright. The actual premise of this book is rather interesting. Much like a lot of L'Engle's books are. I enjoyed learning about the Ogam stones and the language spoken by the People of the Wind. I also really like the culture surrounding them as a group of people living in the past. Now, with that comes the issue of race. L'Engle has a problem with referring to Native Americans as "Indians" or as "savages" and that never sat right with me. She did that as well in previous books. I know some will make the excuse that it "was a different time" and, yes, I understand that. However, I don't have to agree nor like nor excuse that type of language when it comes to addressing a different group of people. It's racist. Plain and simple.

 

Another problem I had with this book is Zachary. Oh... my... word... I do not like his abusive, manipulative, gaslighting, misogynistic tendencies. I do not like him as a person. The way he treated Polly was downright awful. And Polly is actually a great character! A much better improvement over her mother, Meg. The only problem I had with Polly was with how she let Zachary treat her as a lesser person. Why? Because he's sick? That's no excuse! He claimed to love her. He claimed to want to be with her. But the first chance he gets, he's willing to give her up to be sacrificed. He questioned her loyalty to him every chance he got. He tried to make her feel guilty for not wanting to be with him because he was "dying." Look, I know he's sick and that sucks, but Polly doesn't owe him anything. She doesn't have to be in a relationship with him just because he's ill. That's not a good enough reason to be in a relationship. There's also the fact that the moment they went back in time, he saw another girl, and right away was "interested" in her. So much for caring about Polly. He's a coward who abuses women and I think he's trash. Zachary was my main problem with this entire book and because he is one of the central characters in the book, he's there for quite a bit of it. Which is a downer.

 

Another of my main problems was with Polly's grandparents, Alex and Kate Murray. They've been in the previous books. They have been surrounded by weird time loops and portals for years now. They are not strangers when it comes to the bizarre existence of different time periods suddenly popping up. But for some reason they had a hard time believing that going back 3000 years was actually possible! What!? How!? How can someone who created the bloody tesseract not believe that one of his closest friend and his grandchild were able to travel through time! They blamed the Bishop that he was insane and putting stories into their granddaughter's head! How inconsistent to the previous books can you get? It was obnoxious and unbelievable for the history of the characters that was created in the previous books.

 

At this point, you know I have issues with this book series. I started off reading these books because the movie was coming out and I really wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. The first book started off well. It wasn't perfect but I liked it well enough to continue reading the rest of the series... and it just went downhill from there. It really is a "product of its time" and it definitely needs to be read with a very critical eye. It has its interesting ideas, but the way L'Engle handles sensitive issues is very poor. I do think it's worth reading at least once through so that way you know the story. However, this is not a series that I will ever be revisiting. There are plenty of other books out there. Better books for children and adults alike that should be read over this. This series is a favorite for many people and that's great. But, for me, I'm going to have to skip out on the rest of the books L'Engle has written for the series after this fifth one. I read the main quintet and that's good enough for me.

 

Like I said, I think you should read this series at least once. Just for those interesting ideas. Other than that, read it with a critical eye. And if your child is reading it, let your child know that a lot of the language used to describe anyone who is not white, is NOT the proper way to described them. Be involved and I think the reading experience will go well. Hopefully, you end up enjoying the time theories if nothing else. Those, I think, are worth exploring at least.

You can't go home again

I still remember watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the theater as a kid. The nearest movie theater was an hour’s drive from our little town in the Deep Midwest, so we didn’t get to go more than a few times a year. I’d been begging my parents to take us to see E.T. for weeks when they finally surprised me for my 8th birthday. I was enchanted from the start, so wrapped up in the story by the time Eliot said goodbye to E.T. that I cried all the way home. When they re-released the movie in theaters 20 years later in 2002, I was so excited to watch it again that I left work early on a Friday just to be able to see an earlier showing. But watching it as an adult, something strange happened: the magic was gone. Instead of being charmed, I was turned off by Spielberg’s emotional manipulation and left the theater angry and disappointed, wishing I hadn’t ruined one of my favorite childhood memories.

I have a similar relationship with A Wrinkle in Time. I still remember reading it for the first time not long after watching E.T. Our family had supper one evening at the neighboring farm of one of our church’s elders, and afterwards, my sister and I went downstairs to the family room while the adults talked church upstairs. I found this book on the shelf and sat on the couch reading while my sister pouted because I wouldn’t play cards with her. I feel asleep with the book still in my hand, so the elder’s wife sent it home with my mom so I could finish it. 

I felt a strong connection with the two main characters: morose, misunderstood Meg and precocious but reticent Charles Wallace. I loved trying to picture the magical and mysterious Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and especially Mrs. Which. I felt so smart when I understood the idea of tessering as illustrated with the ant and the piece of string. I despaired when things looked grim for Meg and Charles Wallace, and I cheered when they all worked together to defeat the Black Thing. 

Our church was part of the push in the late 70’s/early 80’s towards the new evangelical fundamentalism inspired by the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and the influence of the Moral Majority, and I’d been so indoctrinated at that point that the religious elements of this book didn’t make much of an impression on me. It wasn’t until I reread it last week that I realized just how integral those elements were to the story, and I have to admit that I found it really upsetting. 

Much like the other propaganda we were fed at church, L’Engle gets downright Orwellian when she declares religion the path to freedom and atheism the path to conformity and authoritarianism. Since this was written in the 1960’s, I can easily imagine that she used the anti-religious Soviet regime as her model for the sinister CENTRAL Central Intelligence on Camazotz. And of course, Meg and the others can only beat the Black Thing not with their limited human understanding of science but instead by putting their complete faith in what they cannot see.

For me, the book is a perfect representation of fundamentalist religion, though probably not in the way L’Engle intended: the story is trite, patriarchal, self-referential, and can’t stand up to scrutiny once its own circular logic is removed. I don’t begrudge anyone else their enjoyment of this book, but it took me a lot of years to escape from beneath the weight of my religious upbringing, and I wish I hadn’t reopened that wound by rereading this book.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time.)

You can't go home again

I still remember watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the theater as a kid. The nearest movie theater was an hour’s drive from our little town in the Deep Midwest, so we didn’t get to go more than a few times a year. I’d been begging my parents to take us to see E.T. for weeks when they finally surprised me for my 8th birthday. I was enchanted from the start, so wrapped up in the story by the time Eliot said goodbye to E.T. that I cried all the way home. When they re-released the movie in theaters 20 years later in 2002, I was so excited to watch it again that I left work early on a Friday just to be able to see an earlier showing. But watching it as an adult, something strange happened: the magic was gone. Instead of being charmed, I was turned off by Spielberg’s emotional manipulation and left the theater angry and disappointed, wishing I hadn’t ruined one of my favorite childhood memories.

I have a similar relationship with A Wrinkle in Time. I still remember reading it for the first time not long after watching E.T. Our family had supper one evening at the neighboring farm of one of our church’s elders, and afterwards, my sister and I went downstairs to the family room while the adults talked church upstairs. I found this book on the shelf and sat on the couch reading while my sister pouted because I wouldn’t play cards with her. I feel asleep with the book still in my hand, so the elder’s wife sent it home with my mom so I could finish it. 

I felt a strong connection with the two main characters: morose, misunderstood Meg and precocious but reticent Charles Wallace. I loved trying to picture the magical and mysterious Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and especially Mrs. Which. I felt so smart when I understood the idea of tessering as illustrated with the ant and the piece of string. I despaired when things looked grim for Meg and Charles Wallace, and I cheered when they all worked together to defeat the Black Thing. 

Our church was part of the push in the late 70’s/early 80’s towards the new evangelical fundamentalism inspired by the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and the influence of the Moral Majority, and I’d been so indoctrinated at that point that the religious elements of this book didn’t make much of an impression on me. It wasn’t until I reread it last week that I realized just how integral those elements were to the story, and I have to admit that I found it really upsetting. 

Much like the other propaganda we were fed at church, L’Engle gets downright Orwellian when she declares religion the path to freedom and atheism the path to conformity and authoritarianism. Since this was written in the 1960’s, I can easily imagine that she used the anti-religious Soviet regime as her model for the sinister CENTRAL Central Intelligence on Camazotz. And of course, Meg and the others can only beat the Black Thing not with their limited human understanding of science but instead by putting their complete faith in what they cannot see.

For me, the book is a perfect representation of fundamentalist religion, though probably not in the way L’Engle intended: the story is trite, patriarchal, self-referential, and can’t stand up to scrutiny once its own circular logic is removed. I don’t begrudge anyone else their enjoyment of this book, but it took me a lot of years to escape from beneath the weight of my religious upbringing, and I wish I hadn’t reopened that wound by rereading this book.

(This review was originally posted as part of Cannonball Read 10: Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time.)

Last weekend, the movie adaptation for A Wrinkle in Time was released in theaters here in America. And after hearing about the great representation it contained, I wanted to go see it and support the film on opening weekend. However, I am a person who loves to read the book first before watching the film. So I woke up early on the morning of Friday March 9, 2018 and read the first book in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet before I left to watch the movie later that day. It was quite the experience, let me tell you that.

 

The book follows the main character, Meg, who clearly has a lot of self-esteem issues. She sees herself as plain and boring and stupid. She also tends to have a real bad attitude problem. As the story progresses, she learns that her missing father is lost through various dimensions and it's up to her, her younger brother Charles Wallace, and a school friend named Calvin to go along with three "heavenly" beings to rescue him. 

 

The story itself is interesting enough. I really like the imagination L'Engle created throughout her books. She made it scientific, whimsical, and bizarre. I was fascinated with the explanations about how the "wrinkles" work and what it means when it does. The plot was exciting and the true identity of "IT" was horrifying to say the least. I really enjoyed reading about how the science works in this world.

 

What I didn't enjoy as much was her characters. Let's start with Meg. I understand she is going through her adolescent years and having her father missing really messed with her self-esteem issues, but she was infuriating! She complained left and right, she was mean for no real reason other than because she had a short temper, and she was so immature when she finally found her father that she blamed HIM for all the "bad" things that happened to her and her brother. I know she's young but that's no excuse to be a complete jerk to the people who are trying to help you. That care about you. I'm so glad "movie" Meg is a lot more tolerable. (More on this later.)

 

Calvin is another character that I couldn't stand in the book. He shows up out of no where, insults Meg, and can be a snob at times. And we're supposed to believe that Meg finds him attractive so it's okay he treats her like crap? Really? Oh, not to mention it was because a boy paid attention to her so she started to feel better about herself. Give me a break. He was a jerk and I didn't like him one bit. Once again, so glad "movie" Calvin is not like that. (More on this later.)

 

Last character I want to talk about is Charles Wallace. He's basically one of the few characters from the book I actually liked. He has this "other worldly" presence about him. He knows more than is being told and I found him so fascinating. I love the intelligence he contained. I wanted to learn more about him! I guess I have to keep reading the series in order to get that information. X3 His movie version was good, but he came off more as a child than some "other being." It's not a bad rendition of the character. Just a different one.

 

Basically, this is one of those cases where the movie, in my opinion, is better than the book. I know! Blasphemy! But that's just how I feel. The book leaves a lot to be desired. I just wasn't attached to any of them by the end of it. Whereas the movie, I love how the characters were portrayed in the movie. Meg is so complex. She has self-doubt and doesn't think highly of herself, but she's not mean for no reason, she's not a hateful person like she is in the book. She is compassionate and understanding and she learns and grows throughout her adventures. I loved her relationship with her brother and how far she was willing to go for him. I love that she is a mix child in the movie (in the book, she's white) and how normal it is to have a family like this. I love that.

 

I also much more prefer Calvin in the movie than the book. In the movie, he's kind and charming. He treats Meg with respect. He never talks down to her and he never insults her. He's there to support her and be her friend. AND he's not the "cure-all" for all of Meg's problems. She still needs to deal with her own demons. It's just nice that she has a friend to support her whilst she does so.

 

Oh! And the "heavenly" beings of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which were so much more enjoyable in the movie than the book. Especially Mrs. Which. Mrs. Which in the book kinda shows up, tells the kids what to do, then leaves again. In the movie, she's a sort of support to Meg. She helps her, or tries to, see the beauty of who she is and I thought that was a great message to show to kids. 

 

I am in love with the beauty of this film on multiple levels.

 

The one thing I did not really like about the film was the lack of plot. My favorite thing about the book was how eerie Camazotz was and what went on there. Not to mention how horrifying IT was. But the movie didn't focus on it. It focus on the message of having confidence in yourself, about the love of a family, and doing the right thing no matter what. All those are great messages and I don't dislike the movie for that, I just wanted to see a little more of what made the book interesting for me.

 

All-in-all, I think you should read the book. It's pretty interesting when it comes to the science portion and when they get to Camazotz. However, the book can get a bit... preachy so keep that in mind when reading it. But once you do read it, definitely go see the movie. It's a beautifully stunning, well-told story about family and love. Kids NEED to see this movie. It's absolutely wonderful.