A Wrinkle in Time is one of those young adult books I
somehow never managed to read when I met the age range. Last year however, the Library of America
published The Wrinkle in Time Quartet, the first of two volumes of Madeleine L’Engle’s
works intermingling science fiction and theology. As a not-so-young adult, I’ve now done my
remedial reading of these works.
The Quartet features the Murray family: a Dad and Mom who
are both scientists, a daughter named Meg, twin boys named Dennys and Sandy,
and a youngest son named Charles Wallace (two names, always) who holds special
powers of intelligence beyond human, and telepathic abilities.
The first book, A
Wrinkle in Time, 152 pages, involves space travel. The father, Dr. Murray, has learned how to “tesseract”
(years ahead of Star Trek and worm holes) to another planet and galaxy. On his adventure, Dr. Murray has discovered a
universe of good and evil, in endless battle between El (God) and It (the Devil). Dr. Murray has been gone on his adventure for
four years and feared captured. No one
knows where. Enter into the story three
iconic good “witches” for lack of a better term – Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and
Mrs. Which. They will assist Meg and
Charles Wallace, and a teen neighbor named Calvin, in finding and bringing back
Dr. Murray.
While A Wrinkle in Time is the most famous and best read of
the quartet, the other installments in the series are also worth a read: A Wind in the Door, 159 pages published in
1973; A Swiftly Tilting Planet, 202 pages published in 1978; and perhaps the
most controversial one, Many Waters, 233 pages, published in 1986, about the
twins accidentally traveling back in time to just before the biblical flood.
Movies, and a television series, have been made of A Wrinkle
in Time, the most recent of which was a Disney production that was universally (and deservedly) panned by critics -- perhaps because the "Disney treatment" was just too much, or perhaps because the science the story required was too
complex for a general audience. L’Engle
is quoted in Wikipedia explaining why young adults are better able to grasp the
science in her work, “the child will come to it with an open mind, whereas many
adults come closed to an open book.”
Recommendation:
Definitely skip the movie; but read the books, in their chronological
order.
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