A Wrinkle in Time

Years ago, kid-me loved this book. Adult-me, on the other hand, isn’t feeling the love. I think this book really speaks to people like Meg—young, slightly awkward, unsure of themselves. It affirms that they might grow into wonderful adults, even if they don’t feel wonderful as adolescents. However, as an adult, I simply feel judged. The adults in the story aren’t terribly realistic: the mom, in particular, is such a wonderful person because she’s extremely beautiful, young, poised, in control, dignified, brilliant, professional, and scientific. Kid-me was uncertain of things, but seeing as how I didn’t quite turn out to be a physicist-with-flawless-skin-and-a-genius-husband-and-four-kids, adult-me feels like a letdown. So show more yes, there’s an empowering message, but there are also impossible standards. For what it’s worth, I didn’t particularly like the mother. She is admired for not showing her emotions in front of her children, but she just comes off as distant and detached. And I was slightly bugged by the kitchen scene at the beginning: Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their mother all come down to the kitchen in the middle of the night for snacks. When the mom wants a sandwich, Charles Wallace prepares it for her. (He’s too young to be in school, so he’s, what? Four? Five at the most?) And the super-dignified, stoic mother somehow has no problem plopping herself down in the chair and letting him wait on her. I know this was supposed to show how capable and responsible the boy was (he spends most of his time taking care of his family), but it just makes the mom come off as lazy (with regard to the food) and inept (with regard to the family’s emotional well-being).

Some good points:
Once the journey really begins, the story gets a lot better. The characters are interesting and believable, and the sci-fi elements work really well. I won’t give anything away, but there is a legit sense of wonder, and then the tension builds, and the whole experience is remarkably well-crafted. It doesn’t fall into the YA trap of having the parents be really stupid so the teens can shine. Here, the parents are respected and wise—but they still can’t save Meg all the time. She has to save herself. I liked the friend Calvin very much, and I think general optimism and straightforwardness elevated every scene he was in. Some of the story’s didacticism got a little heavy-handed, and I don’t think that all of their lessons (such as the one on free will) were necessarily supported by the story. Even so, it was an inspiring story in many respects. Meg’s anger is believable, and her character’s growth is solid and fun to read. Finally, the religious elements in the story are very well-handled. The Bible quotes really fit well into the story, without being too preachy. The religious themes are incorporated smoothly into the sci-fi world, and they give the story its heart. Meg is fighting the darkness; a sort of evil shadow. And what are her words of encouragement? “And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” Beautiful.

Kid-me would have given this four or five stars. Grownup-me would give it three, except that the religious elements work so well in the story that I’m upping it a notch. :) Not as good as I remembered it, maybe, but still a wonderful adventure. show less

On the occasion of a major motion picture adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time 56 years after its publication, I decided to tesser through the fifth dimension back to 1962 to learn about the novel's apparent durability among middle-grade literati. What I discovered is a mid-generational artifact wedged right between the 60's feminist movement and McCarthy era preoccupations.
Meg is a twelve-year-old science nerd and bullied weirdo at school. However, at home she is the fulcrum of her weirdo science nerd family, including her unusual five-year-old brother, Charles Wallace, who hides his amazing intellectual gifts from other children. After Meg's father, a physicist, mysteriously vanishes during a top secret experiment, a show more trio of intergalactic ferry-like women - Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit - arrive offering to help find him. They lead Meg, Charles Wallace, and a teenage friend, Calvin, on a dangerous mission to rescue the father, and introduce the children to the Tesseract, a method of space travel that involves folding (or wrinkling) time. From a luminous spot in the cosmos, the children are shown Camazotz, a dark planet shrouded by a malevolent cloud called The Black Thing and inhabited by people whose minds are controlled by IT. The authoritarian IT, is a disfleshed, mechanical brain, imposing total social conformity among Camazotz population. IT also holds Meg's father prisoner. Meg and the other children are the only beings capable of traveling through The Black Thing to Camazotz, and risk being indoctrinated into ITs ethos of homogeneity. Through Meg's journey two major themes emerge, the indicated one, appointing a young girl as progressive protagonist and hero of individualism, the other a subtextual bulwark of anti-communist zealotry and prevailing conservative values.
Meg begins the story as a hesitater and social outcast among her peers. Because she does not fit it, she is considered stupid, (a missummation also applied to Charles Wallace). Although, the three missuses celebrate Meg's differentness and individual gifts, ultimately saving her family and the world from galactic evil is something she accomplishes alone. They provide the vehicle of the Tesseract, the mission, and the encouragement, but Meg's strongest tool is her inner ability to overcome self-doubt. That is the novel's timely, broad-minded wrinkle.
Within the same pages a second, less forward-looking theme lurks. The nebulous Black Thing is slowly encompassing planet Earth, as it has to completion the less resistant planet Camazotz, a name which happens to rhyme obliquely with communist. Citizens of Camazotz live in identical suburban houses, where all children play games in unison and parents fearfully obey an average routine. The Black Thing suppresses individuality itself, replacing its importance with the false bliss of social equality. Camazotzians are not starved, or deprived of civil rights. Sameness, civic efficiency and the provision of equal economic resources are depicted as worse deprivations. "[Meg] held on to her moment of revelation. Like and equal are two entirely different things." Children of Camazotz are bereft because they have been absorbed philosophically by IT. The literal brain IT takes over independent thought making a person not just part of IT but turning them into an IT, and IT takes over Charles Wallace's mind. Depriving Charles Wallace of self-determination is described as an act hate, so Meg resolves to give Charles Wallace what ITs vacuous equality cannot - love. That is, nonsectarian Christian love, which is moderately referenced throughout novel.
Besides Economic Liberalism and Christianity, there are other quaint ideological convictions touted. Intellectualism is a bogeyman as demonstrated when Charles Wallace, the most erudite of the children, falls into ITs mind control most easily because he has the arrogance to think he can defeat IT with logic alone. Meg's father admits to irresponsible scientific exploration of the Tesseract - "we're children playing with dynamite" - a reference to nuclear weapons. Also, L'Engle's composition has a formal, fairy tale cadence that was perhaps the culture of children's books in 1962 - a lot of dears and darlings and Faaathers.
On the whole, A Wrinkle In Time is a novel from which young people will still draw relevant positivity. It is a story about a girl possessing the ability to solve problems with interior powers even the immortal, interstellar traveling women do not have. Maybe its 1962 first-world triumphalism does not hold up, but the message of children, particularly female children, learning to respect themselves is enduring. show less

It has been years since I read A Wrinkle in Time and it still holds up well on re-reading it. I care about Meg and her fierce love of her family. Calvin is there, steady and rock-fast. And Charles Wallace is so well drawn, with his intellect and his love. As I read the book as an adult, this quotation caught my mind:

“You mean you’re comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Whatsit said. “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”

I do like the message there and the message in the book. While written for young adults, the book is worth visiting or revisiting as an adult.

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: Meg Murry's daddy left home unexpectedly and without saying goodbye. The adored parent left behind an adolescent daughter, three sons, and a beautiful and smart wife. Meg cannot make herself get used to his absence and can't even pretend that she's not hurt by the town's opinion that he ran off leaving her mother. This, plus braces, wildly curly hair, an intelligence far greater than her contemporaries', and glasses, isolate the girl with her even weirder little brother Charles Wallace against their normal brothers and the rest of the world.

In time-honored tradition, these misfits are actually being prepared to fight the ultimate battle of Good Versus Evil, no pressure on the children no no no, and show more save their Daddy, not like it's gettin' piled even higher oh no! One fine day, Meg and Charles Wallace are called to their destiny by Mrs Which, Mrs Who, and Mrs Whatsit, the eccentric old ladies who prove to be avatars of interdimensional good beings with the agenda of making the Universe safe for goodness and happiness again.

The children are joined by fellow misfit Calvin, a popular boy athlete in their town whose hidden depths have tormented him all his life, in the quest to make the evil entity, a disembodied brain called "IT," that slowly takes over planets and compels all life thereon to submit to being in a group mind, erasing individuality and leaching away happiness.

This is a YA novel, so all turns out well, with Mr. Murry coming home and the children being brought home all safe and sound.

My Review: But how they get home is very interesting: They travel via tesseract, a geometric figure that extends into a fifth dimension beyond spacetime. Mr. and Mrs. Murry have been researching this in their roles as scientists, and Mr. Murry has used the tesseract to get to the planet from which he's rescued. The Mrs Who/Which/Whatsit interdimensional beings use the tesseract to "tesser" or wrinkle the fabric of spacetime to get the children there as well.

Fascinating stuff for a Christian housewife to be writing about in 1960-1961! And make no mistake, the book is a very Christianity-infested Message about the perils of brains without hearts leading to Communistic group-think. Mrs. Murry, a capable scientist, stays home with the kiddos and makes dinner over Bunsen burners so she can keep working while she stays home to be a wife and mom. Ew.

And Meg, poor lamb, worries that she's not pretty enough because she needs braces and glasses and she's not all gorgeous like her mom is. Then Calvin, a popular boy and an athlete, shows hidden depths and falls for little Meg. So bells ring, doves coo, and hands are held, so all is well. Ew.

But it ain't Twilight, so I'm good with it. In fact, because I first read it before I was ten, I'm good with all of it. The stiff, unrealistic dialogue, the socially regressive and reprehensible messages, the religiosity...all get a benign half-smile and an indulgent wink.

Because sometimes you just need to know that someone out there believes that good CAN triumph over evil. show less

It's hard for me to be objective about this book. I've read A Wrinkle in Time more times than I can recall, but can't recall when I last read it - I suspect it was at least twenty years ago, meaning it's been far too long. I decided that Banned Books Week would be a good time to reacquaint myself with a novel that I have frequently listed among my all-time favorites, although I was a little nervous - would it still have a spot on that list after I finished it?

I needn't have worried. This is a novel that never gets old, but it seems that as I've gotten older, I've found more ways to appreciate it. The story of a fairly ordinary family - well, both parents are brilliant scientists, the eldest child's a misfit, and the youngest is more show more than a little unusual, but they're fairly ordinary aside from that - and a very out-of-the-ordinary adventure, A Wrinkle in Time incorporates elements of science fiction and fantasy and considers matters of philosophy and morality, and is written with appeal to readers of all ages. While this book won the Newbery Award, Madeleine L'Engle said that she didn't intentionally write it for children; at any rate, she certainly didn't write it down to children.

There are many things I have always loved about this book. Meg and Calvin are two of my favorite characters in any fiction, but I think I've grown fonder of Meg's parents - both Dr. Murrys - since I last saw them. Charles Wallace, however, strikes me as more enigmatic than I remembered; he's not exactly convincing as a five-year-old, but I'm pretty sure he's not supposed to be. Parents are imperfect and fallible, and children struggle to figure things out, but even under great stress and strain, the love and respect between family members can help hold things together.

In the Author's Introduction to this edition of A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle says that "In the Time novels, Meg...asks some big questions. Many of us ask these questions as we're growing up, but we tend to let them go because there's so much else to do. I write the books I do because I'm still asking the questions." It's handling those Big Questions that have made this book a modern classic - faith and reason, individuality and community, Good and Evil - and kept it a fixture on the banned/challenged books lists. However, one thing that's never struck me as being in question - in this novel or in others by the author - is that religious belief and scientific thought can not only coexist, they can inform and reinforce one another.

Revisiting A Wrinkle in Time put me in mind of another novel I've grown to love that also considers the Big Questions and the relationship between science and spirituality, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. Seeing the commonalities between them may have made me love A Wrinkle in Time even more. show less

I was actually on another book cataloguing site before coming here. I was looking for a site to write about books that wasn't Goodreads, and after I signed up I went to write my first review, which was for A Wrinkle In Time, after I had just gotten done reading it yesterday. I was confronted with a series of questions before the text box for my own commentary, one of them being "Were the character likeable?" For THIS book, no less. I was so offended that I went to find another cataloguing site and came here. It wasn't offensive to me just because the question is so reductive and an indication of how booktok and twitter discourse files down what's enjoyable about literature, even genre lit, to sanded down nubs that can fit into an show more algorithm. No, in this case, it goes against one of the main points of the book.

Are the characters in A Wrinkle In Time likeable? What a question when you want to talk about...well, most of the characters, but especially a character like Margaret Murry. My God. Where do I even start?

How about this: Meg and Charles Wallace are neurodivergent siblings traveling in wildly opposite directions, at least mentally. Reading this as an adult now in the 2020s, it's obvious that Charles Wallace can be read, maybe even intentionally, as autistic, in addition to whatever psychic powers are going on with him. Maybe that read is reductive, but I can't help but take that into consideration with the entire thesis of the book, the fact that L'engle's version of hell is one of mental conformity and bureaucracy, and that the idea of people who fight for the Light aren't only people like Jesus, but artists and thinkers and inventors who think differently. Like and Equal are not the same thing. If we really consider this and the fact that autism is a different way of thinking, this book may have been the best way of promoting this idea at the time it was published, even if Charles Wallace being a little professor is a little dated or on the nose. But if we need to consider this as a theme regarding Charles, we absolutely have to take that into consideration for Meg.

Meg has ADHD. This was crystal clear to me when I first read the book, and, in my opinion, wasn't made all that clear in the movie. Sure, the book never says that Meg or Charles have ADHD or autism, but it's all in the actions and traits. Meg is smart but does terribly in a structured setting like school, or with subjects that don't really interest her. She has a pervasive fear of being a weird freak and has fully internalized that she's stupid. Even with her best subject, math, she's constantly dinged by taking the shortcuts she's used to instead of doing things the Proper Way. She learns best when it's framed as play. She gets into fights, she's stubborn, she has a hair trigger temper, and she can't help but be direct and overly sensitive and show her emotions constantly. She has a persecution complex that she needs to learn to control and is stuck in a negative mental space through most of the story. She's in high school, but is constantly leaning on Charles Wallace, who is five, or Calvin, who is another vaguely neurodiverse person much better at masking than her and that she just met, or her father, who she has to learn is just another fallible human and not an omnipotent savior.

Is Meg a likeable character? Gee, I dunno. Not really, and this is because Meg doesn't even like herself. That's the whole story, where Meg has to learn that others love her, and that the way her mind works, too, is critical to fighting against the Dark. Even if it doesn't make you into a little professor. Even if it makes you seem like a perpetual child. That's okay. There's still love for you, and love you can give to the world. A brain like yours can make a stranger feel completely at home and still deserves to be cherished.

Meg was unlikable and I desperately needed her when I was younger. Maybe I would have felt like her depiction was a little too close to home, but A Wrinkle in Time is one of those books that's a breeze to read through, and yet you can't stop mulling it over in your head, turning the imagery over again and again. It's comforting that an openly Christian writer wrote this love letter to kids that was so open and freeing regarding freedom of thought and how uniqueness should be cherished. The explanation of free will, framing it as a sonnet, was well done and something I'll be thinking about for a long time. I'll look at the other novels soon, but I usually space out going through a series to refresh my palette. show less

I didn't purchase this book, I won it...however, I would have bought it eventually. But I didn't have to, so woo-hoo for me! Now, to the review:

I enjoyed this book quite a bit! Being that it was first published about 50 years ago, I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was hooked from, "It was a dark and stormy night."

The story is centered around Meg and Charles who (along with their friend, Calvin) are looking for their father. The kids are helped by an amazing cast of characters (including Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Aunt Beast), some of whom can actually morph into other creatures. Evidently, dad has successfully traveled through time and space and is trapped somewhere far, far away by a force show more from which he cannot escape - a force which, it seems, can hijack your mind and alter your sense of reality. Meg is the older sister to Charles - who has special, and perhaps unnerving, gifts. "Ordinary" Meg seems to feel inferior because of this and sometimes doubts herself. These gifts Charles has may put him in danger on their quest to reclaim their father, however. Can Meg save him? Can she save them both? You will have to read it to find out because I am not going to tell you. Heheheh.

There were several allusions made to biblical texts and principles throughout the book. I have no problem with this - I read the Bible. It's the only book I read every day. I did have a little issue with the author equating Jesus with famous, dead philosophers, scientists, composers - great men, but men nonetheless. If you are a Christian (as I am), you might take issue with this as well - as if the author is suggesting that Christ was not divine. I've read that Madeleine L'Engle was a Christian, so I wonder if this was actually the intention. However, aside from this one thing, I enjoyed the book enough to give it four stars. show less