A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: Madeleine L'Engle is one of my favorite writers. I devoured her books as a teenager and into my 20s, both her fiction and non-fiction work. A Wrinkle in Time was never one of my favorites (That would be a Ring of Endless Light and An Acceptable Time), but I think that's mostly because it was the most challenging for me to read. It was mind-bending in a way I wasn't used to, blending science and beauty and faith all in one. Even though I still don't fully understand it even now, I can appreciate it's beauty and simplicity more at this age than I personally could as a child.

Meg is a wonderful sort of heroine to look up to - she never pretends to be anyone but herself. As her mom mentions, "You're much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren't." I love that the one of the gifts given to her is her faults. It challenges us to look at every aspect of ourselves as a positive, as well - you can be stubborn or tenacious, it's all a matter of perspective. Of course, Meg does hold on to her anger for a while when they are trying to figure out how to rescue Charles Wallace, but I think that is mostly due to her overwhelming fear. Meg assumed that when they found her father, he'd have all the solutions, because he'd always HAD all the solutions. Instead, like every human, he doesn't know everything, and he can't do everything himself. Mr. Murray is fallible, and ends up having to rely on his daughter to do the life-saving, which was challenging for him, as well. Once Meg figured out that she had to embrace her fear and move past it, she was able to let go of her anger and resentment, and do what must be done to save Charles Wallace.

Calvin is different from Meg in a lot of ways, but especially in his ability to thrive in any environment. In many ways, though, Calvin and Meg were the same - they never felt liked they truly belonged anywhere, neither in their families nor in society as a whole. When Calvin met the Murrays, it's like he found a whole new world, one that he could only have dreamed of. Meg seemed shocked when he said, "There hasn't been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to," and it seemed to open her eyes a bit to how great her family was, despite it's drawbacks. This was especially evident when Meg insisted the Happy Medium show them Calvin's mother before their own, and we witness first hand the sadness and violence that is his normal, his homelife.

Charles Wallace is a character I still don't full understand. He's a precocious, extremely intellectual child, with a vast amount of brain power and understand for anyone, let alone a 5 year old. He almost seems more alien than the actual aliens we meet in this book. Are there really kids like this out there? Or do I need to suspend my disbelief a little more? Irregardless of my understand of Charles Wallace, I enjoyed that it was his pride that allowed him to be trapped by IT, despite the fact that he was warned against such an occurrence, and that it was Meg's love and connect to him that allowed him to be saved.

Of course, the greatest power in this book was Love, and that's a concept that will always be applicable to our lives. The evil darkness that we are fighting is hatred, murder, death, conformity, and so on.The dark power seems to think (or maybe just uses the rationale) that life is better under their control, because no one suffers or is unhappy. But I think we can see pretty plainly how the people of Camazotz were suffering - children being tortured, everyone living in fear of reprogramming, neighbor spying upon neighbor. Plus, even if none of those people were unhappy, even if they were truly brainwashed, as Meg says, "Maybe if you aren't unhappy sometimes, you don't know how to be happy." Our human fighters against this darkness are people of the light - not just religious light like Jesus, but also artists, scientists, humanitarians.

If you take nothing else from this book, I would hope you'd remember this: Love people. Be yourself. Don't be afraid to be afraid. Do what is right.

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