5 Stars for A Wrinkle in Time (audiobook) by Madeleine L’Engle read by Hope Davis.

I found this book on a list a while back and I added it. I recognized the title but I didn’t know anything about the book. So I gave it a try. The story is wonderful, it seems to be in the tradition of Alice in Wonderland. It hits that sweet spot of YA story that adults can really appreciate. In this edition the author and others talk about how hard it was to get this book published and how the publishers couldn’t figure out how to categorize it. I think the problem of how to categorize it is over now. It just belongs on the list that I found it on, that was a list of best books of all time.

After coming to this book with high expectations, I must say I was disappointed. Since it is hailed as something of a children's classic, I expected something more than the rather insipid fare presented. Madeline L'Engle seems to have set out to write a children's fantasy with a lot of Hard SF concepts, but have ended up with a familiar "Good-versus-Evil" story in the Christian tradition, cluttered with a lot of half-cooked scientific concepts which are never more than cursorily explained.

For example, the key concept, the "tesseract", is explained as “the fifth dimension”. The author says, through the character of Mrs. Whatsit:

"Well, the fifth dimension’s a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go through the long way around. In other words, to put into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points."

Well, she is wrong on many counts here.

The tesseract is actually a hypothetical figure of the mathematical fourth dimension, whose “faces” consist of three dimensional cubes, the same way the faces of a normal cube consist of squares. In fact, if you square a square, you get a cube: if you square a cube in the fourth dimension, you get a tesseract. (Interestingly enough, this point is well captured by L’Engle: only, she sees the fourth dimension as time. This is Einstein’s concept, and totally independent of the mathematical fourth dimension.)

[To be fair, I have to add that although the author misses base totally with the basic concept, I found the title of the book is a nice way to describe the concept of a wormhole: however, apart from using this methodology to keep on jumping from one planet to another, this interesting topic is not developed further.]

The parents of the protagonist, Meg, are scientists. Meg is a typical “difficult” child-bad at academics and rebellious at school, but brilliant. Her parents, being scientists, can see beyond outer appearances, so they are tolerant of her faults: her teachers and society less so. When the story begins, Meg’s father is missing, ostensibly on a secret mission for the government. But all the neighbours think that he has gone off with another woman, and the snide remarks she keeps on hearing do nothing to improve Meg’s already belligerent personality. The only person who understands her is kid brother Charles Wallace, a boy who is officially a moron but endowed with psychic powers in reality.

It is into this situation, on a stormy night, that Mrs. Whatsit walks in. She, with her companions Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which (nice play on words here: Mrs. Who wears glasses and quotes from classics reminds one of a wise owl, and Mrs. Which flies on a broom and keeps on appearing and disappearing, as if by magic) are fighting against the “Darkness”, which Meg’s dad is also fighting. They whisk away Meg, Charles and neighbourhood kid Calvin across many universes and dimensions. It seems that the kids have been destined to fight the Darkness: which they do on the frightening planet Camazotz, and in true fairy tale tradition, initially lose and then win.

And that’s the story in a nutshell.

As fantasies go, this is pretty standard fare, considering the time in which it was written. However, the novelist must be commended for bringing the whole good-versus-evil battle into a wider canvas than the traditional Christian one: Einstein, Gandhi, Buddha, Da Vinci etc. are also seen as warriors of the Light along with Jesus, and the Darkness is never identified with the concept of Sin or the Devil. In fact, the description of Camazotz with its mindless inhabitants and their rigid adherence to discipline is positively chilling in its resemblance to a totalitarian regime (the nonconformist child being forced to toss the ball again and again, crying with pain at each practice… brrr!).

But ultimately, the novel fails to deliver. Meg’s father’s experimental project ends up as just a plot device. The author seemed to have started out with a lot of ideas at the outset, but seems have lost track of them as the novel progressed: in the end, only the rescue of Meg’s father and his reunion with the family is given any focus. The whole background story remains extremely inchoate. And as a fearless female protagonist, Meg does precious little except at the very end.

Still, I give the novel three stars for introducing a lot of interesting concepts to its young audience. In its time, it must have "ignited a lot of minds" (to borrow a phrase from our former President, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam) and encouraged them to travel along the adventurous trail of scientific discovery.

This one is weird and interesting, and incredibly creative. I love how unique L'Engle's mind is and that it was her children than pushed her to get it published. However, no matter how many times I have read it over the years, I can't quite fall in love with it.

I recognize its value as a classic shaping of minds and in literacy in general.

It is always just a solid 3 stars for me.

Read this as part of 2018 Ultimate Reading Challenge, Category: "A book by an author you haven’t read before".

Buddy Read with Nameeta.

This book has won many awards and is considered one of a kind when it was published in 1962. This has a unique mix of fantasy and science fiction still retaining a spiritual undertone to it. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it? But the fact is even though there is all this potential in the story it falls short of 'all it could have been'.

The story is from the perspective of Meg whose parents are scientist and her father has been missing from past couple of years. Now this has a decent start but to really like a book you need to connect to its characters. I found Meg really really irritating. There were times when she threw a hissy fit and all I wanted to do was smack her in the face. Not a very noble thought but that's the reaction she got from me most of the times.

Apart from that I felt all the other characters are two dimensional. There was no character development whatsoever....

There is talk of 5th dimension and I really liked the concept. But I wanted more on this and less on the other nonsensical things going on and overall I just felt very unsatisfied.

There are beings from other galaxies and this part was most interesting. Atleast for me this was one saving grace which did not make it a 1 star read.

The ending is very anti-climatic. We are building towards this epic ending and then it ends just like that. I was like...


All I can say is this book could have gone the other way for me if Meg was a more endearing character and the focus was the 5th dimension and other galaxies rather than Meg and her tantrums.

"Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: you're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself."

So What's It About?

It is a dark and stormy night when Meg first discovers that the ordinary world she knows is in fact infinitely more marvelous and dangerous. Three strange women bring her news that her physicist father, who mysteriously vanished, is in desperate need of her help against a foe of unimaginable evil. Her quest to save her father -and the rest of the world- is one that will take all of her courage and wits to survive.

What I Thought

I remember reading this book for the first time when I was about 10 or so and being struck with the impression that, while it was interesting, it wasn't necessarily especially enjoyable. 10 year old Charlotte and current Charlotte are in agreement on that front.
As far as interesting goes, I'm principally occupied with the book's equal regard for Christian themes and scientific thought.

Science and religion are often treated as though they are opposite ends of a spectrum and in my opinion A Wrinkle in Time demonstrates that the two can in fact thrive in co-existance. The book's overall battle of light vs. dark draws from Christian allegory and alludes to angels as well as Jesus's contribution to the fight against IT.

At the same time, the book is suffused with scientific reasoning- Meg comes from a family of scientists and it shows in the way she views the world. While the fight against IT requires the faith of religion it also requires the rationality of science, shown for instance in delicate act of tessering.

I also thought that it was very interesting that the first portion of the book emphasizes the children's desperation to find their father, and in a lesser book the achievement of that goal would herald an end to their problems. Instead, they realize that adults are fallible and must continue to rely on their own courage and ingenuity:

"She had found her father and he had not made everything all right."

In addition, it certainly cannot be said that L'Engle's imagination is lacking- A Wrinkle in Time sees Meg and the gang encounter a fascinating variety of bizarre alternate worlds and creatures who inhabit them. Ultimately, the sheer strangeness of it all is what I ended up appreciating the most about this book.

I wish that I could add Meg's journey to better self-esteem to the list of things that I enjoyed, but unfortunately I found it to be one of the book's more lacking elements. Her initially self-disparaging and negative attitude is compassionately and accurately realized, but I never truly felt that any organic internal growth occurred. One minute she is thinking of herself as utterly useless and then the next she has somehow magically achieved the kind of self-actualization that usually takes months of work to achieve.

My biggest complaint, however, lies in the fact that I never found any of the three main characters to be particularly enjoyable children to spend time with. Charles Wallace, in particular, irritates me to no end. He walks around talking like a pompous 50 year old man in a 5 year old's body while everyone acts like he is the most amazing and incredible child in the world:

Charles Wallace put his hands on his hips defiantly. “The spoken word is one of the triumphs of man,” he proclaimed, “and I intend to continue using it, particularly with people I don’t trust.”

I think my irritation with Charles Wallace comes down to my underlying frustration with one of the book's messages, which seems to be that there are "normal" people like Sandy and Dennys who are all very well and good, but the truly important ones are "special" people like Charles Wallace. These people are the ones who are truly deserving of your ultimate attention and respect. It rubs me the wrong way becauae it strikes me as needlessly smug and elitist, especially for a children's book.

How could this book never make my radar before now?!! If it were not for the upcoming movie, I do not think I would have sought the book out. It is unbelievable that such a profound piece of literature was never brought to my attention, especially when I was younger.

n  A Wrinkle in Timen is a simple and beautiful story of love, faith and strength woven into a tale of science and fantasy. There is no doubt that Madeleine L'Engle was deserving of receiving the Newberry Medal in 1963. Even by today's standards, it is phenomenal to have a school-aged girl as the primary character. Meg Murry's resilience and determination are truly commendable. She is a true warrior willing to protect her family and the life world she knows.

If you are in need of a story of unconditional love and joy, then consider reading or rereading this book. You will not be disappointed.

This is still a crazy book...
Meg and her brother Charles meet a stranger one night who tells them about a tesseract (wrinkle in time). Come to find out their father is trapped on a distant planet and together with a band of new friends they must embark on an epic journey to rescue him from the evil "IT" (and no, we are not talking Stephen King here). Can Meg find the courage inside her to save her father?
I read this book years ago in school and found it super strange and boring but I wanted to give it a reread as an adult to see what my thoughts would be.
This book starts off well but during the second half it starts to get a little boring and I found myself skimming through most of the way.
This is one wild book! The characters are a bit confusing and hard to follow. Also things seem to happen out of nowhere which is a bit confusing for the reader (whether young or older) and I also remember it being very confusing as a child. If I remember correctly there was actually a point where I just had no idea what was going on anymore in the book and I was completely lost.
This book is a classic though and I do respect it as such however, like many classics, it is a little difficult to enjoy to its full extent. Of course it could be the writing style, it could be the characters, or the crazy world that the author has imagine for us. It also may be simply because we've been so modernized (even in our reading) that books like this just don't seem to jive anymore.
Then again it could simply be that this book is not for everyone. Like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye I find this book along the same lines, a respected classic but just not for me.
I would recommend this book for the classic that it is. Definitely to younger readers but I don't think this book would be enjoyed as an adult as much as it would as a teenager or preteen.

"But why me?" asked Madeleine. "Do I have to do it?"

"You must," said Mrs Whatsit. "Your world is in grave danger. Very, very grave danger. You have to warn them."

"But I don't know how!" exclaimed Madeleine angrily. "What is this danger? How am I going to explain it? It's impossible!"

"Certum est quia impossibile est," said Mrs Who. "It is certain, because it is impossible. Latin. Tertullian."

"Wwe wwill hhelp yyou," interrupted Mrs Which. "Iff onlyy yyou ddidn't iinsist on uusing wwords..."

"You see!" said Madeleine. "You tell me I have to write a book, and you don't even know what words are! You're horrible! I hate you!" Tears filled her eyes.

"Now, now," murmured Mrs Whatsit. "It's much better than you think. The words are all there inside you already, you just have to find them. If you don't mind, my dear, I will just take a little look through your memory."

Suddenly, Madeleine had the strangest feeling. All the books she had ever read were lined up inside her mind like a huge library. And there was Mrs Whatsit, moving through the shelves with her, pulling down a book here and a book there...

"You see?" asked Mrs Whatsit after a time. "That was quite easy, wasn't it? I'm sure Out of the Silent Planet will be useful, and of course That Hideous Strength. Good old C.S. Lewis! And Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. We want that lovely dance of the stars, don't we? Then we'll take Charles Wallace out of Odd John, and I think some Robert Heinlein and just a little bit of Plato, and now all you have to do is put them together!"

A moment later, Madeleine found herself sitting in front of her typewriter. The words poured out of her, as she covered sheet after sheet. More quickly than she would have believed possible, she found there was a thick manuscript on the desk. Dazed and astonished, she picked it up and began to read through what she had written.

"But it's terrible!" she said, in bitter disappointment. "So sloppily constructed! Such a lack of feeling for the English language! And it doesn't even make sense! None of it sticks together!"

"Goddag, yxskaft," agreed Mrs Who. "Hello, ax-handle. Swedish. Saying indicating lack of coherence."

"You must have faith," said Mrs Whatsit serenely. "You may think it's terrible, but millions of children will love this book. They won't worry about the words. They will see the truth behind them."

"On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux," said Mrs Who. "You only see truly with the heart. What is important is invisible to the eyes. French. Saint-Exupéry."

"It won't work," muttered Madeleine. "I'll send it to the publisher if you like, but they'll just reject it. They'll say it's silly."

"Then send it to another publisher," said Mrs Whatsit. "And another, and another, until you succeed. Listen, Madeleine. The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Now do you understand?"

"No," said Madeleine uncertainly; but she found that her fingers, all by themselves, had taken an envelope, put the manuscript into it, and addressed it to a publishing house in the city.

"Ggood ggirl," said Mrs Which. "Nnow wwe hhave tto ggo. BBut wwe'll bbe bback."

“I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.”



This is one of the most outstanding books I ever read in my entire life. I can't believe it took me so long to pick it up. I am so glad this is a series, because just 200 pages of this is definitely not enough. This book is a cosmic dance of colour and poetry, a song made of angels and by angels, a psychedelic trip into imagination, humanity, and the mystery of God. The author hugs your whole self into a multicoloured blanket of words which tickle all your senses like a 5-star restaurant dinner. The only thought left in my mind after I finished reading it was "I just can't wait to read this again".



It starts off in such a simple, ordinary way: "It was a dark, stormy night", and then proceeds to catapult the reader into a plot so complex it just can't be described (no, really: I tried my best to describe what this book is about to my friends, but I just can't). The characters, the creatures, the incredibly rich imagination, made this read both incredibly whimsical and absolutely believable. Not to mention the lovable characters, the creepy enemies and the adorable protagonist. And the creatures... Oh, the creatures! I can't believe this is a children's book. But then again, so is Harry Potter!!

Anyway, why are you still here? Stop reading my silly review and pick up this book!!!!!!!!!!

I read this one a few years ago and just realized I never gave it a star review. I did read it when I wasn't always writing reviews, so here is a brief take on what I remember . . .

I had high hopes for this one because it is considered a classic. Many people read this one when they are in elementary/middle school and I remember back when I was that age hearing my fellow students singing its praises. A bit odd that I never tried it back then! When I finally got to it as an adult, those hopes I had built up were not lived up to.

Maybe if I had read it as a kid I would have felt different. But, to adult me it was just a bizarre and haphazard series of events - and not in a good way. I struggled to stay interested or even be able to tell what was going on. I do remember that since it is highly revered I fought my hardest to find something that I enjoyed about it.

You shouldn't have to fight to enjoy something if it is truly meant for you.

So, it is not one that I can recommend, but I am glad many love it and have fond memories of it.

What can I say about a book that is hailed as one of the greatest pieces of fiction of all time? Nothing. I really can't. I will not disrespect this book by saying anything negative about it. I think my opinions about this book may have changed over the years, but that by no means makes this a poor read. Instead of being critical about the book, I am going to celebrate it with some of my favorite quotes from this book:

“Like and equal are not the same thing at all.”
(No wonder this book is considered to be allegorical! Definitely some political innuendo there..)

“Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?”

“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

“If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we’d be—we’d be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us.”

And for my absolute favorite quote:

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit”

This book is a masterpiece. However, it simply didn't resonate with my older self as it had with my younger self. With that said, I can still recognize this for what it was: A book ahead of its time that was extremely controversial. It has seen much success and has been exulted by fans everywhere.

For those looking for a TLDR version of my review, I can sum up this book in one word:

Pulp.

If allowed, I might also add:

Meh.

If A Wrinkle in Time were not lauded as a classic, and were instead given the far more accurate description of Christian pulp fantasy, I wouldn't have an issue with the book. After all, no one complains about flank steak until you try to pass it off as a prime cut. Everything about the book is pulp: the prose, the character, the plot, the dozens of contrivances only acceptable to an uninquisitive mind. It has a lot in common with those trashy vacation reads where the reader is silently prodded to just go with it so they can get the emotional pay off of a patently absurd climax and resolution. It might entertain - though I wasn't - but it cannot be called good.

The prose is particularly inexcusable exactly because it won an award; the 60's really must have been a different time if lines like, 'something like a horse but at the same time completely unlike a horse,' could win you awards. Description like this is lazy, and endemic in the book. Either it's like a horse, or it's not; imagine your confusion if someone said, 'I saw this guy on the street, you looked just like you, except completely not like you.' And when she's not using the 'somehow' school of description to get around whatever deficiency prevents her from actually using words, L'Engle falls back on the tried and true school of tell not show:

'There was something about the way he said "IT" that made a shiver run up and down Meg's spine.'

Did he wave his hands around? Did you use a spooky high pitched voice? Was he communicating fear? Awe? An awkwardly sincere veneration? I teach fifth graders who have better descriptions than this.

And while we're on the topic of lazy, there is exactly zero character development in the book. Characters are essentially the same people at every stage of the book, no matter where they go. After being whisked away by weird old ladies to an alien world, where they fly on the back of a cenaugusus into space the kids are ... exactly the same. I get that it's a kid's book, and it's not meant to have the deep psychological realism of mature writing, but that's the best we can do for character reaction? No panicking, no freaking out, no crying to go home, just characters going with it because that's how we advance the plot. What's particularly ironic is L'Engle's (mis)use of tesseracts when she can't even get her characters to have two dimensions.

Take, for instance, Calvin. He meets Meg and Charles for the first time, having heard all manner of nasty rumors about them, and within twenty minutes is saying:

'"Lead on, moron," Calvin cried gaily. "I've never even seen your house, and I have the funniest feeling that for the first time in my life I'm going home!"'

Meg gets into fights at school on a regular basis, and clearly has no problem decking boys, so why is he letting some gangly, red haired punk call her little brother - who she will eventually risk her own life to save - a moron less than an hour after they met? No matter, though, because Calvin is instantly welcomed into the home and reads Charles a bedtime story. Because that's how we advance the plot.

And speaking of the plot, I won't bother to review it, when the Noising Machine's blog did it better than I:

The story revolves around a family of superior people. Each family member is quite intelligent, perhaps genius. At least one of the children is a telepath but his mother, supposedly a scientist, seems totally uninterested in understanding his ability. Not only is the family superior in intellect but in manners and wisdom. The rest of the town gossips, while these wunderkinds are content to let people think they are stupid or freakish. The youngest child, although only five, has the vocabulary of a college student even though he can’t read. His insights are incredibly mature, as well – in fact, there is practically nothing about him that is believable in any way. (http://thenoisingmachine.wordpress.co...)

The ethnocentric bias of the book is palpable and embarrassing, and dates the book to an age when American authors wrote for an American made of WASP's and no one else. All characters are White; yes, ALL of them. On the other side of the galaxy we find ... White people. The least she could have done is throw in a babelfish, or translator microbes, or the f-ing Tardis translating languages for you. The kids are whipped around space by magical women, they could have just cast a spell to translate all languages and breathe all atmospheres. But instead, it just sits there, reinforcing the idea that everywhere you go is America(tm).

And speaking of the magical women, why are they all married? They're not married, so shouldn't they be Ms? It seems trivial, but it sends another message loud and clear: all women are to marry. Even dead star angels are married. To Jesus, if necessary.

This book was read to me by my father when I was a child, so it actually hurts a bit to give it such a bad review. Some kids might like it, certainly enough people have rated it highly, but I simply cannot get past how bad it is. People like Two and a Half Men too, but that doesn't make it good, and it doesn't make watching it a good use of your time. If you want to read a book with your kids, pick another. There are more than enough modern, well written books full of believable and relatable characters out there that you should never have to pick up this piece of pulp nonsense and try to pass it off as a classic.