As a reading update, I finished Madeleine L’Engle’s“A Wrinkle in Time”yesterday and have a TON of thoughts about it.
Initially going into it, I was a little worried. I feel like children’s classics tend to be a hit-or-miss scenario for me, so I expected this to be an interesting experience before I even started it. I’ll start with what I did like, and that’s about the first third of the novel. The characters I all found to be intriguing, but what I loved most was their camaraderie and the way they bounced their ideas and values off of each other. I feel like you see so many children’s lit books that follow only through the eyes of the main “outcast” group of kids and see only how they’re perceived by the world and by the other kids that interact with them. In this one, though, you see how this family of “different” kids all value each other and what they bring to the table. With the introduction of Calvin comes this opportunity to show how kids learn from one another, no matter where they come from or what their talents are. It was really quite charming, and I really wish it would’ve stayed that way.
It isn’t often that I say that the fantastical elements of a story take away from the charm, but I found that to be the case here. Once the three witches show up and people start jumping through time and space, I found myself really confused as to what was going on or what the point of all this imagery was. The world that L’Engle created was intriguing enough, but seemed to fall flat more often than not. Upon looking it up, someone had mentioned this idea of “faith versus logic” or “religion versus science” and that being the main conflict, and gave her kudos for attempting to discuss something this controversial in her novel. It kinda reminded me of CS Lewis in a way, and I think if you really like CS Lewis you’ll probably enjoy this novel (though honestly I preferred “The Magician’s Nephew” over this). Seeing the story through this lens, a lens I hadn’t considered before, made me see it in a slightly different way, and carried with it more positives and more negatives. It definitely paints this picture of faith being more reliable and conquering lord challenges than science and logic, which I do believe in certain circumstances, but the more I looked at it the more I realized that most of the “logical thinking” aspects of this novel are seen as negatives. The main villain is literally a brain 🥴 and even the protagonist’s math skills are viewed as a negative aspect to her personality by other characters. Her brother, Charles, was extremely intelligent for his age and this is also seen as a negative — something that results in him being captured and controlled by the villain. So, honestly I’d say it kind of rubs me the wrong way if this is what she was going for. But again, I’m not too sure. I felt like a lot of the bigger ideas just went over my head, and not a lot of it had any rhyme or reason to it, even for fantastical children’s book standards.
I probably won’t be continuing on with this series unfortunately, but I’ll recommend this book to people that enjoyed stuff like the Chronicles of Narnia. ⭐️⭐️
