Thursday, August 03, 2023

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: Book Review


Started: July 31, 2023
Finished: August 03, 2023

This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review. 




Playlist HERE:

10 comments:

Whisky Prajer said...

So you stuck with it, eh? Good for you. Re: Charles Wallace, Madeleine L'Engle had a beloved son Bion who died in his early 30s of alcohol related causes and was apparently quite intelligent (certainly precocious) as a young child.

Joel Swagman said...

Interesting. I didn't know that.
...I don't know though, I'm still having a hard time believing that any 5 year old, gifted or no, would talk like that. But, is this just me? What did you think?

Whisky Prajer said...

I liked the book, and I liked the character -- it's all fiction, and I had no trouble picturing Charles Wallace, even when I was a kid. But to each their own. Reading fiction shouldn't be a slog, I say.

Joel Swagman said...

I may come back to this series one day.
At the moment, this first volume is the only one I can get my hands on. (It's all our library has, and I don't see these books in the stores here in Vietnam.) But if I'm ever in a position where I can track down more books in the series, I'm intrigued enough to see where things go.
Plus I sometimes like trying to work my way through a whole series, and see how the world building develops.
If I ever do come back to it, I'll post more reviews at that time.

Whisky Prajer said...

We never made it through the fifth Wrinkle book (An Acceptable Time) but it adorns my bookshelf because I learned to love the author. The other three -- A Wind In The Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters -- are pretty good. But don't go out of your way trying to find them.

Joel Swagman said...

Ah, interesting. Okay, I'll keep my eye open for them at used bookstores here in Vietnam, but I won't special order them then.
According to the 50th anniversary edition (and Wikipedia) after the Wrinkle in Time quintet, there's 4 more books following the further adventures of the Murry-O'Keefes family. It sounds like you've not read those either?

Whisky Prajer said...

I read A Wind In The Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters and I started An Acceptable Time -- all AWIT books. Is that what you're talking about?

Joel Swagman said...

So, bear with a bit, because I'm still new to this series. But according to the 50th anniversary edition, there are 8 books that chronicle the Murry-O'Keefe family, which (apparently) are the chronicles of Meg's family, Calvin's family and then later their children:
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters
The Arms of the Starfish
Dragons in the Waters
A House Like Lotus
An Acceptable Time

Wikipedia divides these up into 5 books that are part of the Time Quintet, and 3 other books that are about the children of Meg and Calvin, but are not necessarily about the time travel.
So, The Arms of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters, A House Like Lotus are part of the Murry-O'keefes saga, but not part of the Time Quintet, if that makes sense.
I don't know, I'm just going off of what I'm reading in the 50th anniversary edition, and on Wikipedia. Does any of that sound right to you?

Whisky Prajer said...

Yeah, I guess so. Madeleine L'Engle got a LOT of stuff published when she was alive. I stopped reading her, TBH.

Joel Swagman said...

Yeah, I'm getting that impression. My 50th anniversary editions has charts about both the Murry-O'keefes family saga, but also the Austin Saga (which was another series she did), with notes about what the crossover characters were between the two series.
Wikipedia says that: "Further overlaps between characters connect virtually every L'Engle novel into one large series of books."