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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Book Club
64 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of the Book Club Podcast, Carly Jackson and guest Christy Lynn Horpedahl discuss Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. They explore the themes of good versus evil, the importance of intelligence versus love, and the significance of Meg's faults. The conversation also touches on the unique loneliness and resilience of the protagonist, and the generational contrasts between boomers and millennials in the context of the novel. Listeners are encouraged to consider how classic stories shape their perceptions and to join the reading journey with the next book discussion on Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH.
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00:00 A Horrifying Smile
00:30 Welcome to the Book Club Podcast
00:41 Christy's History with 'A Wrinkle in Time'
01:49 Meg Murray: A Unique Protagonist
02:11 The Vivid Memory of the Murray House
02:43 Complete Summary of 'A Wrinkle in Time'
08:00 Meg's Faults and Their Significance
11:30 The Burden of Responsibility
13:55 The Happy Medium and Social Media
17:34 The Fight Against Conformity
25:51 Meg's Loneliness and Connection with Calvin
31:12 The Importance of Feeling Smart
33:17 The Danger of Intellectual Pride
35:19 The Power of Love
37:49 Faith and Science: Unlikely Allies
38:59 The Foolish and the Weak
43:25 Connection and Loneliness
46:00 Meg: The Unlikely Heroine
55:39 Movie Adaptation: Hits and Misses
01:01:43 Final Thoughts and Nostalgia
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Transcript
Introduction to Book Club Podcast & 'A Wrinkle in Time'
00:00:08
Speaker
The man lifted his lips into a smile and his smile was the most horrible thing Meg had ever seen. Why don't you trust me Charles? Why don't you trust me enough to come in and find out what I am? I am peace and utter rest. I am freedom from all responsibility. To come to me is the last difficult decision you would need ever made. Welcome to the Book Club Podcast. I'm Carley, and I am an elder millennial. Today, my guest is Christy, and today we are discussing A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline Langel. Welcome back, Christy. What is your history with this book?
00:00:43
Speaker
I should start by saying I don't remember a time where I didn't know this book. And I read many other books by the same author when I was very young. My best guess is that I was about eight or nine when I read it for the first time. And one of the things that stands out to me now looking back is that I don't remember other young girl protagonists in science fiction or fantasy or speculative fiction, at least that were in my world or that I came across when I was younger. There were definitely young girl protagonists in historical fictions and novel that I loved. But the only other speculative fiction one I can remember is a character named Patience from an Orson Scott Card novel, which is a very different book, a very different character. There were some Neil Stevenson characters that were really memorable, but I think I read those when I was closer to being a teenager.
00:01:37
Speaker
And long before he ever wrote Seven Eves, which we just got before, there was no Katniss Everdeen when I was growing up. There was no Hermione Granger. There wasn't even a Bella Swan, but there was Meg Murray
Childhood Impressions & Key Plot Points
00:01:51
Speaker
and I loved her. Yes, that's so real. It's very similar. I feel the same way. One of the few female protagonists. Yeah, I have the same familiarity with this book. I don't remember the first time I read it. I can't remember my first reactions to it because it's just been, I've just known it.
00:02:09
Speaker
my whole life, basically. Specifically, the Murray House is so vivid in my memory. Reading it again this time, I realize this feels like a place that I've actually been to because I can just imagine the kitchen, the stairs, the lab, like it feels like a real place and the garden. And I want to talk about that at some point, like just that reading and rereading this the book as you're a kid, like how that gets imprinted in your memory in a way that's probably maybe impossible to do as an adult. and Let me must speculate that. So we will start by spoiling the book with a complete summary of the story. Starting with teenager Meg, feels like a misfit, having a hard time at school and trying to live up to having a beautiful and talented mother.
00:02:58
Speaker
The only person who makes her feel truly accepted is her youngest brother, Charles Wallace. He is a very intelligent preschooler, using big words and talking about abstract concepts. Meg's father has been missing for years, having worked as a physicist for a top secret government program. One night, a storm wakes up Meg, Charles Wallace, and their mother. Their new neighbor, Mrs. Watsit, comes in from the storm, dressed eccentrically and tells Mrs. Murray that a tesseract does exist. The next day, Charles Wallace takes Meg to meet Mrs. Wetsit and the two other ladies she lives with. They meet Calvin, another student from Meg's school who had an intuition to visit the haunted house where Mrs. Wetsit and her friends were squatting. The ladies tell the children to be ready to go.
00:03:43
Speaker
They bring Calvin home for dinner where he is exuberant saying he feels like he is finally at home. Meghan Calvin go for a walk after dinner and she tells him about missing her father and how she wishes she could control her emotions better. Then Charles Wallace comes out to meet them along with Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Witch. Without any warning, they are swept into a void with no sound or touch emerging to find themselves on another planet. The ladies explain that they travel between planets via testaract, wrinkling through time and space. Mrs. Wetsit changes shape into a large flying creature and takes the three children to the top of a mountain where they can see a black thing in space. Mrs. Wetsit tells them that it is evil and they are fighting it.
00:04:27
Speaker
They travel to another planet to meet with a character called the Happy Medium. She shows them the Earth, drafted in shadow, also Meg's mother
Confronting Evil & Meg's Journey
00:04:37
Speaker
crying. She also shows them a star fighting and winning against the Black Thing, and they learn that Mrs. Whatzit was a star who sacrificed herself in that way. The ladies then take the children to a dark planet called Camazat, where Mr. Murray is held captive. The ladies give them each a gift, strengthening Calvin's ability to communicate. They give Meg her fault, and they give Charles Wallace the resilience of his childhood. They warn Charles Wallace to stay with Meg and Calvin and not to be overconfident.
00:05:10
Speaker
Charles Wallace is the most vulnerable because of what he is. Mrs. Hu gives Meg her glasses to be used at the final moment of peril, and the children walk through a neighborhood of identical-looking houses where children of the same age bounce balls and jump rope to the same tempo. One boy does not match the tempo of the others and drops his ball. The mothers come to their front doors at the same moment and call the children inside. Charles Wallace picks up the ball and tries to return it to the boy, but his mother is very fearful and tries to get them to leave. The mothers all down the street peek out their doors and watch the children.
00:05:50
Speaker
They find the center of the city with a huge office building filled with people living purposefully. They are taken to see a man with red eyes. Charles Wallace immediately perceives that the man isn't himself talking, but something is talking through him. Charles Wallace allows himself to be subsumed by the entity controlling the man with red eyes. The possessed Charles Wallace leads Meg and Calvin to find Mr. Murray, who has been imprisoned in a column where he is deprived of sight and hearing. Charles Wallace is able to move the atoms in the wall so there are no doors. Meg uses Mrs. Who's glasses to get into the column and rescue her father. Charles Wallace tells them that it, the entity that controls Camazot, is very angry and takes them to a separate building where they find it, an oversized brain
00:06:36
Speaker
staying on a dais. It tries to take control of them, forcing them to breathe in rhythm with its pulsing and not allowing them to think their own thoughts. Mr. Murray testers away with Meghan Calvin to save them from it. They find themselves on a colorless planet where blind, furry, gentle alien creatures take them in and help Meg recover from her close encounter with it. She's very angry with her father for leaving Charles Wallace behind and suffers suffers physically from testering through the shadow. Seems to affect her more than Calvin or her brother or her father.
00:07:11
Speaker
The ladies find them and tell them Meg must go back alone to rescue Charles Wallace. She accepts the responsibility because she understands that she is the only one who can rescue him. They test her back to Camathas. She walks to the building that houses it and finds Charles Wallace standing like a zombie. She remembers that Mrs. Whatsit loves her and that Mrs. Witch told her that she has something that it does not. realizes that she can love Charles Wallace to resist it. Her love frees him and they find themselves testering to their garden at home with Calvin and Mr. Murray. The rest of the family comes out and they hear Mrs. Whatzit try to say goodbye before disappearing with the other ladies.
00:07:57
Speaker
So for the opening question, I want to talk about Meg's fault. They are her gift to protect her in camazot and especially in contrast with the opening quote where it is offering conformity, but calls it peace and freedom. So, you know, Meg, throughout the book, she's very anxious and worried. She's smart, but she's not a good student. And she gets very deeply angry with her father, which I think is such an important part of the story. The whole book we've been reading about her yearning for her father, and then she finds him. And he doesn't fix everything. And she's just so incredibly angry. And ah that's exacerbated by being so close to the dark thing. But I think
Generational Burdens & Societal Expectations
00:08:44
Speaker
it's something that's in her as well. so
00:08:47
Speaker
Why are these faults a protection against the promise of what it is offering? Oh, I love Meg's anger. And I love what I also think of as below the anger, which is Meg's passion. because I think she reacts strongly when she perceives something is unjust or something is not what she feels she's been led to expect. And I think that's why the moment with her father is so dramatic is because I think as children, there's this idea that your parents can save you. And part of what happens to Megan, this story is she's angry because she realizes that that
00:09:34
Speaker
not actually true, that sometimes she's going to have to save herself, or she's going to have to save her father, or she's going to have to save her brother, and that she can't just be the recipient of things, but she has to be active, and she has to fight for things that that maybe make her feel scared or uncomfortable. i think a unique part of this book. Because when I think of other books with a young protagonist who has to be independent and save the world, the parents are usually absent in those stories. And in this story, her parents are very much there
00:10:16
Speaker
And yet she still has to act herself, that they don't fix it for her. I think that's a really special part of this story as well. she loves They're supportive, they love her, she loves them. And still, she has to face it to rescue her brother. And to rescue her father initially, right? I think it's easy. to focus on her saving Charles Wallace, because that's the climax of the story. And so memorable, the big sister going to save her a little sibling. I think that's something we see in other works. But originally, she's called on, she and Charles are called on by the Mrs. Witches, the Mrs., the ladies, to save their father, right? Because it's their father.
00:11:04
Speaker
who's about to give in to it. And they know that her father is special and could be a warrior for the light. And so the ladies are looking for someone to help them save Mr. Murray. So not only has Meg been, feels as though she's been abandoned by her father, but she's now called upon to go and save him. Yeah, I wonder if that relates to this millennial trope I've heard of having Bane character syndrome. Or in our discussion about The Giver, we talked a little bit about how we were raised with the like in school hearing about like the ozone layer and saving the whale and climate change and this
00:11:54
Speaker
obligation of our generation to solve these big problems. There's a similarity there of having this weight put on our shoulders of there's evil out there and you have to fight it. And I'm curious, and I want to explore that throughout the season. Is that part of the millennial experience and does it partially come from these stories we read as children? One thing i I really like about what you said and about the story is it's clear in the book that the evil thing, the black thing, has been there a long time. And so it's not Meg's fault that the black thing exists. She didn't do anything but be born into a world where evil exists. And even though
00:12:41
Speaker
none of this is her fault. There are things that are her fault, but her father being captured by it is not her fault. But yet she still is the only one who can save him. She's still the only one who can save her brother. So even though she didn't cause these problems, she's still called upon by the ladies and by her own sense of what the world needs from her to to be active even in things that were far beyond her. And she had no part in making. Yes. That reminds me of.
00:13:15
Speaker
When they're visiting the happy medium, they ask her to show them Earth, and she the medium is not happy at that moment. And she askeds she says, why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there's so many delightful things to say to see? And Mrs. Witch says, there will no longer be so many pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not do something about the unpleasant one. And that feels like a big burden as well. like Becoming aware of the evil makes you responsible for trying to fight it. Yeah, I think that's true. and
00:13:54
Speaker
Part of the the delight in reading the book is that the happy medium is both supposed to be a medium in the sense of a someone who can see beyond the things in front of her. But it's also a joke about one of Meg's faults, right, that she can't find a happy medium in her life, that she's almost a teeter-totter. and she can't figure out a way to just be in the middle. This is a criticism her her older brothers, Sandy and Denny, have of her, that she can't just figure out a way to find a happy medium. And so part of i think the joke of the happy medium is also a joke about one of Meg's own faults, the inability to figure out how do I
00:14:41
Speaker
not just be angry all the time, but actually figure out how to direct that anger and direct my courage and my action toward ah an important, good outcome. So can we take from that, that the advice for Meg to find a happy medium is absolutely wrong. The way the story goes, her not finding a happy medium is what saves the day, right? Can we say that? I need to think about that more. I don't know how deep that joke goes. I'm gonna think about it a little bit. Can you say a little bit more about why you think a happy medium might be a bad thing? Well, the happy medium character, she wants to look at delightful things you and avoid the unpleasant things. And I also wonder if this connects us, if this could reflect social media a little bit, that we look at social media
00:15:40
Speaker
And then there's an algorithm rhythm that is designed to show us things that we want to see and not show us things that we don't want to see. And there's a lot of conversation about how that is destructive to community. It leads to polarization. It leads to tribalism and that Mrs. Witch saying there's a responsibility to look at things that you might not want to look at because that's how you have a healthy life. That's how you have a healthy community. It's how you fight evil in the world.
00:16:19
Speaker
I think I can think about that within the book in contrast to saying Sandy and Denny, the older brothers who don't seem to have the same problems as Meg and Charles Wallace. And I don't think it's an accident that they're not the one called upon to save their father. they're not the ones Meg is the one called upon eventually to save Charles Wallace. And I think it's because she can't just look at pleasant things. She feels the loss of her father, right? She feels the loneliness of not having someone to connect with. And it's her awareness of the loneliness and the but disconnection and the things that are lacking that she feels like shouldn't be in absence. They should be filled with something good in her life.
00:17:06
Speaker
that give her some of her power and and some of her ability to be active in a way that it seems like a lot of other characters in the novel just wouldn't, would be fine, right? Just looking at the pleasant things, but that's what causes the it to be able to grow is the lack of warriors fighting against it. Right, so kamazots, the conformity, and basically the people on kamazots, advocating the right to think for themselves and to do anything for themselves. They just fit into this ordered machine that that it controls. And it calls that freedom and peace.
00:17:54
Speaker
So part of the fight for good mean knowing you will have to experience not peace. I'm not willing to say that he's that it is correct in saying that there's true peace and true freedom in that, but there is some aspect of peace and freedom and not having to think. It's a spectrum, right? You can have the people in Camasats along one side of the spectrum and Sandy and Denny's are a little bit closer and then you have like Meg on the other side of this spectrum. I will say I think that it can offer them peace. I find that easy to agree with um because I think if you allow someone else to make all your decisions for you and take care of you and to kill you when you get sick and
00:18:43
Speaker
You're a burden to people around you. There's a sense in which that could be peaceful for you. I don't want to call it freedom though, because I don't think it can offer you freedom. I think it can offer you maybe freedom from certain things, freedom from anxiety or freedom from fear or freedom from all those uncomfortable Cuban feeling that we struggle with, but I don't think It can truly offer you freedom, but it could make you feel like comfortable, right? It could make you feel safe. It could make you feel easy, like things were easy for you. Yeah. be That makes me think of this formula that we were given. Go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good job.
00:19:38
Speaker
get your retirement account, save for a house, get married. Like that whole, the American dream formula and Kate Kennedy in one of the millennials saying that we were raised for a world that did not exist by the time we grew up, right? Like that formula falls apart at some point for lots of reasons we could speculate about, but maybe that's beyond the microscope. And Camazons is really fascinating. When I read it this time, it struck me as more of a boomer story. It reminded me of the Stepford Wives.
00:20:13
Speaker
It reminded me of that character in The Graduate who tells him, plastics, get the plastics, then the dread that he's avoiding the plastics guy. And that song, Little Boxes, The Ticky Tacky Houses. A previous discussion we had, you you said about that the wrinkle in time, you wanted to make the argument that it is a millennial story despite being written in the early 60s. Is chemis also a boomer nightmare? Or is it the millennial experience? I think the way a millennial might get into that is going to be different than the way a boomer gets into it. The boomer fear has more to do with you have to give up your own things to be prosperous. You have to give up your dreams. You have to give up
00:20:58
Speaker
your way of doing things. But if you do that, you'll get the house, you'll get the retirement account, you'll get the spouse, you'll get the kids, right? So I think that the Boomer fear has something to do with you will be rewarded if you give up. all these things because there's a market economy out there that needs you to be in plastics. So the market economy will reward you if you go into plastics, even if you don't have a passion for plastics, even if maybe no one actually has a passion for plastics. I think the way a millennial might get into the fear that the houses on camasas represent is that it demands
00:21:40
Speaker
conformity, something that feels... so
Meg's Character & Relationships
00:21:45
Speaker
inauthentic. So one of the things I love about millennials is they have this strong reaction to inauthenticity and they're sensitive to that and they notice it. And I think the vision of camisades that we get in A Wrinkle in Time is about giving up everything that makes you authentic and sacrificing that for a kind of material wealth or a kind of mental piece, which I think
00:22:15
Speaker
to a generation who feels a little bit anxious or a generation who feels uncertain about the future. I think that's the attraction of Camas Oz, is you don't have to be authentic anymore. You can just be a part of it and it will make sure that you have a house and your kid has a ball to balance and that there'll be dinner on the table. I do think the sort of, there's also, I think in particular, a subtle fear for Meg in the presentation of Camasaz, where those women are so different than her mother. And I think part of what Meg reacts to, you even though I don't think this is explicit in the book, is a fear of that future, of her not being able to do the things her mother does to
00:23:04
Speaker
have a man that she can truly love, have a house that's really hers and feels like a home, have a dog that shows up one night that you keep, right? There's something so whimsical about some of the aspects of the Murray household and the Murray life that is totally antithetical to what she sees on Camazas. And I think that's something for her to be scared of about that world. particularly as someone who might want to be a mother or someone who cares about family life or someone who deeply loves her family, even though she's still very young. But I wonder if that's also a part of the fear of Camis Oz is Meg feeling like maybe the only future for her as a woman looks something like that. And that's deeply uncomfortable to her. That makes her deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps young women or young men born in the 80s or the 90s
00:23:58
Speaker
She's independent. She feels things very deeply. She's often angry. She realizes that the previous generation has not created a perfect world world for her, and she has some sort of obligations to be acting courageously in that world to make it better. And um she is very resilient. but Think about all the things that happened to her, how deeply bizarre this experience that she's going through is. These very strange women show up. She's traveling to other planets. She's facing
00:24:37
Speaker
physical dangers and she doesn't roll up in a ball. She has moments where she's clearly traumatized and she she needs to be held and she needs to heal. But she comes back and does the job that she realizes needs to be done when she knows that she's the only person who can do it. And I think those are things that millennials can definitely get excited about. You do not seem convinced by my argument, though. So I want to hear what you think.
00:25:10
Speaker
No, I completely agree with that. I was thinking about she's her she's lamenting about not fitting in at school or like wishing she could control her emotions better and at the beginning of the story. So is it something that she needs to learn through this experience that desiring ability to fit in is maybe not what she actually wants? So I'm not sure if she so much realizes that she doesn't actually care about fitting in because in some sense i don't I never think she cares that much about fitting in. I think what she cares about is that she's deeply lonely. I think she is lonely and
00:25:54
Speaker
Even Charles Wallace, who she connects with, is her little brother, and he's very strange. And her mother is distant, and her father is gone, and her older brothers don't understand her. And this is something where I think it would be easy to overlook how precious Calvin is as a character. But I think in the same way that Calvin feels like your family is the tribe I've been looking for, I think Meg finally with Calvin connects to someone who is like her. I think even though she loves Charles Wallace isn't like her. Even though she loves her mother, it's her mother. It's not a peer and that's always going to be different. And I think the connection that she builds with Calvin over the course of the story
00:26:41
Speaker
makes her feel rightly that she's not lonely anymore. And I think most of what I see her struggling with is feeling lonely. Yeah, Calvin, I like that he's precious and he comes into their household. He's like, you guys are morons and I love you. So it's so immediate. They show up and they keep the puppy, then Calvin shows up and they keep the Calvin. Right. Exactly. And Calvin, Calvin is able to play the game of being popular and playing sports, but he doesn't feel like people like him for the right reasons.
00:27:20
Speaker
um And he's right. yeah he They don't like him for the right reasons. They like him for his pretense. And he's smart enough to realize that, that someone who only likes you for someone you're pretending to be can't ever actually like you because they can only like the pretense. Yeah. and i get And this time around I realized Meg feels that immediately because she, after dinner, they go for a walk and she tells him how much she misses her father and how upset and worried she is. And she wishes she could be more like her mother. And she probably has never said those things to anyone else. Like she couldn't say those things to her mother, Charles Wallace, and certainly no one at school. So that's that ability to be vulnerable with Calvin. I'm recognizing now is
00:28:12
Speaker
ah really important part of the story too. Do you want to say anything more about Calvin and his special gifts. I think you you made a comment that I really liked where you said that you liked that Calvin, one of the things that makes Calvin special is that he's a good communicator. And not only does that allow him to quickly connect with other people, I think that's also something Meg desperately needs because she's not a good communicator, right? So it takes
00:28:45
Speaker
It takes Calvin sort of being a super communicator to be able to get through to Meg to give her what she desperately needs, which is a connection with a real person who is like her and can understand her and that she can understand. And I remember you said that you were surprised at that when you were younger because it felt like a gender reversal as opposed to the girl being the good communicator. So do you want to say something about that? Yeah, I don't know where this idea came from, but I just had this idea that girls were good at reading and talking and boys were good at math. And in this book, we have Meg, who's really good at math, and Calvin, who's good at talking and understanding people.
00:29:31
Speaker
I've tried to think about this through this read-through and I really just don't know what to do with it. like I don't know it really sunk in that that those limitations weren't real. Despite this example of being in front of me my whole life, it took a lot of other searching and learning to let go of those expectations. You're right that if you see a hundred examples that are contra this, just one good example that fights back against it, it's going to have a lot of work to do. If there's lots of other things in the culture telling you, that's the anomaly, right? Not that that's just part of a normal range of what human beings can be at.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was bad at math. I didn't enjoy math in middle school or high school. I enjoyed math in like senior year of college. I finally got it. And I was like, I love this. But it took me until senior year of college. It can be a hard one. I remember liking math and being good at it. But I also remember, I'll tell a little bit of a story. I remember helping my brother with his math homework when I was very young. I have an older brother. And I learned a lot of the math concepts from him as I was helping him with his homework. And so I think math class always felt very easy because I'd been introduced to the concepts prior to actually having to do it in the classes that I was in. And so I think that was something that sort of
00:31:13
Speaker
made it easy, which I think can relate a little bit to the story in the sense of I wanted to talk a little bit about things that make you feel smart because I think this book and made me feel really smart and about the way that The author describes hard concepts in something about the way that it's natural to the characters in the book to just understand something that's hard. I remember feeling like these were smart kids and I was a smart kid because I understood that time was the fourth dimension or I knew what a sonnet was or I recognized
00:31:53
Speaker
a few of the names associated with the quotes that came up through the story. So I think this was one but that made you feel smart and also made you feel like there were layers. um This might be a bit of millennial nostalgia, but you couldn't just go and look the quotes and the people up on the internet. When you were
Themes of Love, Intelligence & Connection
00:32:15
Speaker
reading this in like 1990, right, you actually had to ask someone who that person was, or you had to find an encyclopedia, or you had to
00:32:26
Speaker
look for it at the library. So in the book, and it was even more true when she wrote it in the 1960s, this was one of those books where I remember feeling like the author was giving me a treasure map to other ideas and people that I should learn about and enjoy. And they there weren't other books that I remember really giving me a map that way. And I remember that feeling very powerful and making me feel very smart. Yeah. I think I'm realizing I have that issue. I read I've read so much science fiction that sometimes I think I actually know science. Oh, wait, no, I actually don't know how rockets work. I've just read a lot of science. and That makes me think I do, which is kind of a magical experience by itself. I'll contrast that a little bit, though, with what I think is
00:33:19
Speaker
An interesting part about this book that I picked up on much more read reading it as an adult is that it's so clear in the book that smartness is not the most important thing and that pride in your smartness is actually very dangerous. And so there's this fun part about the book where it both makes you feel smart when you read it, but at the same time the author is saying, don't get too cocky, right? Because this very pride in your intellect makes you susceptible to things in the way other people aren't. um And that's part of what Charles Wallace's weakness is. That's part of why it is able to take him over is because
00:34:03
Speaker
he thinks he can handle things that he can't handle, and he thinks he understands things that he doesn't understand. And the author is making a very bold claim that that can make you a tool of evil. And that's a very big claim for a kid to read about, that you're overconfident in your intelligence can be used by evil things to turn you into a tool for evil. And that's big and that's heavy. And it's I also think it's very clear in the book that the author is saying that and warning the readers against that flaw.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yes, now this is imagery I didn't realize until this read through that it is a brain. It's just a brain. And thinking about Meg is a ball of emotion, right? She's smart, but she's she's very, um she has all these emotions all the time. And it doesn't have hunger or lust or gut feelings, intuition about anything. And those are the things, like Mrs. Witch tells Meg that she has something that it doesn't have. And she says love, but she actually has a lot of things that it doesn't have. And I wonder if all those other things are related to the cap capability to love. Yeah. I also like your saying this reminded me that
00:35:27
Speaker
it does have the ability to feel hate because when Meg is trying to think about what do I have that it doesn't have, she thinks maybe it's my hatred and then she says no. She realizes it is totally capable of hating things but what it can't do is it can't love things and that becomes her secret weapon to save Charles Wallace is the fact that she loves him and and that makes her better.
00:35:59
Speaker
than the dark thing, her ability to love. It's not her anger that makes her better. It's not her cleverness that makes her better. It's not even her courage that makes her better. It's the fact that she's capable of loving someone. the It's like her superpower, her secret superpower is she loves her brother. And that's connection, right? That goes to the genre theme of what is genuine connection? So even having your brain being controlled by another brain is not connection. If there is another way to connect with someone on a very complete level, it would be having your brains be the same. But that's not true in this book. Yeah, that's just dominance, right? That's just another brain dominating your brain. That's not you having a connection with someone.
00:36:51
Speaker
And I think there's even some suggestion that early in the book that Charles Wallace might be a little telepathic. I don't know if you read that the same way that I did, but his ability to understand Meg, especially when he focuses on her because he realizes that she needs them. which I think is another way of saying he sees her loneliness, and he's trying to figure out how to be enough to her, even though he can't. So we already have these suggestions that Charles Wallace is a bit telepathic, that he has this ability to go into someone else's mind and see what's happening. And that's not a skill that helps him. And that's not something that Meg has, like her
00:37:33
Speaker
what she gives back to Charles Wallace that saves him is her love, not her not and ability to think about what he's thinking about and to understand his mind is just her love of him. I wanted to talk a little bit about faith. There are many Bible quotes, and there's a lot of referencing God and God's presence in this fight against evil. But when they're listing warriors for good, they list many scientists, Einstein and Madame Curie. Is it Beethoven, the musician that they list? So saying that Einstein is a warrior for God in this indirect way, like it's that's an unusual vision of faith, especially Christian faith, I would say. Yeah, I think there's definitely
00:38:20
Speaker
a conflation of like the darkness and the evil with something that's related to just like human ignorance. And so I see the praise of these more secular figures as perhaps being a part of their battling for truth, their battling for light, where there's darkness, where there's superstition or ignorance. But I also think that she's also saying that even people who aren't amazing in some way are also powerful warriors. I think the chapter titles, it was funny when I picked up this book again and I was ready reading through the chapter title, each one of them was so evocative of the story that's within them. It really made me come back. and And then I got to the last one and it's called The Foolish and the Weak.
00:39:13
Speaker
And that comes directly from a Bible quote that Mrs. Hu gives Meg right before she leaves to go back to Camas Oz to save her brother. She says, listen, Meg, listen well. 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. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen ye, and things which are not, to bring to not things that are.
00:40:00
Speaker
She paused and then she said, may the right prevail. And so I think it's a beautiful quote. I think it's a quote that I'm still not sure I understand it, but I definitely love reading it and thinking about it. And i I'm sure I did not understand it the first time I read it either, although perhaps I thought I did. I think that gets to the idea that intelligence isn't the most important thing, right? I'm equating the wise in that quote to intelligence, right? If you're looking at a battle and you say, my enemy has 100 soldiers and I have 150 soldiers, so I win, that's a certain kind of logical intelligence. And that's a very, I'm just distilling down what I imagine is the battle strategy. But that strategy, that logic, that thinking,
00:40:48
Speaker
When you're fighting good and evil, that is not the way to fight. The way to fight is despite being small, despite being a teenage girl, despite Charles Wallace being a child, you can still be a formidable warrior against evil. Yeah. God had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and the hope right at the end that she whispers is may the right prevail, right? So it's not predetermined, it's not necessarily gonna win, but weak and foolish things of the world can do well. So I don't think we necessarily need to admire everything about Einstein or Marie Curie or Beethoven, but I think you can look at them as examples of people who were making the world
00:41:37
Speaker
more beautiful or more understandable. And I think that's like the spirit in which we're supposed to think about them as warriors. I really like the way you said that, that we don't have to admire everything about the person. that Because i there is such a struggle of when you find out someone from history has done some really horrible acts as well as the world changing contributions that they have made. And I
Genre, Interpretation & Impact of the Book
00:42:04
Speaker
think that's a big struggle, but I think we're trying to learn how to accept the good contributions and not necessarily put those people on a pedestal for their contribution. like that I think that's a valuable lesson that we as millennials are learning. And I especially think that conversation will come up when we talk about Harry Potter and in a couple of episodes.
00:42:30
Speaker
yeah So I'm glad you mentioned that because I think it's true that and I think that's like a ah beautiful, I want to call it even like a deeply Christian idea, right? Is that the person that you love isn't just of all their actions, right? That there's more to a person than just that. There's their soul, right? There's their uniqueness in the world. There's the fact that no one else in the universe will ever be exactly them. And so those are the things you're supposed to honor and love, not just, did you pay your bills on in time? Did you keep your promises? That the love of a person is
00:43:15
Speaker
has to be deeper than just the approval of the actions of theirs that you're privy to. Let's review our genre themes, which we but we already talked a bit about, but just to to put a bow on it. So it's a fantasy construction, right? i Growing up, I thought of this book as science fiction because there are math that you're drawing of a line and a cube. But no, it feels much more like a fantasy story the than science fiction. And yeah, she reminds me of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz a lot like that. And I remember I was listening to
00:43:56
Speaker
Julia Louis Dreyfus has this amazing podcast. And she I remember her talking with someone about the Wizard of Oz and with this like real love and reverence for the movie. And I was like, oh, she feels about the Wizard of Oz the way I feel about the Princess Bride. but but I think I'm learning a bit about Boomers in this millennial nostalgia series as well. I will say what I like about this and what maybe feels a little reminiscent of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is she's totally unafraid to call something evil and to just point to that and say there's evil over there and you know what good people do? We fight that.
00:44:35
Speaker
And there's a way in which I think as children, you it's easier for you to understand that. I think as you grow up and you learn about context and you learn about history and you learn about individual differences and you learn about biases, all of that becomes muddy, muddier. It feels like the gray areas get very large and the black and white areas get very small. But I also think there's there's a danger in that too in in being unwilling to point at something and say, no, that that actually is evil.
00:45:12
Speaker
that is opposed to goodness and light in the world, and it deserves our courageous attention to it. And maybe that's something that makes it feel a little bit like a fantasy, or maybe that's something that makes it feel very religious if you have that background and persuasion, but I think the boldness of saying this is actually about a fight between good and evil is something that I think made the book special and feel like brave and made it feel important that like what Meg is doing, she's not just saving her father. She's not just saving her brother. All those are big and important. She's fighting against evil. And that's very clear in the book. And that makes her seem so strong and so brave.
00:45:57
Speaker
So as far as feminism, and you mentioned some some other characters that came later that were role model for girls, Meg is the opposite of the cool girl. Can I say that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's glorious. It's just great to have her example there. Yeah, that's all I have to say with that. I remember, I'll just tell one joke, I remember hearing a young woman talk about why she liked Bella Swan from the Twilight series. And i I remember her saying, well, you know, she's a klutz, and that felt very relatable to me. And the first thought in my head when she said that was like, well, Meg Murray was also a klutz, right?
00:46:39
Speaker
Yep. And there is something about this idea that here's this young woman who's not, she's not a princess. She's not graceful. She's not perfect. She's not groomed. What did she say? She's not graceful. No, no, she is raw and she's passionate and she makes so many mistakes. And that felt so, so real that the kind of mistakes she was making were like real human, young woman mistakes. And yet she was fighting evil.
00:47:12
Speaker
There's so much about connection. I love your point that this is a story about loneliness. I think that's very clear. And then the different examples of connection in the story. Meg mentioned she loves having Calvin hold her hand a lot, right? That support. She can feel him touching her, supporting her. And at the end, she resist the urge to reach for his hand because she knows she has to go alone back to save Charles Wallace. Just that that type of connection I thought was really sweet. And then there's, we haven't talked about Charles Wallace and his connection to the lady. Do you want to say something about that? Yeah. So I'll also, and
00:47:56
Speaker
This is related, but when I was reading this book as an adult, when they're trying to describe the ladies to that the gentle beasts who were healing Meg after they get tessered off of Camazas with Calvin and her dad, and they're having so much trouble saying what they are or who they're like because they're so based on visible description. And then Calvin all of a sudden says, they're angels. And I don't know if I just read over that in previous readings, but rereading the book, thinking of them as angels, didn't change
00:48:39
Speaker
the way I viewed it. like They weren't just supernatural fantasy creatures. They were the messengers of God, right? And so for me, trying to change that framing on who the ladies were changed the way I thought about them. And it also changed how I thought about what they were asking Charles Wallace and Meg to do. And I think if you want to read it through ah a very Christian lens, I think it's possible to see them as like messengers who were calling to prophets or calling to potential saints and giving them the opportunity to be like active servants or warriors for God, basically. And i I don't think I read it that way as a child, but I think you definitely could read it that way. But I also liked that nobody called them angels until the end. So you don't have to read it that way.
00:49:36
Speaker
I think you could also just see them as these three fantastical, maybe goddess-like, maybe witch-like women who show up when there's a need. And I think the fact that they come to Charles Wallace and that he has the special relationship with them is just another way that we're supposed to understand that Charles Wallace might be something a little bit more than human or a little bit different than human. And that's just like a beautiful, special part of who he is. And that's not Meg and that's not Calvin and that's not Sandy and Denny. They might be amazing humans, but they're still just humans. I think there's this suggestion here that Charles Wallace could be something a little bit different or a little bit more, a little bit special. But I don't, do you read it that way or do you read The Misses in that way at all?
00:50:31
Speaker
i I enjoy ambiguity around them. The whole idea that Mrs. Witch rarely materializes is very interesting. I like that it's not definitive. like These are angels. It's Calvin's supposition. like He's like, oh, that's what they remind me of. So I don't like having them defined in any one way. I like that they could they can appear as many different things so at the same time. Yeah, I like that they are very different and I love the idea that there's vast differences between them. One of them used to be a star that
00:51:10
Speaker
gave up her light in the battle against darkness, but I don't think that's what the other two are. Even the youngest one is very old, so there's this suggestion of that there's something immortal or there's something that perhaps exists with just a very different relationship to time. While it's clear that special human beings might be able to learn to test her, there are other things that the ladies can do that I think we're supposed to think of them as a different kind of thing than even. This makes me think of the two-dimensional planet, which is so random, but it always
00:51:45
Speaker
struck me, there's a story about Flatland. Flatland is a story, which I've never read, but I don't know if she's referencing it, but the idea that like planets exist out there and they're two-dimensional and they're just out there the same way that, like, we could travel between them the way we would travel between cities on Earth. And they enjoy their time on the two-dimensional planet. It's really a lovely place, right? Yeah, I love that too. And I do suspect that she might be referencing the, I think it's Edwin Abbott novel. I think, I don't want to get too much into author biographies, but I think she, she was an English professor maybe, or studied English. So I think it's fair to say
00:52:30
Speaker
There's probably a reference there that's just fun and delightful and isn't over-explained. I think that's a wonderful way to put it. That just makes you laugh. And then the privilege of accepting danger as a genre theme. Yeah, so I put this in here because that's one of my favorite quotes. and this moment where her father is trying to prevent her to go back to Camasaz because he doesn't want to lose her the way he's lost Charles Wallace. So it comes from a deep, protective, like paternalistic in the best way, right? Like the desire to to actually protect a child from harm. And then one of the ladies steps in and says, no, and Mr. Murray, you must allow your daughter the privilege of accepting this danger.
00:53:21
Speaker
because they all have come to understand that she's the only one that can do it. And even though it's not clear that she can do it, if she doesn't at least try, they're all accepting that Charles Wallace is lost forever. And I remember thinking about those very specific words, and I'm still not sure I totally understand them, but the idea that it's a privilege to accept A danger that is important is something that I think it's something different than what kids usually hear, right? Kids usually hear you have to be safe. Like the most important thing is that you're safe. We don't want you to get hurt. um But the if you want a child
00:54:09
Speaker
to become an adult, children should be able to accept dangers, not capriciously, right? But when the situation calls for it, a child can be called or raised up to do something dangerous if they're the only one that can do it, right? And that to deny a child that is to take something away from them. And so I think that's a ah really important part of the book that really stuck with me is that someone had to intervene, right? Someone had to remind Mr. Murray that Meg has to be given this privilege because everything that Mr. Murray is feeling is he's already lost Charles, right? He already thinks that Charles is gone. And now someone's asking him,
00:54:52
Speaker
to lose his other daughter as well, who's just found him, who he realizes all these things about. But she must be allowed to accept it. And in the end, Calvin lets her go. Mr. Murray lets her go. They can't do it for her. And she does it. she And she's not brave about it, right? She just understands the necessity of it, and it's the necessity of it that she answers to. not
Movie Adaptation & Lasting Impressions
00:55:20
Speaker
courage or not vainglory or not pride. It's just she answers the necessity of the moment. I did want to mention the movie. I think movies are such a big part of nostalgia as well as books. And so when there is a movie adaptation, I want to mention it. But I wasn't thrilled with the movie. I thought I had watched it years ago, but I think maybe I'd started watching it and then just stopped at some point because I didn't I don't think I finished it. So I did watch it this week.
00:55:49
Speaker
And I could kind of appreciate some of the design, some of the changes that they made, but it didn't I didn't really enjoy it. like I could kind of see that the that the movie creators were trying to do something, but it wasn't something that I was connecting with, being of connection. Yeah, I think that it's beautiful. like The movie is beautiful, and I think Every actor in the movie does the job that they were given admirably. I just think the people behind in the movie were trying to tell a slightly different story than the wrinkle in time story. And so they pushed out some of what I think of are the most important parts of the book to make room for the story that they wanted to tell. And I think
00:56:36
Speaker
To be fair, I think if I saw the movie without having ever read the book, if I came in totally fresh and blind, I think I would have really enjoyed it. But the act of comparison where there were just too many things that I love about the book and that I think are special about the book that got sucked out and and replaced with things that felt very shallow. Yes. this yeah in The scene where they're like hiding in the tree trunk to get thrown over the wall. It's a visually impressive scene. It made it very adventure. But it felt like you could have used that five minutes to do more honoring the book. To have Aunt Beast. They cut out Aunt Beast. Yeah, you gave me like a a flying tree trunk, but you didn't give me Aunt Beast? What? Yeah.
00:57:25
Speaker
No, I completely agree with that. And I really, I don't, I mean, I could list a lot, I have a long list of gripes ah about the movie, but I really want to just talk briefly about, because we both read this book when we were very young, and that have have a strong attachment to it. And so what is I want to know what that does what does that say about nostalgia? And nostalgia as a thing that can be created at a specific period in time. I was thinking about this question in advance, and I was trying to compare it to some of what we talked about with Kate Kennedy's book.
00:57:59
Speaker
And I will say one thing that I felt good about is rereading this book and loving it did not make me cringe. Whereas I think a lot of other things that I have nostalgia for if I go back, I'm not comfortable with how maybe young Christy was reacting to things and the kind of humor she enjoyed or the kind of characters that she identified with. But this book, I felt like I'm not embarrassed at all about loving this book. It and holds up really well. Some things in it do feel a little dated, but nothing at the core of the book to me felt awkward.
00:58:41
Speaker
So I do think, I think and we've mentioned this before, I never know whether to say this book really influenced me or whether to say that just the kid that I was found something in this book that resonated deeply with things that I already but believed or felt. I don't understand how to disentangle those things, but if I were going to list things that either influenced or just resonated deeply with me, this book is definitely on the shortlist and I want my kids to read it. yeah I hope someday there's a faithful movie adaptation.
00:59:20
Speaker
I would not say that about all of her books, although maybe I need to revisit them, but this one I felt nothing but good about. I wonder if it has something to do with genuineness. And then the details, like they feel when I was listing them in my head, the details of the movie that I didn't like, they felt so frivolous. But somehow that is the thing. That is the core of it. That those little frivolous details missing Sandy and Denny. The fact that Mr. Murray is known to the greater public.
00:59:53
Speaker
rather than in the book, he it's a Secret Government Project. like Those little details, so I haven't figured out why those details felt so important to me, but they do. And the farmhouse, that their house is out in the woods, and in the movie, they have a neighbor that looks out the window and watches them in their yard. Yeah. Those details feel so important to the heart of the book. And I haven't figured out why, and maybe yeah I will try too, too hard. Well, and it's amazing my memory too, like, when in the movie, Charles Wallace is warming up milk for her, but it's not hot chocolate. I just remember feeling very indignant. Could you just make it hot chocolate? Like, why would you change that, right? There's this precious detail from the book.
01:00:42
Speaker
There's no good reason not to have it be hot chocolate, right? So it was a cascade of those, I think makes you feel like... I had applaud the desire to update some of the discomfort with conformity that might have felt dated. So that was something where I think in order to resonate with a... How old is Meg supposed to be? Is she 13 or 14? Yeah, so like to resonate with a 13-year-old girl in 2024, I get that like what you want to show on camasas might be very different than what someone in 1961 was trying to show. So I applaud the attempt to update some of that, but I just don't think it was done very well. And like details that seem precious, but not in need of updating, they just they weren't honored. Yeah.
01:01:31
Speaker
All right, final thoughts about the book. We are done with the movie. I'm finding it difficult to encapsulate this book. And I think that's a good thing. It's just a story that has been with me my whole life. And I'm looking forward to reading this into five, 10 years. And probably my relationship with it will stay the same. I think that's really amazing. And it feels mysterious and not something that I can psychologize about myself, like why I like this book. And I think that's a valuable thing to keep, right? Like and so to to fight the urge to so rationalize everything, to fight the temptation of it to have everything orderly and categorize. I'm savoring the sort of mystery that remains in this book, this my my incapacity to
01:02:27
Speaker
to conceptualize it. I think that keeps the relationship of the book alive. Do you think that you'll reread the other books by her or the other books in the like the series? I i love Swiftly Tilting Planet. I love A Wind in the Door. So those two yes, I don't i know I've read other books, like books from other series and didn't really connect with them as much. So I don't know if I'll try to pick those up again at some point, but definitely that trilogy. It's all, ah it's all of the piece to me. They're all part of the same thing. Yeah.
01:03:03
Speaker
I don't know if I will reread the rest of the trilogy because I don't remember the other two books having a big impact on me, but I do remember discovering much later like when I was a teenager her book Inacceptable Time, which is a little more grown up and I think it's It's either Meg's daughter or Meg's granddaughter. um And I remember discovering, that was another book where I felt like I discovered it at just the right time and it made a big impact on me. So kyle I think I will try to revisit that one as well. um I guess my final thoughts on it is just, I'm just really grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to revisit it it and to think about some of the connections between this text and other things we've been talking about and thinking about. and
01:03:50
Speaker
I do think there's this part of the book about how hard loneliness is that I think is especially important to remember in our social media saturated age or I was thinking about our last conversation when we were talking about parasocial relationships and how it, in a way, could be like the person that you let pour things into you, but that you're never giving back to you. Oh, man. Okay. Well, I'll be thinking about that. Yeah. Well, and just to try to make sure that you're not
01:04:30
Speaker
becoming that, but that you want to be like Meghan Calvin. You don't want to be like it in Charles Wallace. And so I think this book is talking about something very human and that you we can even apply to some of the challenges we see today and that loneliness really, yeah you're going to fill your loneliness with something and the desire to fill it with an it-like thing in the absence of the human thing is dangerous and that we should be aware of that danger. and so thinking about it and guarding against it and saying, like, I need a Calvin. I need a Meg. I don't need an it. I don't want an it, even though that might feel easy and peaceful in some way. I might have just gone really big and really dark on you, but I've been trying to work through that thought since I read this and thinking you about our last conversation.
01:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for joining me in this conversation. Listeners, what did you think of A Wrinkle in Time? Have you read any other books by Madeline Lengel? What books did you read over and over again as a child? Let us know by recording a voice memo and emailing openingquestion at gmail dot.com. You can also comment on the sub stack at bookclubpod dot.com and I'll read your responses and play your voice memos on our feedback episode at the end of the season. Our next book discussion will be about Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nim. Read with us. We'll release that episode in about a month.
01:06:01
Speaker
The Book Club Podcast is produced by me, Carly Jackson, music and audio editing by Alex Marcus, and special thanks to my guest, Christy Lynn Horpidal. Thank you for listening.