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2007-09-07 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by OldSpook 2007-09-07 15:23|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 A Wrinkle In Time was a great book I read as a kid, as have many ever since. It was Christian Religious Allegory that goes far deeper than the Sci-Fi exterior would seem to allow.

If you have not read it, go do so. Its only a children's book in the way that Harry Potter is - its well written anda good read.

If you have children, be sure they read it - or read it to them.

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Below is a good review from Amazon.

It turns out I wasn't as smart as I thought I was when I was ten. Madeleine L'Engle managed to hoodwink me, but good. I thought this was just a great Science Fiction/Fantasy story, but now I discover that the whole book is a religious allegory.

Meg Murry and her brothers, Charles Wallace and the twins, live with their mother. Their Father has been missing for years, supposedly working on a top secret government project. Meg and Charles Wallace are strange children, noone seems to know quite whether they are idiots or geniuses. In short order they meet Calvin, a tall gangly boy, who also feels like a misfit and three women who have moved into an abandoned house in the neighborhood. The old women, Mrs. Whatsit , Mrs. Which & Mrs. Who, inform the children that Mr. Murry is in dire straits and needs their help. They travel through time and space via wrinkles, called tesseracts, to the planet Camazotz, where Mr. Murry has gone to battle the forces of darkness that are closing sections of the universe in shadow. There they battle the evil being known as IT, a disembodied brain who offers people complete security if they will only give up their freedom and their individuality, as have the inhabitants of Camazotz.

Most of the allegorical stuff is easy enough to see, the children can fight evil by finding The Father. Meg despairs that evil is allowed to exist at all and blames her father, and so on. But I really liked the fact that L'Engle portrays Camazotz (or Hell) as a place where there is complete conformity and security, but no personal freedom. Personally, I believe that Camazotz closely resembles both a Socalest or Communist State and the Garden of Eden. Just as the great struggle of Ms L "Engle's time was the fight for freedom against the security of Socalism/Communism, Man chose to leave the security of a pastoral existence in the Garden and accept the vicissitudes of life without because we prefer freedom.

The book also contains one of the most beautiful descriptions of human life that I've ever heard. Mrs. Whatsit compares life to a sonnet:

It is a very strict form of poetry is it not?

There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?

And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?

Calvin: You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?

Yes. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

This book conveys a worthwhile religiopolitical lesson about the human condition and is great fun besides. I look forward to reading it with my kids.

GRADE: A+

Posted by OldSpook 2007-09-07 15:33|| 2007-09-07 15:33|| Front Page Top

#2 Madeleine L'Engle managed to hoodwink me, but good. I thought this was just a great Science Fiction/Fantasy story, but now I discover that the whole book is a religious allegory.

Same here. I thoroughly enjoyed it as SF/fantasy book when my 5th grade teacher read it to my class, completely missing the allegory. The best literature can always be enjoyed on several levels.

My kids didn't really like it and didn't finish it. But, since they gobbled up Harry Potter and happily read LotR, I'm not complaining.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-09-07 16:09|| 2007-09-07 16:09|| Front Page Top

#3 Maybe that's why I never could write free verse, but only within strict forms. With very rare exceptions, the discipline required makes for much better poetry.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-09-07 17:15|| 2007-09-07 17:15|| Front Page Top

#4 I have a copy of The Glorious Impossible set aside for when my new little one comes to that age. Wonderful pictures; frescos from the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto.

Posted by swksvolFF 2007-09-07 19:05|| 2007-09-07 19:05|| Front Page Top

#5 One of my favorite authors, her books had a big impact on me. She will be missed.

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2007-09-07 20:59|| 2007-09-07 20:59|| Front Page Top

#6 set aside for when my new little one comes to that age.

Oooooh, we get to welcome another future Rantburger!!! Heartiest congratulations to both parents, swksvolFF, and may I wish you many joyous hours looking at those and many other wonderful pictures together, before the little one is ready to read solo.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-09-07 23:10|| 2007-09-07 23:10|| Front Page Top

23:52 gorb
23:24 trailing wife
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