A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

This is the fourth book set in A Wrinkle in Time's wake--the third is actually Many Waters, which I've never read and have only actually seen once. (Though I just checked my local library's catalogue and apparently they've had it this whole time. Well!) I have always wanted to read that, and I feel like an idiot since I was at Barnes & Noble less than two hours ago. Anyway, from what I gather that book is about Sandy and Dennys and somehow they're transported back to biblical times 24 hours before Noah's flood... and I remember from reading the back that the big problem appeared to be that they couldn't swim (which sounds a little lame, if you ask me). Well, whatever. I always felt bad for them because all the crazy stuff happens to Meg and Charles Wallace. I'd certainly be jealous...

Anyway, this book is set during threat of a nuclear war. A terrorist has threatened to set off his arms in the next twenty-four hours if his demands aren't met, and the only reason the Murrys know this because Mr Murry is such a prominent scientist in his field and many others. Charles Wallace (now fifteen; the twins are now in college; Meg is married to Calvin) is beckoned by Gaudior the unicorn to travel back in time and recognize 'Might-Have-Beens'--small details that if changed could prevent the terrorist's birth or actions. To recognize and change these Might-Have-Beens, Charles Wallace must go Within hosts--that is, enter their conscious and for the most part be an observer but intervene when he believes there is something he can change. His host is wholly unaware of his existence. Helping Charles Wallace is a rune given to him by Mrs O'Keefe (Calvin's mother) which reads (with some variations depending on the situation) as follows:

"At Tara in this fateful hour

I call on all Heaven with its power

The sun with its brightness

And the snow with its whiteness

And the fire with all the strength it hath

And the lightning with its rapid wrath

And the winds with their swiftness along their path

And the sea with its deepness

And the rocks with their steepness

And the earth with its starkness

All these I place

Between myself and the powers of darkness".

The rune is only to be used in incredibly grave situations and is a perfect example of 'the power of words' motif (theme?) quite common in fantasy texts.

In the beginning of the book, Mr Murry and Charles Wallace are found concentrating upon their model of a tesseract that they are in the process of building. A clear reference to the first book--remember, that's what Mr Murry was researching and doing when he first disappeared, and tesseracts are pretty much the 'technical' names for wrinkles in time.

Gaudior, when he and Charles Wallace first meet, explains--re-explains--to Charles Wallace what ecthroi are. At first this bothered me, but I guess Charles Wallace gets an excuse because when he first learned what they were he was six and pretty much a hair's breadth from death.

Well, they travel through time, which I guess is what I didn't mention. Charles is Within Harcels, an Indian, a pre-Columbian Welsh traveller, a Puritan-era American, CHUCK O'KEEFE (!!!) and Matthew Maddox, a mid-nineteenth century author. He is also thrown into several ecthroi 'projections', that is, futures the ecthroi want to attain--one a clear, disturbing image of the future that shall be if Charles Wallace in his mission should fail. Ugh.

I don't really have much to say until we get to Chuck. He suffers an injury to the brain, and as such, his mind and Charles Wallace's... meld a little. Some things kind of swim together. Case in point, he tells his sister that he dreamt of a time when the valley their town is situated in was a lake and he rode a giant fish in it, he dreamt about "a fire of roses" (224) and riding a unicorn and that he can move "in and out of time" (224). As Harcels, Charles was friends with that very fish and rode him, obviously the unicorn is Gaudior, and the rose-fire also occurs during a Within stint.

Yeah, and the next Within goes into Matthew Maddox, an author who has no use of his legs. His horse stumbled and crushed them--he confessed to his brother at one point that just before the horse fell he smelt (smelled? Is smelt real?) a "horrible, putrid stink" (232). This sensation is always associated with the ecthroi; the fake Mr Jenkinses carried a rotten cabbage-like scent with them, and oft left it in their stead.

One thing that pisses me off about Meg, again--when thinking about what she saw while kything with Charles Wallace (it's like telepathy to the max) she thinks of Gaudior and is immediately like "how absurd, a unicorn". WHAT!? Dude, are you aware of the past events in your life!? "I went into space with three shapeshifters and saved my father from a giant brain that was George Orwell's worst nightmare and later Magic School Bus'd my way into my brother's body to convince his cells to keep on producing with the help of my principal, also clones of my principal were trying to kill everybody." After that I'd be like, oh, a unicorn. Duh.

Anyway... What else? Well, this book is hard to get without reading, and difficult to explain. This is a really complex book. (Think of it as the 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' of books.) Lots of subtleties. And stuff. This is probably the best in the three, and you need relatively no information from the other two books to get into it (though A Wrinkle in Time gives you a better image of what Mrs O'Keefe... is). Ugh godammit this book is so AWESOME. Seriously. READ IT.

Oh, what the hell. I wasn't going to give the ending because it would require a long-winded explanation... but... I have to. Here we go. Mrs O'Keefe is a woman who you can look at and tell she's had a rough time. She looks like a haggard mad old woman, even though she's probably not older than fifty. She has no teeth, she is unkind--in A Wrinkle in Time we see her beating one of her children with a wooden spoon inside a filthy kitchen. We learn what exactly made her this way, however, in this book--her father died, her stepfather was the one who gave her brother Chuck his head injury. Aside from that, he'd beat their mother and often provoke Mrs O'Keefe--then Beezie--sexually, that is, pinching her bottom whenever in close enough proximity to reach it. Eventually the stepfather has Chuck institutionalized and Beezie was kind of lost--till she found herself in the arms of Paddy O'Keefe, for no real decent reason other than she was lost. Paddy ruined her, having a personality as poor as the stepfather, and Beezie completed her withering on the vine. Anyway, at the end, after all this excitement, it is clear Mrs O'Keefe will not survive the next few hours. I was always aware of that. What I did not quite understand was the very end, by giving them the rune--"'Remember that it was herself she placed, for the baby's sake, and yours, and Calvin's, and all of us... In this fateful hour, it was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness'" (278). What a beautiful, beautiful ending. Mein Gott, seriously, it's just so... so touching, I guess is the only way I can put it. Again, mein Gott.

This was an awesome series to reread. Madelein L'Engle was awesome. And, I just read that the Murrys were supposed to be situated in Connecticut. I wonder what part? I guess not near my neck of the woods--we haven't changed much socially since the 1930's. (Locking doors? Not eating snow? From how many decades into the future have you come, pardner?)

The one thing that bothers me about this edition is how much the cover sucks. Lamest looking unicorn ever. My original copy of the book had Gaudior rearing up with Charles Wallace holding on while ecthroi attacked them. It was TOTALLY AWESOME. This is the exact opposite of that. It's so lame it doesn't even come up as a result on Google images! Bleeeeegh. Whatever, man...

MLA Citation information: L'Engle, Madeleine. A Swiftly Tilting Planet. New York: Farrar, Starus & Giroux, Inc, 1978. Print.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by REM

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: So you can't see me--no not at all, in another dimension--with voyeuristic intention--well-secluded, I see all....