A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
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A Wrinkle in Time Book Review
A Wrinkle in Time is a 1962 fantasy novel written by Madeleine L’Engle. It is a solid, but frankly disappointing and flawed book.
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“Life, with its rules, its obligations,
and its freedoms, is like a sonnet:
You’re given the form,
but you have to write the sonnet yourself“
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It follows a 13-year-old girl who learns of the concept of the Tesseract and with the help of three magical entities goes in search of her father on a distant planet. Now this story was very original and authentic for the sixties, but is now just interesting and rarely truly fascinating, at least that’s how I felt about it.
The first couple of chapters were so intriguing that the rest of the book never came close to it. Basically what I’m trying to say is that the buildup was too grand and the payoff was nowhere near as great as we were promised. It is a good story, but not great. The ending was particularly clichéd with the importance of love just thrown in there.
The novel has a couple of interesting themes with the finest one being the pressure of conformity. Meg wants to conform and has struggles in realizing that she shouldn’t conform to the society and is great just as she is. That was relatable to me and I really liked it. It’s a great, wonderful message that is timeless.
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But the rest of the themes aren’t as interesting. The major one is good versus evil which we have not only seen countless times before, especially in children’s literature, but the biggest problem here is how its characters are black and white with no grey zones at all. That was frustrating and it made the book much less interesting for adult readers.
Let’s talk about the characters. Meg is excellent and a very complex, admirable female protagonist. I loved her relationship with her brother as well as father and mother and she is flawed and quite real.
Charles Wallace, on the other hand, is a total waste. He is great, do not get me wrong, but ultimately too powerful. Having a child with great mental powers should have given us some great scenes, but unfortunately he was captured and it was up to Meg to save him. That led to heroism from Meg, but thus shortchanged a very fascinating character who needed much more to do here.
Calvin is a strong character and a great friend. Very likable. The three Mrs. characters are very interesting, but I felt they were underutilized. Aunt Beast was much more interesting to me personally as she’s such a fascinating creature. The parents are underutilized too. IT is a disappointing villain whereas The Man with the Raid Eyes is a better and more menacing villain.
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A Wrinkle in Time has solid world building, but not great. Some of the planets were quite interesting and well realized and the same goes for the creatures. The Tesseract concept is also great, but mostly underutilized. You see the pattern here – the entire book is great in premise and it has great ideas, but most are not explored enough which was frustrating to witness.
The dialogue is good, but the descriptions are too sparse and lacking. Madeleine L’Engle’s writing is not my cup of tea – too simplistic and she rushes through too many things. The book has its memorable, great imagery and moments, but most of it was never as engaging as it should have been. It is also rushed and too short in length.
A Wrinkle in Time is a pretty solid, but uneven novel. The characters are strong and memorable, the story is very intriguing, the world building is solid and it has its great moments for sure, but it is overly short, rushed, not all that well written and unfortunately way too underutilized in too many aspects.
