Kairos/Chronos books (L'Engle)
Jan. 2nd, 2025 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnOkay, so now I can FINALLY post about how this fall I did the deep dive through a whoooooole bunch of L'Engle's books!
- A Wrinkle in Time - I don't think I'd reread this since... since I was a kid, maybe? And I got sucked right straight into it. I mean, clearly it's a case of "this book was incredibly important to me as a child." (One of my college friends told me that it was a weird book, I demurred, and he was like, "...it's got a huge disembodied brain??" "Oh. I guess you have a point.") Also, Calvin really comes across as much more a reading/writing type than a science type, I wouldn't have expected him to grow up (or even have the skills) to be a super famous marine biologist. Human agency is a huge theme in this one, of course.
- A Wind in the Door - This one hit me maybe the most of all of them, for some reason. Possibly my favorite, coming back to it. I think there's something very profound in that Meg is called a Namer, and that it is her gift for Naming that drives the action of the story, both with Mr. Jenkins and with Progo/the Echthroi at the end. And then we never hear about it again in the other books :( Agency is also a major theme here, though not to the extent that it is in Wrinkle, I think.
General comment for all the books, but I particularly felt it here: I have to admire how L'Engle didn't really know anything about science and she just WENT FOR IT in her work. I told D that no scientist could ever have written A Wind in the Door because they just wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face while writing about Deepening sentient farandolae inside of mitochondria, but L'Engle really just makes it work!
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet - I still absolutely adore this book, but oh boy it was an interesting experience to read it in 2024 and be like, wow, yeah, that whole stuff about the blue-eyed Native Americans and how they descended from blue-eyed people who came from Wales to be their leaders is Something Else. But all the stuff about Beezie O'Keefe hit harder this time around than before -- there's a lot of generational trauma in this book.
I read an article that pointed out that, while L'Engle is really big on agency in her other books, in this one, Charles Wallace going Within seems to negate that. My headcanon is that going Within is a sort of partnership where the person going Within and the person they are Within have to work together, so their decisions are actually joint ones, but I see that point of view as well.
- Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters - these were never my favorites, I think because I first read the Kairos books, so I was hoping that they would have more numinous stuff in them than they actually did. Starfish is especially kind of... thriller-ish in a way I didn't find compelling, while Dragons -- which admittedly I did read more times as a kid -- is more interesting to me, with the multiple plotlines and Simon and Poly and Charles all being rather intriguing characters and having more to do than in Starfish.
- A House Like a Lotus - Lotus is the big Polly-narrator book. On this reread, I found it notable that it's the one where Meg does get a bit of consideration, if only through the eyes of Max Horne, Polly's mentor, who points out that Meg is getting restless and would like to be able to use her brain more.
- An Acceptable Time - probably my least favorite Kairos book. I feel like Meg got to have all these awesome cosmic adventures where she went to other planets and visited a mitochondrion and at least by proxy rode a unicorn through lots of different times, and then Polly only gets to go through time to swim across the lake and heal stupid Zachary Gray? Ehhhh. (Possibly I just feel this about Zachary Gray in general. Why does he get to have a time-traveling adventure??) It was interesting to see more of Meg's parents, though! (Though this is the one where Kate Murry inexplicably is a particle physicist, which is weird??)
Here is also where there's an interesting discussion where Polly asks Kate why Meg had seven children, and Kate says, after pointing out that Polly would miss any of her siblings if they weren't around, basically that she thinks it's because Meg had an inferiority complex and that seven kids was something she could do better (or at least more?) than her mother. Which... maybe... has something to do with it?... though a) okay, ugh, I just think it is sort of a pop psych reason, and b) honestly I do not feel like it is a strong enough reason by itself that anyone would choose to have seven kids!
- The Young Unicorns is that rarity, a book that I actually liked better when I read it as an adult. Now, this may be in large part because I was super disappointed in it as an adolescent, because, I mean, L'Engle and unicorns, right? I had expectations! And there is not a single unicorn in this book, which is actually a YA suspense novel set in gritty NYC, with (as it turns out) no supernatural elements whatsoever. But I thought it was done well. The plot was set up well (it won't necessarily be a super big twist for an adult, but I thought it was well constructed for a YA); the different POVs were understandable and sympathetic while still sometimes being crappy to others, as is the case with real human beings; and there are some really great thematic set pieces, like Mr. Theo playing the organ near the end of the book. The theme of human agency was really, really strong in this book.
- A Ring of Endless Light I hadn't reread in quite a long time, despite it being one of my favorite non-Kairos books and the one I probably read the most as a kid. Rereading it, it was interesting how many pieces of it I'd incorporated into my adolescent viewpoints without my remembering it was from here -- the whole discussion about cryogenics being super lame (I don't believe that any more -- nor do I believe that people working against death are necessarily wrongheaded -- but I certainly do have a visceral reaction to it that comes directly from reading this book) -- Leo's cursing against God, which is still an affirmation of his faith as turning away wouldn't be -- sex as an affirmation of life -- the idea that perhaps there are some burdens that we are meant to bear, but there are some that we're not necessarily meant to take on.
(Also, I did not know until reading it this time that Mme Katherine Vigneras (from A Small Rain / Severed Wasp) makes a cameo here! That was cool.)
Reading this and Unicorns was also interesting because in one of them (I forget which) Victoria Austin, the mom, lays down an argument that feminism means that you can choose being a stay-at-home mom as well as choosing to have a career (which I don't disagree with, though there are obviously tradeoffs either way, and I also think that feminism should also mean that men can choose to be a stay-at-home dad as well as choosing to have a career). It's interesting that both of the moms in L'Engle's "main" families (Meg O'Keefe, Victoria Austin) made the former choice, though it's certainly true that there are examples of L'Engle women having careers. (Katherine Vigneras, who I've always thought was a L'Engle alter-ego, is a world-famous concert pianist who has two live children and one who died; Suzy Austin Davidson is a doctor and has multiple kids; Kate Murry, of course, is a Nobel-prize-winning biologist (unless she is a particle physicist?) and has four kids; Ursula Heschel is a world-famous neurosurgeon with no kids; Emily Gregory is another world-famous concert pianist. There are no examples of stay-at-home dads I know of in L'Engle's oeuvre.)
Also also, Vicky, who is 15 (15!) has two guys after her who are 20. And one who is 17, but that seems a little less terrible. 20! NO. Quite frankly, although I was definitely a Vicky/Adam shipper when I read this as a kid, as an adult I feel Adam is right to cool his jets and treat her like his friend's kid sister, BECAUSE SHE IS.
- Troubling a Star -- I never did read this when it came out, the only (I think) Austin L'Engle I hadn't read as of this fall. And on this reread I really tried to get all the way through this and I just couldn't; I ended up skimming the last half. I suppose it's totally in character for Vicky to be totally mooning after Adam and also devastated when he writes a letter saying that he doesn't care for her, even though if she thought about it for one minute (she didn't) she'd realize that he was putting on a show. Also, nothing happened in this book. Even the central conflict that was laid down, Vicky being stranded on an iceberg, resolved anticlimatically when Adam putt-putted by to save her. On the plus side: lots of pretty descriptions of Antartica. Also, the fictional South American country of Vespugia makes a return! Apparently whatever fix Charles Wallace put in only lasted until El Zarco died (apparently of natural causes).
Also there is a throwaway line where her sister Suzy, who is in 7th grade, has SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BOYS after her. L'Engle, what is even your problem??
But really, I'm really very glad that I got to be immersed in L'Engle this fall (which was why I offered it) -- her work is so life-affirming, and so affirming of love and hope, that it was a pleasure to visit all of these again. <3
- A Wrinkle in Time - I don't think I'd reread this since... since I was a kid, maybe? And I got sucked right straight into it. I mean, clearly it's a case of "this book was incredibly important to me as a child." (One of my college friends told me that it was a weird book, I demurred, and he was like, "...it's got a huge disembodied brain??" "Oh. I guess you have a point.") Also, Calvin really comes across as much more a reading/writing type than a science type, I wouldn't have expected him to grow up (or even have the skills) to be a super famous marine biologist. Human agency is a huge theme in this one, of course.
- A Wind in the Door - This one hit me maybe the most of all of them, for some reason. Possibly my favorite, coming back to it. I think there's something very profound in that Meg is called a Namer, and that it is her gift for Naming that drives the action of the story, both with Mr. Jenkins and with Progo/the Echthroi at the end. And then we never hear about it again in the other books :( Agency is also a major theme here, though not to the extent that it is in Wrinkle, I think.
General comment for all the books, but I particularly felt it here: I have to admire how L'Engle didn't really know anything about science and she just WENT FOR IT in her work. I told D that no scientist could ever have written A Wind in the Door because they just wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face while writing about Deepening sentient farandolae inside of mitochondria, but L'Engle really just makes it work!
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet - I still absolutely adore this book, but oh boy it was an interesting experience to read it in 2024 and be like, wow, yeah, that whole stuff about the blue-eyed Native Americans and how they descended from blue-eyed people who came from Wales to be their leaders is Something Else. But all the stuff about Beezie O'Keefe hit harder this time around than before -- there's a lot of generational trauma in this book.
I read an article that pointed out that, while L'Engle is really big on agency in her other books, in this one, Charles Wallace going Within seems to negate that. My headcanon is that going Within is a sort of partnership where the person going Within and the person they are Within have to work together, so their decisions are actually joint ones, but I see that point of view as well.
- Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters - these were never my favorites, I think because I first read the Kairos books, so I was hoping that they would have more numinous stuff in them than they actually did. Starfish is especially kind of... thriller-ish in a way I didn't find compelling, while Dragons -- which admittedly I did read more times as a kid -- is more interesting to me, with the multiple plotlines and Simon and Poly and Charles all being rather intriguing characters and having more to do than in Starfish.
- A House Like a Lotus - Lotus is the big Polly-narrator book. On this reread, I found it notable that it's the one where Meg does get a bit of consideration, if only through the eyes of Max Horne, Polly's mentor, who points out that Meg is getting restless and would like to be able to use her brain more.
- An Acceptable Time - probably my least favorite Kairos book. I feel like Meg got to have all these awesome cosmic adventures where she went to other planets and visited a mitochondrion and at least by proxy rode a unicorn through lots of different times, and then Polly only gets to go through time to swim across the lake and heal stupid Zachary Gray? Ehhhh. (Possibly I just feel this about Zachary Gray in general. Why does he get to have a time-traveling adventure??) It was interesting to see more of Meg's parents, though! (Though this is the one where Kate Murry inexplicably is a particle physicist, which is weird??)
Here is also where there's an interesting discussion where Polly asks Kate why Meg had seven children, and Kate says, after pointing out that Polly would miss any of her siblings if they weren't around, basically that she thinks it's because Meg had an inferiority complex and that seven kids was something she could do better (or at least more?) than her mother. Which... maybe... has something to do with it?... though a) okay, ugh, I just think it is sort of a pop psych reason, and b) honestly I do not feel like it is a strong enough reason by itself that anyone would choose to have seven kids!
- The Young Unicorns is that rarity, a book that I actually liked better when I read it as an adult. Now, this may be in large part because I was super disappointed in it as an adolescent, because, I mean, L'Engle and unicorns, right? I had expectations! And there is not a single unicorn in this book, which is actually a YA suspense novel set in gritty NYC, with (as it turns out) no supernatural elements whatsoever. But I thought it was done well. The plot was set up well (it won't necessarily be a super big twist for an adult, but I thought it was well constructed for a YA); the different POVs were understandable and sympathetic while still sometimes being crappy to others, as is the case with real human beings; and there are some really great thematic set pieces, like Mr. Theo playing the organ near the end of the book. The theme of human agency was really, really strong in this book.
- A Ring of Endless Light I hadn't reread in quite a long time, despite it being one of my favorite non-Kairos books and the one I probably read the most as a kid. Rereading it, it was interesting how many pieces of it I'd incorporated into my adolescent viewpoints without my remembering it was from here -- the whole discussion about cryogenics being super lame (I don't believe that any more -- nor do I believe that people working against death are necessarily wrongheaded -- but I certainly do have a visceral reaction to it that comes directly from reading this book) -- Leo's cursing against God, which is still an affirmation of his faith as turning away wouldn't be -- sex as an affirmation of life -- the idea that perhaps there are some burdens that we are meant to bear, but there are some that we're not necessarily meant to take on.
(Also, I did not know until reading it this time that Mme Katherine Vigneras (from A Small Rain / Severed Wasp) makes a cameo here! That was cool.)
Reading this and Unicorns was also interesting because in one of them (I forget which) Victoria Austin, the mom, lays down an argument that feminism means that you can choose being a stay-at-home mom as well as choosing to have a career (which I don't disagree with, though there are obviously tradeoffs either way, and I also think that feminism should also mean that men can choose to be a stay-at-home dad as well as choosing to have a career). It's interesting that both of the moms in L'Engle's "main" families (Meg O'Keefe, Victoria Austin) made the former choice, though it's certainly true that there are examples of L'Engle women having careers. (Katherine Vigneras, who I've always thought was a L'Engle alter-ego, is a world-famous concert pianist who has two live children and one who died; Suzy Austin Davidson is a doctor and has multiple kids; Kate Murry, of course, is a Nobel-prize-winning biologist (unless she is a particle physicist?) and has four kids; Ursula Heschel is a world-famous neurosurgeon with no kids; Emily Gregory is another world-famous concert pianist. There are no examples of stay-at-home dads I know of in L'Engle's oeuvre.)
Also also, Vicky, who is 15 (15!) has two guys after her who are 20. And one who is 17, but that seems a little less terrible. 20! NO. Quite frankly, although I was definitely a Vicky/Adam shipper when I read this as a kid, as an adult I feel Adam is right to cool his jets and treat her like his friend's kid sister, BECAUSE SHE IS.
- Troubling a Star -- I never did read this when it came out, the only (I think) Austin L'Engle I hadn't read as of this fall. And on this reread I really tried to get all the way through this and I just couldn't; I ended up skimming the last half. I suppose it's totally in character for Vicky to be totally mooning after Adam and also devastated when he writes a letter saying that he doesn't care for her, even though if she thought about it for one minute (she didn't) she'd realize that he was putting on a show. Also, nothing happened in this book. Even the central conflict that was laid down, Vicky being stranded on an iceberg, resolved anticlimatically when Adam putt-putted by to save her. On the plus side: lots of pretty descriptions of Antartica. Also, the fictional South American country of Vespugia makes a return! Apparently whatever fix Charles Wallace put in only lasted until El Zarco died (apparently of natural causes).
Also there is a throwaway line where her sister Suzy, who is in 7th grade, has SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BOYS after her. L'Engle, what is even your problem??
But really, I'm really very glad that I got to be immersed in L'Engle this fall (which was why I offered it) -- her work is so life-affirming, and so affirming of love and hope, that it was a pleasure to visit all of these again. <3
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Date: 2025-01-03 05:52 am (UTC)Because of the farandolae, I believed that mitochondria were not a real thing until somewhere around tenth grade. I was quite surprised to learn that they existed!
L'Engle is so readable.
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Date: 2025-01-03 05:49 pm (UTC)I had the same experience! Only when I learned mitochondria were real, I then assumed that farandolae had to be real too and was very surprised a second time when I found out that they weren't...
She is really very readable!
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Date: 2025-01-03 08:52 am (UTC)I'm also a Wind in the Door girl, though I haven't reread any L'Engle since graduate school -- I appreciate your perspective on all the books!
It's interesting how the setup of the books, especially *Wrinkle in Time* breaks gender stereotypes in all sorts of ways, and then the books revert to traditional gender roles over time. (Now I want the timeline in which Calvin is a stay at home parent!)
And eep, the age gap stuff! (Which must read even more differently to you, seeing things now from a mom perspective.)
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Date: 2025-01-03 05:55 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's a good point -- I read Wrinkle so young that I don't think I really understood the gender stereotypes it was breaking. But then it does become so traditional gender-role... Yeah, now I also am more interested in how it would feel for Calvin to be a stay-at-home parent!
I honestly had never noticed the age gap stuff before this reread! But yeah, speaking as a mom with a daughter who is turning 15 soon (!), if I were Vicky's mom, I'd be shutting that down SO fast.
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Date: 2025-01-04 01:30 am (UTC)I likewise read those books young, and only really noticed the gender-role stuff when I reread Wrinkle and Wind when I was in grad school. Thinking about it, I feel like there's a shortage of good fathering in L'Engle's books -- the main bit I remember is Meg's father in the bits of Wrinkle in Time after they find him. I know Calvin is a father in the later books, but I mostly don't remember it (I remember Dragons in the Waters has early teenage Polly hanging out with a sketchy older dude, which must also read differently now!). And the Austin father I just find forgettable. And well the books do have Canon Tallis acting as a father figure, but he's nobody's actual father.
I don't think I've read any of the books other than Wrinkle and Wind since I was a teenager, which explains why I didn't notice the age gaps. (And also my experiences as a teen that age with boys 2-3 years older turned out to be surprisingly wholesome.)
Looking at your list of examples of women with careers in L'Engle, there's kind of a sense that to be a woman with a career you have to be absolutely world-class at something, which is a trope I dislike. But that may partly just be the L'Engle distortion that everyone is fantastically good at what they do.
(I remember when I was in my early teens L'Engle was talking about writing an adult Meg book in which she goes to math grad school once her kids are grown up. It never actually happened, probably for the best as I'm not sure I'd have liked it any better than An Acceptable Time.)
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Date: 2025-01-04 06:29 pm (UTC)You are absolutely right about the lack of good (or particularly present) fathers in L'Engle -- I don't know that she really knew how to write them. Meg's father in Wrinkle in Time seems reasonable but of course he's missing for most of it and is basically useless after they find him. (I mean, not because of anything he has control over, and if it were an isolated incident I'd gloss over it, but in the context of all her other work...) And it still seems like Mrs. Murry is the one who makes them meals on the Bunsen burner and takes the kids to dentist appointments... Dr. Austin basically holes himself in his office and works on his research or his book (I didn't reread A Moon by Night, where presumably he actually spends time with his family; he didn't really seem to in Ring or Unicorns). Calvin has a couple of conversations with Polly in Lotus which are actually pretty nice; of all of them, I could believe he was a reasonable father, though like you say there's not a whole lot of textual support. Though ha, yeeeep, Dragons had that sketchy older dude (and which Calvin apparently never talked to Poly about at all?), ooooof.
I don't think I've read any of the books other than Wrinkle and Wind since I was a teenager, which explains why I didn't notice the age gaps. (And also my experiences as a teen that age with boys 2-3 years older turned out to be surprisingly wholesome.)
Oh, agreed with all of that, including the experiences with boys 2 years older being wholesome :) I had never noticed the age gaps before this particular reread!
there's kind of a sense that to be a woman with a career you have to be absolutely world-class at something, which is a trope I dislike. But that may partly just be the L'Engle distortion that everyone is fantastically good at what they do.
yeah, I haaaate that, especially the gender-based trope of course but the gestalt in general where everyone in L'Engle is world-class-whatever. (It was a real relief to read Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman series and have all the characters go, "you know what? I don't have to be world-class in the thing; if I am that would definitely be cool of course, but I enjoy it and that's enough.")
I had not heard that she was thinking about an adult Meg book at the time, though I did see a couple of things about it when doing various L'Engle searches this fall. I think on the whole I'm glad as well that in the end it didn't happen, though if I'd known at the time I'd have intensely wanted it.
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Date: 2025-01-03 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-03 06:11 pm (UTC)(Fandom being what it is I'm a little surprised that no one has ever written Canon Tallis/Dean de Henares fic!)
Awwwww now I'm surprised by this too! But I feel like this was a really hard book to find when I was a kid -- maybe not as many people have read it?
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Date: 2025-01-03 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-03 06:13 pm (UTC)I was desperate enough for books that I read them anyway, but yeah, I had the same feeling as a kid :) I wonder if anyone ever got to her from her non-magical books?
They are very weird! Which is quite cool and interesting, as you say. But rereading Wrinkle I was not surprised it got rejected so many times, and am actually a little surprised it did get published, it's so weird! But very glad it did!
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Date: 2025-01-04 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 06:35 pm (UTC)Like , “This is my Very Very Small Hadron Collider…”
I laughed really hard at this. Yeah, L'Engle seems to have this idea that all science is kind of weirdly equivalent, so if you work in one field that automatically makes you an expert in All Other Scientific Fields... I also liked on this reread how Dr. Austin, who is a random doctor doing research for a year in Young Unicorns, is also an expert on lasers because... they are lasers used for medical purposes???? (I don't think we ever even know what kind of doctor he is, or maybe I just skipped over it, but I got the vague impression he was a GP.)
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Date: 2025-01-06 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-09 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 06:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 06:37 pm (UTC)It's decades too late (I don't think it really makes sense to read new L'Engle as an adult) but I think the only Austin book that really is interesting to a Kairos reader is A Ring of Endless Light, which I really do like.
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Date: 2025-01-04 08:13 pm (UTC)That's good to know, thank you!
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Date: 2025-01-06 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-07 02:14 am (UTC):) That's a really helpful way of thinking about it! Even now. Thanks!
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Date: 2025-01-09 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 08:12 pm (UTC)Also your fic was amazing. As someone who doesn't remember "Acceptable Time" well, I enjoyed the part about "oh yeah, accidental time travel sometimes causes parallel universes to collid, that's probably a thing that happens." :D
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Date: 2025-01-06 05:33 am (UTC)Ahahahaha, yeah, my beta was all "...why are you worried about science in a L'Engle story?" "Fair." So, sure, if time travel is a thing that happens, maybe it makes parallel universes collide, right?
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Date: 2025-01-05 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-06 05:36 am (UTC)...uhhhh, on the other hand, I just realized that as a kid I had Arm of the Starfish and my sister somehow ended up with Dragon in the Waters, and I had the first three Austin family books, and none of the primary Kairos quintet at all? I blame getting all my books from the local library book sale, and apparently I never saw the those books there! I never thought about this before, lol!