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: 2025-01-06 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!