The Young Unicorns (L'Engle, reread)

[cahn]

This was one of the later L'Engles that I read -- I had the hardest time finding it as a child -- and as a result I had built it up in my head as The Book Where Vicky Meets Unicorns. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to find that there are no literal unicorns. This time around, I liked the book quite a bit better because I didn't have those expectations.

It was interesting to reread this. On one hand, L'Engle does the rapidly shifting POV and it sort of gives me whiplash. Did people do a lot more of this in the 80's? Because if I were reading a book like this now for the first time, I'd probably put it down and go away. I guess I've become a limited-3rd sort of person?

On the other hand, nolly once pointed out to me how completely awesome the families in L'Engle are, and that was kind of borne out for me, and is triply as interesting to me now that I have a kid of my own. In a relevant point, I think the title is awesome, but I also think that in a lot of ways this is not really a YA book, or at least it wasn't a book I was ready to read as a teenager, when the title completely went over my head and just left me with a lingering sense of betrayal that Vicky didn't meet unicorns.

On the third hand (foot), every time I read L'Engle I am reminded that she just really loved science, especially physics, and really just had no clue about it. Here there's very little explicit science and therefore fewer opportunities to get it wrong, but I was rather amused by the idea of a medical doctor being the World Expert on... lasers.

Comments

[luzula]

Oh, I used to love L'Engle as a kid, though I only read the books with magic and stuff in them. I have no idea if they'd stand to re-reading for me today...

[cahn]

Oh, I totally love the Austin YA-ish books (particularly A Ring of Endless Light) and some of her adult fiction (particularly A Severed Wasp), although I'm not a huge fan of her attempts at thrillers.

It's definitely interesting rereading them. Some things (hi science!) don't stand up at all. Some things are either more awesome (the families, like I said) or wonderfully weirder (basically all of Wrinkle in Time... the fact that the villain is a GIANT BRAIN apparently did not bother me at all as a child) than I remembered as a kid.

[ollipop]

I blame the GIANT BRAIN for my total dependence on sci-fi as an adult. The bit with the mitochondria (in A Wind at the Door) really spurred me onward through a fourth-grade science project, but bugged me when I re-read it as a college student. I gave L'Engle a pass at the time, thinking that mitochondria must have been New when the book was written.

I tried to read the YA and adult fiction all in the same gulp, and I remember that I was also bitterly disappointed in the lack of unicorns in "Young Unicorns". I think I put this one down halfway through.

Thanks for helping me reminisce as well!

[cahn]

Wrinkle in Time was, I think, the first SF I ever read, and it was certainly the first book that made a permanent searing lifebond-ish impact on me forever. So yeah.

Ahahahaha. The mitochondria, oh yes. I thought she'd made them up for years. Then I found out they were real! Then I thought farandolae were real. For years. It was... not ideal. Darn you L'Engle!

[ollipop]

Wait... farandolae aren't real?!?

:)