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Monday, March 9, 2015

A Wrinkle in the Writing

I had the recent opportunity to spend thirteen hours in the car by myself driving across lands inhabited solely by wind so I checked a few audio books out from the library to spare my sanity.  I only made it halfway through The Hobbit before getting so annoyed, bored, and distracted that I had to switch it out (for some reason I can't ever fall in love with that particular book), but Pride and Prejudice got me through half of my trip quite enjoyably.  This left only A Wrinkle in Time to complete the journey, a work I had been forever intending to read but had never quite gotten around to.  It was a rather strange experience.  I knew little of the work and less of the author before I dove in, but it is not a book I can say I either loathed or loved, for there were parts that both delighted and annoyed me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 'geekier' aspects relating to traversing time and space, physics, and all that.  The three odd ladies were a hoot.  Some of the writing was quite picturesque, beautiful, and even haunting at times.  It is always fun to be challenged to think in a completely different perspective (how do you describe sight to a race that cannot see?).  It was wonderful to see a loving family dynamic for once (why does every fairy tale revolve around orphans and outcasts?), especially in an age when fathers are disposable.

I know this is a series, so perhaps the lack of character development, the sudden, unfulfilling ending, and all the dangling questions about this particular universe are rectified in the latter books so I will not dwell thereupon.  The strangest thing was that I felt I had read it before, but the first exposure had been far better.  It minded me very much of the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis.  While the idea of children traveling about the cosmos might be more relatable than a middle-aged English professor of philology, in all other aspects, I must say I prefer Lewis to L'Engle.  Her 'dark planet' was very much what Lewis describes as the ultimate goal of the N.I.C.E. in That Hideous Strength.  Which begs the question: why is the triumph of evil ultimately viewed as resulting in an immense bureaucracy by so many?  I can't help but agree, but it is fascinating!

The thing that really bugged me was her undeveloped theology.  I am happy reading a book without underlying religious overtones, but if you put them in, you had best know what you are talking about or it destroys the whole thing.  I had to come home and look up her particular religious views and discovered she was a universalist, which pretty much explains why her theology was driving me batty: she doesn't have one!  Now both George McDonald and C.S. Lewis are universalists to a certain degree and I won't argue that here, but both, particularly Lewis, also cling to a well-developed Christian theology, even if they don't quite agree that 'the lost' are eternally lost.  They don't lump Jesus in with Leonardo Da Vinci and Buddha.  The difference is that L'Engle seems to be of the universalist school that says anything and everything is true and good and lovely (and therefore nothing is) while McDonald and Lewis at least assert the authority of the scriptures and leave the sorting out of the fate of the 'lost' to a greater authority rather than saying that anything and everything can and must be true.

I can't get past the incongruity of such sentiments, for it completely destroys the credibility upon which the story is based.  She continually quotes scripture, even from the gospel of John (a light shines in the darkness…) but in the same paragraph goes on to equate Jesus with any 'do-gooder' in earth's history even when He proclaims to be the 'way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me,' in the same gospel.  God is mentioned many times, but where is He?  Scripture is quoted, but so is Shakespeare, Cervantes, etc. and God seems to be just as present as The Bard: not at all.  If you are going to be boldly asserting scripture, I would hope you would also assume it to the The Truth it proclaims itself to be rather than a truth.  Deem it a lie if you will, but do not insult our intelligence by treating it as something it is not.  Citing Lewis once more: if Jesus did not tell the truth of Himself then He is either a monster or a madman; He cannot simply be a 'good man,' (see Mere Christianity).  Either He is God or the worst sort of liar or a deluded fool.  This incongruity ruined the whole book for me.

It is something like this quote from Pride and Prejudice: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”  This is often used by bibliophiles in support of their own interests, but if taken in context, one would realize it is a facetious statement made by Caroline Bingley solely in hopes of gaining Mr. Darcy's attention, for she is in truth no great reader or lover of literature but knows he is.  It is the same with the view of the Scriptures that says, 'if I like a particular sentence or passage, I need not consider what it says as a whole,' which makes God out to be a liar and the perpetrator out to be a fool.  Accept it at face value or abandon it fully, do not cut and paste to your own liking!

Had the author left out the inanities of universalism, I believe I would have enjoyed the book far more, but as the foundations upon which its asserted truth were based were very shaky, the work as a whole collapsed for me.  I will not be finishing the series nor can I recommend it to others, rather read The Space Trilogy and you will be far more satisfied.

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