What a disappointment this book was. Okay, here's the premise:
The Murry family (a family of geniuses: Meg is the most normal one and she's got a phenomenal IQ; unfortunately, she's pregnant in this story and her husband is giving a lecture at a university in England, so her family is constantly sending her to bed in this story; both her parents are Phds doing research on all kinds of weird stuff and they frequently get calls from the president for advice; Meg's twin brothers Sandy and Denys are in university, studying law and medicine respectively; and Charles Wallace, the youngest is now fifteen and has an IQ that is outstandingly phenomenal even by Murry family standards and he has extra sensory perception and can read certain people's minds;) anyway, the Murry family is sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner when the president calls to alert them that the United States is on the brink of Nuclear War with the small country of Vespugia.
Charles Wallace is tasked with the saving of the world and to do it, he rides a unicorn through time and becomes an observer in all kinds of historic events in one location. Oh yeah, and he's armed with St. Patrick's Rune--a rhyme that defeats evil.
At the end of the book, the story seems to credit Charles Wallace with having changed history and saved the present, but it's very hard to tell exactly what the boy did. He observes the story of a Welsh prince who fled to North America and married a Native American woman and follows the story of this man's descendents, but he doesn't actively do anything. Apparently, he changed history by observing it.
Okay, obviously, I don't have much patience for trying to make sense of this story, maybe I'd understand it more if I did and maybe if I understood it, I'd enjoy it more. For now, though, my verdict is this: what a dumb book, I can't believe I read the whole thing.
Here are only two of my simplest problems with the story: L'Engle doesn't even discuss the moral implications of changing the past; and her characters are so spectacularly phenomenal that they're unbelievable.
The Murry family (a family of geniuses: Meg is the most normal one and she's got a phenomenal IQ; unfortunately, she's pregnant in this story and her husband is giving a lecture at a university in England, so her family is constantly sending her to bed in this story; both her parents are Phds doing research on all kinds of weird stuff and they frequently get calls from the president for advice; Meg's twin brothers Sandy and Denys are in university, studying law and medicine respectively; and Charles Wallace, the youngest is now fifteen and has an IQ that is outstandingly phenomenal even by Murry family standards and he has extra sensory perception and can read certain people's minds;) anyway, the Murry family is sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner when the president calls to alert them that the United States is on the brink of Nuclear War with the small country of Vespugia.
Charles Wallace is tasked with the saving of the world and to do it, he rides a unicorn through time and becomes an observer in all kinds of historic events in one location. Oh yeah, and he's armed with St. Patrick's Rune--a rhyme that defeats evil.
At the end of the book, the story seems to credit Charles Wallace with having changed history and saved the present, but it's very hard to tell exactly what the boy did. He observes the story of a Welsh prince who fled to North America and married a Native American woman and follows the story of this man's descendents, but he doesn't actively do anything. Apparently, he changed history by observing it.
Okay, obviously, I don't have much patience for trying to make sense of this story, maybe I'd understand it more if I did and maybe if I understood it, I'd enjoy it more. For now, though, my verdict is this: what a dumb book, I can't believe I read the whole thing.
Here are only two of my simplest problems with the story: L'Engle doesn't even discuss the moral implications of changing the past; and her characters are so spectacularly phenomenal that they're unbelievable.
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