Skip to the content Skip to the main menu
MuggleNet Book Trolley
  • Home
  • Book Reviews
  • Blog Tour
  • Giveaways
  • Interviews
  • MuggleNet
  • Bookshop.org Shop
  • Amazon Shop

Ask Madam Pince

Recent Posts

  • Book Review: “All the Hidden Monsters” by Amie Jordan May 9, 2025
  • Book Review: “The Last One” by Rachel Howzell Hall December 5, 2024
  • Author Interview: Randy Ribay, Author of “The Reckoning of Roku” July 23, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Reckoning of Roku” (“Chronicles of the Avatar” #5) by Randy Ribay July 23, 2024
  • Book Review: “We Shall Be Monsters” by Tara Sim June 29, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Cursed Rose” (“The Bone Spindle” #3) by Leslie Vedder February 6, 2024
  • Book Review: “Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth” by Natalie Haynes January 8, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Blood Years” by Elana K. Arnold November 17, 2023
  • Book Review: “Check & Mate” by Ali Hazelwood November 7, 2023
  • Series Review: “Catwings” by Ursula K. Le Guin, Illustrated by S.D. Schindler October 24, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Bookshop.org Shop
  • Amazon Shop
  • Home
  • Book Reviews
  • Blog Tour
  • Giveaways
  • Interviews
  • MuggleNet
  • Bookshop.org Shop
  • Amazon Shop

Ask Madam Pince

Recent Posts

  • Book Review: “All the Hidden Monsters” by Amie Jordan May 9, 2025
  • Book Review: “The Last One” by Rachel Howzell Hall December 5, 2024
  • Author Interview: Randy Ribay, Author of “The Reckoning of Roku” July 23, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Reckoning of Roku” (“Chronicles of the Avatar” #5) by Randy Ribay July 23, 2024
  • Book Review: “We Shall Be Monsters” by Tara Sim June 29, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Cursed Rose” (“The Bone Spindle” #3) by Leslie Vedder February 6, 2024
  • Book Review: “Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth” by Natalie Haynes January 8, 2024
  • Book Review: “The Blood Years” by Elana K. Arnold November 17, 2023
  • Book Review: “Check & Mate” by Ali Hazelwood November 7, 2023
  • Series Review: “Catwings” by Ursula K. Le Guin, Illustrated by S.D. Schindler October 24, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Bookshop.org Shop
  • Amazon Shop

Book Review: The Time Quartet (or rather, Quintet) by Madeleine L’Engle

 

[button color=”black” size=”big” link=”http://affiliates.abebooks.com/c/99844/77798/2029?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abebooks.com%2Fservlet%2FSearchResults%3Fisbn%3D9780440901587″ target=”blank” ]Purchase here[/button] In four books published between 1962 and 1986, American author Madeleine L’Engle created a unique world of cosmic fantasy, with the six members of the exceptional Murry family caught up in the classic battle between good and evil.

Mr. and Mrs. Murry are renowned scientists. The father is constantly being called to Washington to consult with the President, or to Cape Canaveral to consult with NASA. The mother is doing her own private experiments in an old stone dairy-pantry converted into a lab, where she earns a Nobel Prize while cooking her children’s dinners over a bunsen burner. The middle children, twin boys Sandy and Dennys, are bright and athletic and popular, and quite ordinary. With the exception of the last novel in the Quartet, however, most of the action centers on two members of the family: the oldest child, ugly-duckling Meg, going through a difficult adolescence; and the extremely gifted but mysterious baby of the family, Charles Wallace.

Together with a lanky, redheaded boy from the wrong side of the tracks, named Calvin O’Keefe, Meg and Charles (and others) have a series of adventures that bring them in contact with the evil Echthroi–fallen angels bent on erasing everything from existence–and various other sinister forces. But they also meet a series of wonderful beings who help them combat the forces of darkness, maintain the balance of the universe, and keep the Old Music of the spheres humming even into our shadowed, troubled world.

Whether you are a Christian or not, these unique stories will trouble, challenge, excite, and uplift you. Though L’Engle is outspoken in her Christian beliefs, these novels are not evangelical tracts or creedal statements. They express a unique worldview, at least of a fantasy world (but a very realistic one, much like our own); a world sometimes visited by cherubim, centaurs, angels, and unicorns; a world in which all matter, and all living things, join in a song of praise and a dance of joy to the Creator, and yet where evolution is presupposed; a world in which Celtic runes, Bible stories, and quotes from the Psalms interweave with myths, tribal religions, and a vaguely cyclic view of history; a world in which Jesus, Ghandi, and Buddha are listed as comrades, and in which time travel, space travel, molecular biology, quantum physics, metaphysics, and theology intertwine.

It’s very weird, but it’s also thrilling, moving, romantic, and full of lovable characters. And it teaches lessons–lessons about love and hate, faith and skepticism, war and peace, forgiveness and sacrifice. I recommend the Time Quartet, which I read and re-read in three different decades of my life and still find just as challenging and magical as ever. Though L’Engle is a prolific author, and I have heard good report of some of her other books (such as Meet the Austins and the whole series of teen-romance-fantasy-mysteries that follow it), these are the only ones I’ve ever seen on sale. They are, apparently, by far her most popular works. The books of the Time Quartet are A Wrinkle in Time (1962), A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986).

  • Post date
    January 14, 2006
  • Posted by
    Robbie
  • Posted in Book Reviews
Previous post: Book Review: An Enemy at Green Knowe by L.M. Boston Next post: Book Review: The Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop

Related Posts

Book Review: The Dortmunder Series by Donald E. Westlake

  • Post date
    January 1, 2013

Book Review: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

  • Post date
    September 29, 2004

Book review: “The Second Siege” by Henry H. Neff

  • Post date
    March 10, 2013

Book Review: “Wicked Lovely” by Melissa Marr

  • Post date
    January 1, 2013

Theme by Anders Norén