The first two books in the Time Quartet are both relatively easy to read. However, the message that the books are hinged on becomes progressively more complex. In A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L’Engle still uses Meg and Charles Murry as the main characters in the book. However, the message, while similar to and an extension of the themes in the preceding books, deals with more than just the importance of individuals and of the affirmation found in names (although names are of critical importance to the novel’s plot). Rather the book deals with the importance of individual moments in time and how the need for loving action can change the course of history.
An Impending Apocalypse
Published in 1978, Madeleine L’Engle’s novel, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, deals with a threat that most people worried about at that time, the threat of nuclear disaster. However, unlike many of her contemporaries, L’Engle realized that the actualization of a nuclear disaster wasn’t likely to come from the USSR as so many people of that era believed but from a small country with a leader willing to do anything to make a point. And so, she wisely poses the threat as coming from the mad dictator of a small South American country. As a result, not only do the themes of the novel still ring true today but the plot is still plausible and isn’t just a historical footnote.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
The first book in the Time Quartet, A Wrinkle in Time opens with the clichéd phrase “It was a dark and stormy night.” However, as L’Engle has suggested in her other writing – clichés work because they are true and the line drops right into the correct atmosphere for the book. While, A Swiftly Tilting Planet doesn’t open with that laden phrase, a similar mood is quickly established—a mood, not unlike the mood in A Wind in the Door.
The night is stormy and dark and soon the feeling of impending doom is heightened by a phone call that Mr. Murry receives from the President of the United States, seeking advice. Meg’s unsociable mother-in-law has joined them for their Thanksgiving meal and she thinks it is all a joke. However, Mrs. O’Keefe, who most assume is at least slightly crazy, soon shares St. Patrick’s rune of protection with them all, Charles Wallace in particular.
Plunged into the Past
After the meal, Meg who is pregnant retreats to her bedroom and Charles Wallace goes to their favorite thinking spot which they refer to as the star-watching rock. A unicorn named Gaudior meets Charles Wallace and they begin a quest to untangle the threads of the past that have lead to such a deadly standoff in the present.
During the journey, Charles Wallace kythes (a type of mental telepathy) to Meg and she occasionally assists him by finding out information he needs to know. Soon they realize that the rune is a thread running through the history they are trying to untangle, and more importantly, they soon discover that ‘Mom’ O’Keefe has an important part to play in the tangled past.
Different Times
The path of Charles Wallace and Gaudior’s journey is the history of two Welsh princes who journeyed to America (long before Christopher Columbus) and the intertwined fate of their descendents. Gaudior takes Charles Wallace to different places in time where Charles Wallace inhabits the characters of the legend and tries to influence them for good.
The small changes that Charles Wallace makes could be enough to prevent the nuclear destruction of the entire planet.
A Beautifully Woven Tale
Of the first three books in the Time Quartet, A Swiftly Tilting Planet is certainly the most enjoyable book. There is a lyrical quality to the weaving of story threads and images that expands the reader’s mind. However, unlike the first two books where it is absolutely unnecessary to have read the other books, it is beneficial to have read the preceding two books before reading A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The book is much easier to understand if one already has a familiarity with the characters and some of the basic ideas found in the book.
L’Engle, Madeleine. A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Square Fish. 2007. ISBN: 978-0-312-36860-9 ISBN-10: 0-312-36860-7
Read more about Madeleine L'Engle at Suite 101.
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