Finished reading
A Wrinkle in Time
(A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)
by Madeleine L’Engle
★
Expectation
For years now since I started to look at bookish lists on the Internet I would occasionally stumble upon this book. I’ve read some mixed reviews and when I saw it translated in Croatian I was even more intrigued. I’ve even managed to buy a copy of this book and the second book in the series sometime in the past year. When I was clearing out some of my bookshelves and taking down some stuff for storage I put both of those books in boxes since I did not think I was going to be reading them this soon. To my shocking surprise my RL book club decided to go with something light and short for the summer and picked A Wrinkle in Time. So I dug it up and started to read…
Summary
What prompted my bookish friends to pick up this book was its status of a children’s classic AND the fact that next year there will be a movie based on it. Movie with Oprah, Chris Pine, Resse Whiterspoon and many others. It’s gonna be a blockbuster. But this is not the first time this book was made into movie. There was a TV movie in 2003. with Gregory Smith and there is even a recent graphic novel edition from 2010. Originally this book was first published in 1962. I was nicely surprised with mom of the story being declared a at home scientist. I thought that was impressive and progressive. What I found appealing was the positive simplicity of explaining science and learning.
There is no easy way of putting this…I really DID NOT LIKE this book. What really did not sit well with me was the way how main character’s flaws were treated. It was more like go with whatever you feel at the time and don’t try to think before you scream your displeasure.
There were so many parts of this book that just felt wrong for me. Most of the time reading felt like experiencing life in a day of a schizophrenic child. The writing style was so dumb down it was just bad. There was one character whose only way of communicating was quoting wise sayings of others. While the wisdom it imparted on the story was wise indeed, the story as a whole felt chopped. I resent the fact that this is a fantastical story and had almost no descriptions. Main characters travel the universe and land on three planets where they meet fantastical creatures. There was something about this book that made it all bland experience.
Most commentaries I’ve come across where regarding the authors religious implementations to the book. That way it was handled felt off and jumped out of the story. Part of what set me to not like this book is in the Croatian translation. Some names were mixed and the translator’s struggle with some word forms was obvious. And the cover is just off-putting…
Conclusion
In all honesty I’m not sure what set off such bad feel for this book but I’m feeling it anyway. I would have preferred if the book had more meat to it. My initial reaction was instant regret to buying it and wanted to get rid off it as soon as possible. This book is a mix of some really awesome things and ideas. The way it had all come across did not sit well with me and I’m left displeased after reading it all…
