I've just realized that I never actually write about my day-to-day activities in this blog...And I'm not going to in this post either. My life isn't all that interesting, though, so you're not missing anything.
I've been sick all week, which is unfortunate because it is my spring break. This particular sickness has involved a massive migraine, which prevents me from doing much reading. But I couldn't just not read, so I chose an easy book.A comforting book from my childhood - A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle.
I loved this book as a kid, because I was a nerdy child. I haven't read it as an adult (hey, I'm 18. I can call myself an adult if I want to........Ok, yeah, I wasn't buying it either but it was a good try) or at least a critical reader, though.
The first several chapters were very enjoyable, just as I remembered. Now that I am older and wiser I actually noticed some of the references that went over my head before. For example, theire dog is named Fortinbras. I love pets named after Shakespeare. One of my old horses was named Mercutio. When I read this book as a little kid, I had no idea who Fortinbras was.
There were several Shakespeare references that made me smile. There was a whole quote from The Tempest and Madeline L'Engle snuck in a line eerily similar to "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." These little discoveries were nice little surprises. They also made me realize how much I missed as a young reader.
A Wrinkle in Time was written in 1962. Let's have a quick little history lesson, history I sure as hell didn't know when I first read the book.
JFK was president and we were only just getting involved in Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution still two years away. It was the year the US announced its trade embargo on Cuba and in October of that year was one of the most tense moments of the Cold War - The Cuban Missile Crisis. It was also right in the middle of the Space Race. This was a very significant time in American history and especially in the Cold War.
[See, I remember some things from US History, Ms. Newnam. I did get a 5 on the AP.]
What does this have to do with a children's book about space travel? Maybe it has everything to do with it. Or maybe my throbbing head is making my reading suspect. Either way, here is what struck my feverish mind while reading the second half of the book.
Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are taken to a Dark Planet, a planet engulfed by The Black Thing. On this planet called Camazotz, everything is perfect, everything is in sync, everything is identical. It's like a utopian society. All originality is lost, even their artists are regulated. Obviously this is very freaky.
The kids then meet the Man with Red Eyes. Red eyes that is. Satan? Or Communism? Or maybe they're the same thing? To resist IT, which is controlling everyone and everything on Camazotz, Meg starts to recite the Declaration of Independence.
It's a stretch but at three in the morning, unable to sleep because of illness, weird thoughts permeate your mind. Is this an allegory? Is Meg fighting Communism, in which government supposedly controls every aspect of life, with the Declaration of Independence? Or is she just resisting Satan with the help of God? Because another, very obvious theme in the book is religion. Every other page someone is quoting from the Bible. It's a little off putting for an atheist, actually.
It was interesting to read this book from my childhood after so many years. If nothing else it just showed me how much I've changed. When I read this book for the first time I was a devout Catholic. We read the book in my Catholic school for class. Of course the religious aspect didn't both me then.
Now I'm going to go back and read some of my other favorite books from childhood to see what underlying messages could be lurking around. Children's literature is sneaky. That's why everyone gets all in a huff about it and starts crying for book banning. I loathe banning books. I would never keep my children from reading A Wrinkle in Time just because I don't agree with some of the themes. I would want my children to read everything and anything they can, fill their young minds with a myriad of different ideas not just the ideas I feed to them.
That was a surprisingly deep little blog post there. It's Saturday afternoon. I haven't even changed into real clothes yet. I'm sitting on the couch with Danny watching Deadliest Catch. It's quite enjoyable. I don't think I'm going to be moving anytime soon.
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