Time Quartet
Encyclopedia
The Time Quartet/Quintet is a fantasy
/science fiction
series of five young adult
novels written by Madeleine L'Engle
.
Those novels are:
With the addition of the following:
the series is marketed as the Time Quintet.
, written in 1959 to 1960 and turned down by many publishers before Farrar, Straus & Giroux finally decided to publish it in 1962
. A Wrinkle in Time won the Newbery Medal
and has sold over 6 million copies. The sequel, A Wind in the Door, takes place the following year but was published over a decade later, in 1973
. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, set ten years after A Wrinkle in Time, followed in 1978
. The last of the quartet, Many Waters, was published in 1986
, but takes place several years before A Swiftly Tilting Planet. This is readily apparent from the fact that Sandy and Dennys Murry
are in high school as of Many Waters, but refer to their college studies at the time of A Swiftly Tilting Planet; and from Meg's unmarried status as of Many Waters.
All four titles have been published in numerous editions over the years, with occasional changes in cover art
and, in 1997, a new introduction by L'Engle for the Dell Laurel-Leaf paperbacks. The books have also been packaged as a boxed set
, first (before the publication of Many Waters) as the Time Trilogy, next as the Time Quartet.
Since 1989
, the Time Quartet series plus An Acceptable Time
(which takes place a full generation after A Wrinkle in Time) have been collectively called the "Time Quintet".
In May, 2007, the books were reissued under the Square Fish imprint in both mass market and trade paperback form. Both editions include new cover art, "An Appreciation by Anna Quindlen
", a "Questions for the Author" interview, and the text of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal acceptance speech, published under the title "The Expanding Universe".
, her youngest brother Charles Wallace Murry
, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe
as they try to save the world from evil forces. The remaining Murry siblings, twins Sandy and Dennys Murry
, take up the struggle in one volume from which the other protagonists are largely absent. A further book about Polly O'Keefe
, the eldest child of Meg and Calvin, features several characters from the other novels and completes the Time Quintet.
A Wrinkle in Time
The mysterious Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which send Meg and Charles Wallace through time and space to rescue their father on the planet Camazotz, accompanied by their new friend Calvin. Along the way, the three children learn about the "Black Thing", a cloud of evil that shadows many planets, including Earth. They encounter a Brain named IT, which controls the minds of people.
A Wind in the Door
Meg, Calvin and the disagreeable school principal Mr. Jenkins have to travel inside one of Charles Wallace's mitochondria
to save him from a deadly disease, part of a cosmic battle against the evil Echthroi
and the forces of "Unnaming".
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Charles Wallace must save the world from nuclear war by going back in time and changing might-have-beens, accompanied in spirit (through kything
) by Meg at home.
Many Waters
Sandy and Dennys Murry, the twin brothers of Meg and Charles Wallace, accidentally travel back in time and meet Noah
. They help the patriarch reconcile with his father, fall in love with Noah's daughter Yalith, and become involved in a struggle between the seraphim and the nephilim
.
An Acceptable Time
Meg and Calvin's eldest daughter, Polly O'Keefe
, visits her maternal grandparents only to find herself trapped 3000 years in the past, caught up in a struggle between the People of the Wind and the warlike, drought
-stricken People Across the Lake.
and the name of the President of the United States
) do not always correspond to the "real world". In recognition of this, and of the cosmic nature of the series, the inside front cover of Many Waters states that the series is set in Kairos
, a way of looking at time as "real time, pure numbers with no measurement". , reflecting her belief that "God's time and our time are not the same".
Each of the books contains one or more instances of time travel
, carrying the protagonists to metaphysical battlegrounds in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The eponymous "wrinkle in time" is a short hop to the immediate past, engineered by the Mrs W's to allow Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace to accomplish their mission and return before they are missed at home. In A Wind in the Door, Proginoskes takes Meg to "yesterday" to show her the Echthroi
destroying a patch of stars. Charles Wallace spends most of A Swiftly Tilting Planet "Within" the bodies and minds of people from the distant (and not so distant) past, traveling there by unicorn. Many Waters finds Sandy and Dennys stranded in the time of Noah after unwisely typing on their parents' computer while an experiment is in progress.
The milieu is identified by the author as science fantasy
. As L'Engle explains in her book The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth: "If we limit ourselves to the possible and provable...we render ourselves incapable of change and growth, and that is something that should never end. If we limit ourselves to the age that we are, and forget all the ages that we have been, we diminish our truth." Later in the same book, she further explains her use of the science fantasy genre: "Writing A Wrinkle in Time...was my first effort in a genre now called 'science fantasy', and science fantasy is not far from fairy tale
, that world which delves deep into the human psyche
, struggling to find out at least a little more of what we are all about."
The world of L'Engle's characters is filled with fictional place names
, often taken from mythological figures that relate symbolically to the locale. For example, the planet Ixchel in A Wrinkle in Time, where Meg is cared for by a motherly, sightless creature with tentacles, is named for Ixchel
, a Mayan moon goddess. Other, more mundane locations are often fictionalized versions of places L'Engle has lived or visited in the real world, such as L'Engle's Connecticut home, which strongly resembles that of the Murry family.
in a way similar to C. S. Lewis
, one of her favorite authors. In A Wrinkle in Time, for example, the beautiful creatures of Uriel sing a psalm, and Mrs Who quotes St. Paul
; and angelic characters — the three "Mrs Ws", the "singular cherubim" Proginoskes, and the seraph Aradnaral, among others — aid the Murrys and Calvin, but still leave the humans to make their own difficult choices. Another theme which echoes Lewis's work is that phenomena which human perception classifies as "science", "religion", and "magic" are in actuality part of a single seamless reality.
, and their eldest son Charles. These are, in order of both publication and character chronology:
These also take place in a Kairos framework, although only The Arm of the Starfish and An Acceptable Time have the characteristic science fantasy elements to any great extent. Taken together, the eight books are called the "Murry–O'Keefe" series. The O'Keefe books further connect, through such characters as Adam Eddington
, Canon Tallis
and Zachary Gray
, to the Austin family series of books, which take place primarily in "chronos" (or "ordinary, wrist-watch" time). Further overlaps between characters connect virtually every L'Engle novel into one massive series of books.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
/science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series of five young adult
Young adult literature
Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
novels written by Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time...
.
Those novels are:
- A Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
(1962), (Newbery Award Winner), ISBN 0-374-38613-7 - A Wind in the DoorA Wind in the DoorA Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time, and part of the Time Quartet .-Plot summary:...
(1973), ISBN 0-374-38443-6 - A Swiftly Tilting PlanetA Swiftly Tilting PlanetA Swiftly Tilting Planet is a 1978 science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time Quartet. In it, Charles Wallace Murry, an advanced and perceptive child in A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, has grown into adolescence...
(1978), ISBN 0-374-37362-0 - Many WatersMany WatersMany Waters is a 1986 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quartet . The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it...
(1986), ISBN 0-374-34796-4
With the addition of the following:
- An Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
, 19891989 in literatureThe year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
, ISBN 0-312-36858-5
the series is marketed as the Time Quintet.
Publishing history
The series originated with A Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
, written in 1959 to 1960 and turned down by many publishers before Farrar, Straus & Giroux finally decided to publish it in 1962
1962 in literature
The year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...
. A Wrinkle in Time won the Newbery Medal
Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
and has sold over 6 million copies. The sequel, A Wind in the Door, takes place the following year but was published over a decade later, in 1973
1973 in literature
The year 1973 in literature involved several significant events and the writing of many notable books.-Events:*September 25 - The funeral of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda becomes a focus for protests against the new government of Augusto Pinochet...
. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, set ten years after A Wrinkle in Time, followed in 1978
1978 in literature
The year 1978 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award given annually to books with unusual titles is created. The first winner was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude...
. The last of the quartet, Many Waters, was published in 1986
1986 in literature
The year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Michael Grade. Controller of BBC One, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.-New books:*Kingsley Amis - The Old Devils...
, but takes place several years before A Swiftly Tilting Planet. This is readily apparent from the fact that Sandy and Dennys Murry
Sandy and Dennys Murry
Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry are fictional identical twins in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet. They play only minor roles in three of the books but are the protagonists of Many Waters...
are in high school as of Many Waters, but refer to their college studies at the time of A Swiftly Tilting Planet; and from Meg's unmarried status as of Many Waters.
All four titles have been published in numerous editions over the years, with occasional changes in cover art
Cover art
Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...
and, in 1997, a new introduction by L'Engle for the Dell Laurel-Leaf paperbacks. The books have also been packaged as a boxed set
Boxed set
A box set is a compilation of various musical recordings, films, television programs, or other collection of related items that are contained in a box.-Music box sets:...
, first (before the publication of Many Waters) as the Time Trilogy, next as the Time Quartet.
Since 1989
1989 in literature
The year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
, the Time Quartet series plus An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time
An Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
(which takes place a full generation after A Wrinkle in Time) have been collectively called the "Time Quintet".
In May, 2007, the books were reissued under the Square Fish imprint in both mass market and trade paperback form. Both editions include new cover art, "An Appreciation by Anna Quindlen
Anna Quindlen
Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist whose New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. She began her journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for the New York Post...
", a "Questions for the Author" interview, and the text of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal acceptance speech, published under the title "The Expanding Universe".
Overview
This series follows the lives of Meg MurryMeg Murry
Margaret "Meg" Murry O'Keefe is the main character and main protagonist in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet of Science fantasy novels, the daughter of two scientists, the sister of twins Sandy and Dennys Murry and telepath Charles Wallace Murry, and the mother of Polly O'Keefe and others in the...
, her youngest brother Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's young adult science fiction novels A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, sometimes referred to as the Time Trilogy...
, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet series of books, and, as "Dr. Calvin O'Keefe", an important character in her O'Keefe series of young adult novels. In an interview released on the DVD of the TV adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle describes Calvin as "the...
as they try to save the world from evil forces. The remaining Murry siblings, twins Sandy and Dennys Murry
Sandy and Dennys Murry
Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry are fictional identical twins in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet. They play only minor roles in three of the books but are the protagonists of Many Waters...
, take up the struggle in one volume from which the other protagonists are largely absent. A further book about Polly O'Keefe
Polly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
, the eldest child of Meg and Calvin, features several characters from the other novels and completes the Time Quintet.
A Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
The mysterious Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which send Meg and Charles Wallace through time and space to rescue their father on the planet Camazotz, accompanied by their new friend Calvin. Along the way, the three children learn about the "Black Thing", a cloud of evil that shadows many planets, including Earth. They encounter a Brain named IT, which controls the minds of people.A Wind in the DoorA Wind in the DoorA Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time, and part of the Time Quartet .-Plot summary:...
Meg, Calvin and the disagreeable school principal Mr. Jenkins have to travel inside one of Charles Wallace's mitochondriaMitochondrion
In cell biology, a mitochondrion is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. These organelles range from 0.5 to 1.0 micrometers in diameter...
to save him from a deadly disease, part of a cosmic battle against the evil Echthroi
Echthroi
Echthroi is a Greek word meaning "The Enemy" . The singular form of the word, Echthros , is used in many versions and translations of the Bible for enemy...
and the forces of "Unnaming".
A Swiftly Tilting PlanetA Swiftly Tilting PlanetA Swiftly Tilting Planet is a 1978 science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time Quartet. In it, Charles Wallace Murry, an advanced and perceptive child in A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, has grown into adolescence...
Charles Wallace must save the world from nuclear war by going back in time and changing might-have-beens, accompanied in spirit (through kythingKything
Kything is from an old Scottish word, "kythe," meaning "to make visible." Madeleine L'Engle used it to describe a fictional type of communication, in a sense like telepathy, found in several of the books in her Time Quartet...
) by Meg at home.
Many WatersMany WatersMany Waters is a 1986 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quartet . The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it...
Sandy and Dennys Murry, the twin brothers of Meg and Charles Wallace, accidentally travel back in time and meet NoahNoah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
. They help the patriarch reconcile with his father, fall in love with Noah's daughter Yalith, and become involved in a struggle between the seraphim and the nephilim
Nephilim
The Nephilim are the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6:4, or giants who inhabit Canaan in Numbers 13:33. A similar word with different vowel-sounds is used in Ezekiel 32:27 to refer to dead Philistine warriors....
.
An Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
(Time Quintet)
Meg and Calvin's eldest daughter, Polly O'KeefePolly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
, visits her maternal grandparents only to find herself trapped 3000 years in the past, caught up in a struggle between the People of the Wind and the warlike, drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
-stricken People Across the Lake.
Setting
This series takes place in a roughly contemporary setting, usually understood to be in the near future with respect to the publication dates of the first two novels. Since the series was written over the course of decades, it is not possible to establish an exact year in which each story takes place; historical events mentioned in the books (such as the dates of the Apollo space programProject Apollo
The Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
and the name of the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
) do not always correspond to the "real world". In recognition of this, and of the cosmic nature of the series, the inside front cover of Many Waters states that the series is set in Kairos
Kairos
Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment . The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special...
, a way of looking at time as "real time, pure numbers with no measurement". , reflecting her belief that "God's time and our time are not the same".
Each of the books contains one or more instances of time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
, carrying the protagonists to metaphysical battlegrounds in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The eponymous "wrinkle in time" is a short hop to the immediate past, engineered by the Mrs W's to allow Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace to accomplish their mission and return before they are missed at home. In A Wind in the Door, Proginoskes takes Meg to "yesterday" to show her the Echthroi
Echthroi
Echthroi is a Greek word meaning "The Enemy" . The singular form of the word, Echthros , is used in many versions and translations of the Bible for enemy...
destroying a patch of stars. Charles Wallace spends most of A Swiftly Tilting Planet "Within" the bodies and minds of people from the distant (and not so distant) past, traveling there by unicorn. Many Waters finds Sandy and Dennys stranded in the time of Noah after unwisely typing on their parents' computer while an experiment is in progress.
The milieu is identified by the author as science fantasy
Science fantasy
Science fantasy is a mixed genre within speculative fiction drawing elements from both science fiction and fantasy. Although in some terms of its portrayal in recent media products it can be defined as instead of being a mixed genre of science fiction and fantasy it is instead a mixing of the...
. As L'Engle explains in her book The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth: "If we limit ourselves to the possible and provable...we render ourselves incapable of change and growth, and that is something that should never end. If we limit ourselves to the age that we are, and forget all the ages that we have been, we diminish our truth." Later in the same book, she further explains her use of the science fantasy genre: "Writing A Wrinkle in Time...was my first effort in a genre now called 'science fantasy', and science fantasy is not far from fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
, that world which delves deep into the human psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
, struggling to find out at least a little more of what we are all about."
The world of L'Engle's characters is filled with fictional place names
Places in the works of Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle has published more than fifty books, including twenty-three novels, virtually all of them interconnected by recurring characters and locales. In particular, L'Engle's three major series have a consistent geography, including a number of significant fictional locations...
, often taken from mythological figures that relate symbolically to the locale. For example, the planet Ixchel in A Wrinkle in Time, where Meg is cared for by a motherly, sightless creature with tentacles, is named for Ixchel
Ixchel
Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in the ancient Maya culture. She corresponds, more or less, to Toci Yoalticitl ‘Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician’, an Aztec earth goddess inhabiting the sweatbath, and is related to another...
, a Mayan moon goddess. Other, more mundane locations are often fictionalized versions of places L'Engle has lived or visited in the real world, such as L'Engle's Connecticut home, which strongly resembles that of the Murry family.
Characters
The main characters (protagonists) in the Time Quartet are as follows:- Margaret "Meg" MurryMeg MurryMargaret "Meg" Murry O'Keefe is the main character and main protagonist in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet of Science fantasy novels, the daughter of two scientists, the sister of twins Sandy and Dennys Murry and telepath Charles Wallace Murry, and the mother of Polly O'Keefe and others in the...
is the eldest child of scientists Alex and Kate Murry. Mathematically brilliant but less than adept at other subjects in school, Meg is awkward, unpopular, and defensive around authority figures as well as her peers, but generally gets on well with her family and Calvin. Meg is initially unhappy with her physical appearance, particularly her mouse-brown, unruly hair, braces and glasses. She outgrows most of these limitations in the course of the books, although she never completely overcomes her inferiority complexInferiority complexAn inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person...
. By the time of A Swiftly Tilting Planet she is married to Calvin O'Keefe and imminently expecting her first child.
- Charles Wallace MurryCharles Wallace MurryCharles Wallace Murry is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's young adult science fiction novels A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, sometimes referred to as the Time Trilogy...
is the youngest Murry child, the most extraordinary and the most vulnerable of the novel's human characters. Charles Wallace did not talk at all until he was nearly four years old, at which time he began to speak in complete sentences. Charles can empathically or telepathicallyTelepathyTelepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
"read" certain people's thoughts and feelings, and has an extraordinary vocabulary. As he ages, he faces illness and other difficulties, but survives and adapts. At age fifteen he remains small for his age, and has a serious, quiet demeanor. He is entirely absent from the O'Keefe series of books, being "off somewhere on a secret mission."
- Calvin O'KeefeCalvin O'KeefeCalvin O'Keefe is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet series of books, and, as "Dr. Calvin O'Keefe", an important character in her O'Keefe series of young adult novels. In an interview released on the DVD of the TV adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle describes Calvin as "the...
is the third eldest of Paddy and Branwen O'Keefe's eleven children, a tall, thin, red-haired 14-year-old high school junior (as of the first book) who plays on the school basketball team. Neglected by his own family, Calvin joyfully enters the lives of the Murrys. By the time of A Swiftly Tilting Planet he is married to Meg, holds two doctorates, and is presenting an academic paper on chordateChordateChordates are animals which are either vertebrates or one of several closely related invertebrates. They are united by having, for at least some period of their life cycle, a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail...
s.
- Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys MurrySandy and Dennys MurryAlexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry are fictional identical twins in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet. They play only minor roles in three of the books but are the protagonists of Many Waters...
— Younger than Meg but older than Charles Wallace, the twin sons of Drs. Alex and Kate Murry describe themselves as the "squares" of the Murry clan. This changes somewhat when, as teenagers, they are transported to the time immediately preceding the Deluge in Many Waters. In the remaining volumes of the Time Quartet, they are the realists of the family, and tend to be skeptical about Meg and Charles Wallace's accounts and theories about what is happening. In later life, as seen in the O'Keefe series of books, particularly A House Like a LotusA House Like a LotusA House Like a Lotus is a 1984 young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Its protagonist is sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe, whose friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne, has sent her on a trip to Greece and Cyprus. As she travels, Polly must come to terms with a recent traumatic event involving Max...
, Sandy is an "anti-corporate" lawyer, and Dennys is a neurosurgeon.
- Polly O'KeefePolly O'KeefePolyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
is the protagonist of An Acceptable Time, the fifth book in the Time Quintet. The eldest child of Meg and Calvin, she is born shortly after the events of A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Intelligent and widely traveled, Polly speaks numerous languages. In her first three appearances (The Arm of the StarfishThe Arm of the StarfishThe Arm of the Starfish is a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1965. It is the first novel featuring Polly O'Keefe and the O'Keefe family, a generation after the events of A Wrinkle in Time...
, Dragons in the WatersDragons in the WatersDragons in the Waters is a 1976 young adult murder mystery by Madeleine L'Engle, the second title to feature her character Polly O'Keefe. Its protagonist is thirteen-year-old Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier, an impoverished orphan from an aristocratic Southern family...
and A House Like a LotusA House Like a LotusA House Like a Lotus is a 1984 young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Its protagonist is sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe, whose friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne, has sent her on a trip to Greece and Cyprus. As she travels, Polly must come to terms with a recent traumatic event involving Max...
), she has not yet settled on a specific career path, but may have found her calling as of the end of An Acceptable Time.
Themes
The Time Quartet shows themes of love, loss, friendship, loneliness and the triumph of good over evil. L'Engle often borrows elements from the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in a way similar to C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, one of her favorite authors. In A Wrinkle in Time, for example, the beautiful creatures of Uriel sing a psalm, and Mrs Who quotes St. Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
; and angelic characters — the three "Mrs Ws", the "singular cherubim" Proginoskes, and the seraph Aradnaral, among others — aid the Murrys and Calvin, but still leave the humans to make their own difficult choices. Another theme which echoes Lewis's work is that phenomena which human perception classifies as "science", "religion", and "magic" are in actuality part of a single seamless reality.
Related series
L'Engle has written four books featuring the children of Calvin and Meg O'Keefe, especially their eldest daughter, Polly O'KeefePolly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
, and their eldest son Charles. These are, in order of both publication and character chronology:
- The Arm of the StarfishThe Arm of the StarfishThe Arm of the Starfish is a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1965. It is the first novel featuring Polly O'Keefe and the O'Keefe family, a generation after the events of A Wrinkle in Time...
(19651965 in literatureThe year 1965 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron*J. G. Ballard - The Drought*Ray Bradbury - The Vintage Bradbury*John Brunner...
) ISBN 0-374-30396-7 - Dragons in the WatersDragons in the WatersDragons in the Waters is a 1976 young adult murder mystery by Madeleine L'Engle, the second title to feature her character Polly O'Keefe. Its protagonist is thirteen-year-old Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier, an impoverished orphan from an aristocratic Southern family...
(19761976 in literatureThe year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-New books:*Kingsley Amis – The Alteration...
) ISBN 0-374-31868-9 - A House Like a LotusA House Like a LotusA House Like a Lotus is a 1984 young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Its protagonist is sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe, whose friend and mentor, Maximiliana Horne, has sent her on a trip to Greece and Cyprus. As she travels, Polly must come to terms with a recent traumatic event involving Max...
(19841984 in literatureThe year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is widely read....
) ISBN 0-374-33385-8 - An Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable TimeAn Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the last of her books to feature Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly or Polly ,...
(19891989 in literatureThe year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
) ISBN 0-374-30027-5
These also take place in a Kairos framework, although only The Arm of the Starfish and An Acceptable Time have the characteristic science fantasy elements to any great extent. Taken together, the eight books are called the "Murry–O'Keefe" series. The O'Keefe books further connect, through such characters as Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington III is a major character in three young adult novels by Madeleine L'Engle. A marine biology student, he is the protagonist of The Arm of the Starfish , and a reluctant love interest for Vicky Austin in A Ring of Endless Light , a relationship that continues in Troubling a Star...
, Canon Tallis
Canon Tallis
Canon John Tallis is a major character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle, appearing in four books. The character is based on L'Engle's real-life spiritual advisor, Canon Edward Nason West of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City....
and Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
, to the Austin family series of books, which take place primarily in "chronos" (or "ordinary, wrist-watch" time). Further overlaps between characters connect virtually every L'Engle novel into one massive series of books.
Movie
In 2003, A Wrinkle in Time was adapted into a television movie by Disney.External links
- http://www.kidsreads.com/series/series-time.asp
- http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4926262/
- http://mavarin.com/lengleweb/murry.html The Time Quartet bibliography page