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iviarellereads · 4 months ago

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A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 12 Between myself and the powers of darkness

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index for the Time Quintet, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which it couldn't have ended any other way.

Meg and the twins and Mrs. O'Keefe run to the star watching rock. Charles is there, pale and unmoving. Mrs. O'Keefe and Meg cry out the rune, and Charles finds himself on the rock again, with Gaudior.

The unicorn explains that Matthew died sooner than they expected, and they barely got Charles out in time.(1) Charles marvels at having the use of his legs again, after so long in Matthew. As he rides Gaudior home, he passes through the memory of all the people he has been in the book.

When they land, Gaudior's horn flashes, blinding each of those present in turn. Meg hears Charles call a goodbye to Gaudior, but she forgets who Gaudior is. Sandy and Dennys talk about the lightning flash they interpreted. Charles says they came just in time, and thanks them, especially Mrs. O'Keefe, Beezie.

Dennys and Sandy both tell them they need to get inside and out of this chill. They support Mrs. O'Keefe on the way back, and Meg holds Charles's hand as though they were children again. The Murry parents fuss over them coming back in, though more over Ananda's excited tail wagging disturbing their work in the lab.

Meg remembers a phone call from the president, but only vaguely. Everyone asks where Charles was, and there are some cheeky double-entendres about his going for a walk and an adventure. Meg tells them to show Charles the letter, which has changed: it's now from Bran and Zillah to Gwen and Rich, the sadness over the death of Mr. Maddox, and Bran and Zillah's sons, Rich and Matthew, the latter of whom picked up an odd nickname from the "Indian" children,(2) who combined his parents' names into Branzillo.(3)

Mr. Murry asks if that's the same letter he read before. Mrs. Murry says it sounded a bit different, but they're all quite tired. Sandy says it has to be the same letter, logically.

Charles asks Beezie what happened to Chuck. She says he died, about six months after going to the institution. As for her other half-brother, he took after his father, and went to prison for embezzlement and died there. Meg connects that Beezie married Paddy for the same reason Beezie's mother married Mortmain.(4)

Another phone call, from the president, but this time about El Zarco AKA Madog Branzillo setting up a peace plan conference, inviting Mr. Murry to consult. When the call is over, Meg asks about the threats, but Mr. Murry no longer remembers any. In fact, only Charles and Beezie remember it the way Meg does, because they traveled with Gaudior.

Mrs. O'Keefe gestures at Meg and says the baby will be born. Meg asks if she's glad to be a grandmother, but she says she's not going to make it. Her grandmother and her Chuck are waiting for her. As Mr. Murry takes her home, Dennys says Mrs. O'Keefe is showing signs of heart failure, and really probably won't live to see the baby, especially after running to the star watching rock.

Sandy says the whole evening's been one big confusion and they should all go to bed and forget it. Meg's just sad at the thought of losing Beezie just as they really found her.

Charles Wallace had once again been contemplating the intricate model of the tesseract. He spoke softly to his sister. “Meg, no matter what happens, even if Dennys is right about her heart, remember that it was herself she placed, for the baby’s sake, and yours, and Calvin’s, and all of us—” Meg looked at him questioningly. Charles Wallace’s eyes as he returned her gaze were the blue of light as it glances off a unicorn’s horn, pure and clear and infinitely deep. “In this fateful hour, it was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness.”

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(1) Every story has certain things you have to handwave to get past, as part of immersion and as part of story structure. But I think this book uses a few too many of the convenient just in time rescues, even though I also think that no explanation would really make it better, and making it longer just to explain would just make it more tedious. I'm not a fan of the structure, is what I'm getting at. (2) I'm still super annoyed at how white men's presence basically takes over Indigeneity in this book, and overwrites it, and subsumes it. It's been a journey of colonialism all over again. We! Are! Still! Here! Living among you, everywhere, every day. And all this has just smacked of the whole "1/32 Cherokee princess" white people like to trot out, which also complicates it for people like me whose cultural practices were banned so hard it was almost entirely lost until the last couple of generations. Just. This book has made me so tired I fell a whole week behind on posts out of dread of each next development. I need to rant somewhere. (The next one will be slightly less personally relevant at least.) (3) And, even though it couldn't have ended any other way because of it, here's where I start getting real skeptical of what L'Engle was trying to say in this book besides the Indigenous stuff. The name "Branzillo" hasn't changed since the opening chapter's fearfulness about him. Without that connection there couldn't have been the story at all, but, why did the evil one have the same name, when it's derived from the "good" people? His nickname changed from the rabid to the blue-eyed, but "Mad dog" to "Madog" is barely anything, and "Branzillo" didn't change at all. What do you think she was getting at with this, intentionally or otherwise, because I'm at a loss. (4) It's more or less a children's book, YA at oldest, so I'm not mad at L'Engle for saying it directly, but I do find it a little puzzling that she says this out loud but passes right on past so much else in this book.

#madeleine l'engle #time quintet #a swiftly tilting planet #meg murry #sandy murry #dennys murry #charles wallace murry #gaudior #mrs o'keefe #mrs murry #mr murry

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kbkirtley · 1 year ago

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A Light So Lovely - Sarah Arthur

Madeline L’Engle is one of my favorite authors and this is one of my favorite biographies. Sarah Arthur does a brilliant job of explaining L’Engle as someone who thrived within paradoxes, holding competing ideas in tension and saying that it’s okay to do so. L’Engle’s most known work is A Wrinkle in Time (which I posted about earlier this week!), but Arthur goes much deeper than that I’m exploring the world through L’Engle’s unique perspective. A singular biography about a singular author that I can’t recommend enough to fans of her work!

#bookblr #madeline l'engle #a wrinkle in time #a light so lovely #Sarah Arthur #a swiftly tilting planet #a wind in the door #books #sci fi and fantasy #sci fi books #biography #books and reading #books & libraries

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cultivating-wildflowers · 5 months ago

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2024 Reading - August

There I was at the beginning of the month all worried about my potential page count for August, and then I went and read well beyond that. It's fine. I'm just a baby. The good news is that I seem to have caught my reading stride again--I actually wanted to spend my evenings reading a physical book, and didn't feel like reading was a slog. And even though I'm only halfway toward my original reading goal for the year, I've made good progress through my digital TBR.

Total books: 9 | New reads: 8 | 2024 TBR completed: 1 (0 DNF) / 27/36 total | 2024 Reading Goal: 53/100

July | September

potential reading list from August 1st

First of all, please admire this graph:

I haven't read this many pages in a month in like two years. (This does count pages and hours I read for books I ultimately DNF.)

Moving on.

#1 - The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol 1 by Beth Brower - 5/5 stars

A quick, charming read with surprising depth. I actually cried at one point. And I definitely want to read more. It’s a pity each volume is so small and that none are available through any library in the state.

Note from end-of-the-month Phoebe: I bought Volume 2. And another book by the same author.

#2 - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - 5/5 stars ('24 TBR)

Expertly crafted historical setting effortlessly blended with the dangerously fantastical. Rich, complex characters who are people of their time. A totally engrossing writing style with asides and footnotes and sharp dialogue that left me laughing with delight. So many tiny elements that combined to make up exactly the sort of story I crave. I wasn't expecting to be enthralled, but I was from the first page. Maybe it rewired my brain a little bit.

I will grant it's not for everyone, but it was PERFECT for me. Just don't ask me what the plot is.

Reasons you may not like it: 1) It's huge and a bit of a time investment. 2) It is largely character-driven and, while well-paced, doesn't have a lot of external pressure to keep the story exciting. 3) It's somewhat verbose, in a Tolkien sort of way. 4) Something of an open ending (which, weirdly, didn't bother me?). 5) As the magic tips from human to fairy, it develops a dark and occult flavor. This is nice for people who like their fairies to remain distinctly wicked within the narrative (rather than roguishly morally gray), but there are decidedly dark elements. I tried to watch the show a few years ago and didn't make it through the first episode, and as I recall it was because the fairies came off a tad too dark for me. Somehow it was better on the page.

#3 - Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden - 4/5 stars

This is both the biography of a man who escaped the North Korean prison camp where he was born, and also a biography of North Korea itself over the past 50-odd years. Sparse and somewhat stilted, full of facts and figures, it reads more like an article than a story. I'll say it's an important story, despite the surrounding controversy, but the writing style didn't do it any favors.

Note regarding the peculiar controversy surrounding this book: A few years after the book was published, Shin Dong-hyuk contacted Harden and revised his story as told here. The base details remained the same, but timelines and locations had changed. Yeonmi Park faced the same controversy following the publication of her memoir of her childhood in North Korea (In Order to Live; which, weirdly, I read in August of last year), which to me says less about the veracity at the heart of both individuals' histories and more about how trauma, in particular that brought about by political violence, can impact emotions and memory. If you're interested in reading this book, definitely check out Harden's updated forward examining Shin's altered account. Harden himself repeatedly acknowledges Shin as "an unreliable narrator of his own life".

More like this: "In Order to Live" by Yeonmi Park with Maryanne Vollers; "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah; "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

#4 - Time Travelling with a Hamster by Ross Welford - 4/5 stars (audio)

If you couldn't tell, I'm desperately trying to fill in some of the missing letters for my second year of a self-imposed alphabet titles challenge. This is my fifth attempt at a "T". Attempts three and four are below in the DNFs. I decided to bank on an extreme change of pace with this one.

A solid middle grade adventure, and one I'll definitely recommend in future. Fun and unpredictable and my head hurts, because time travel always does that to me. Ridiculously short chapters, for some reason.

More like this: A bit like "A Wrinkle in Time", a bit like "Meet the Robinsons" (the movie; haven't read the books).

#5 - The Empty Grave by Jonathan Stroud - 4/5 stars

I DNF'd this last year after trying and failing for a month to get into it. I had definitely been in the perfect mood when I started the series last year, but for some reason The Empty Grave gave me no end of trouble, and I gave it up about a quarter of the way through.

Not so this time. This time it took me all of four days to finish.

Thankfully this follows the tradition of refreshing the reader's memory of previous events in the series, because I'd forgotten some of the pertinent details. Either because of my foggy memory or because of something else in the story, the ending fell kind of flat for me, like it was missing an element to deliver a good emotional conclusion, or like it didn’t fully satisfy the stakes set up at the start of the book. I consider this series more young adult than middle grade, but the way it wrapped up definitely felt middle grade in style.

Still a solid ending for sure, just a little confusing.

#6 - A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle - 5/5 stars (reread) - 50th read of the year!

Comfort book my belovéd.

#7 - The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution by John Oller - 4/5 stars (audio)

Francis Marion is one of my dad's favorite figures of the Revolutionary War, and man, I can see why.

The writing itself is somewhat dry, crammed full of names and dates technical details of battles; but Oller manages to weave a solid narrative as he combs through the legends surrounding Marion and picks out the facts.

More like this: "Lion of Liberty" by Harlow Giles Unger.

#8 - Heidi by Johanna Spyri - 4/5 stars (audio)

"Heidi" was one of the movies I watched on repeat as a kid. Not the Shirley Temple version, but the 1968 made-for-TV version that apparently took some liberties with the plot. (But according to Wikipedia, it's most memorable for interrupting a football game for its premier.)

The book is a cozy classic children's book, plain and simple. It feels a bit like The Secret Garden with an orphan coming to an unfamiliar place and thriving there (plus helping an invalid thrive as well); and a bit like L.M. Montgomery pushing all of us to get outside and breathe some fresh air.

#9 - The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany - 4/5 stars (audio)

Absolutely gorgeous.

You might like this is you like: The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton; or the narrative style of the legends told by characters in the Queen's Thief series.

Useless fun fact: Lord Dunsany's name was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett.

DNF

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - Hilarious two-star reviews proved it's not something worth finishing and it doesn't deliver on the premise. (It's not even about Hamnet. It's a "re-imagining" of Anne/Agnes Hathaway-Shakespeare and guess what. She's a strong, wild woman who practices witchcraft in late 16th century England. Groundbreaking. I need to stop skimming summaries.)

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert - Got about a third of the way through this one before I realized...I just didn't care. The premise was good, and the delivery was kind of meh but not bad--which, considering how rarely I read newer YA these days, was actually a point in its favor. But then we got to the reveal and I went "Wait. That's it?" and lost interest. I don't think magical realism is for me. Also, it didn't affect my decision to stop reading, but I didn't like the audiobook narrator.

Tales from the Hinterland by Melissa Albert - A companion book to the Hazel Wood duology, presented as the book-within-a-book that the Hazel Wood revolves around. I read a couple of the stories out of curiosity, but the allure of that book-within-a-book is gone when it's told in the same voice as the actual story.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - I...have no idea. What is this? I got a little over halfway through it before it got to be too much and I gave up. I liked the writing voice well enough but the story meandered along a plodding, darkly sentimental route and I got lost. And a little disgusted.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart - I wanted to like it, but it was too bawdy for me.

The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley - Robin is such a hit-or-miss author for me, and this one was a solid miss. The premise was too absurd for me to stick it out. I might have given it another chapter, but none of the characters were really grabbing me, and I wasn't fond of how McKinley chose to portray Marian.

Currently Reading:

The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett - I swear I'll have finished this by the end of the year.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown - I'll finish this one pretty quickly.

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chavisory · 1 year ago

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-It is nice getting the perspective of Murry/O'Keefe kids again. I missed it in Arm of the Starfish.

-L'Engle's racial politics are... not good. Like she is very obsessed, for some reason, with the idea of a mystical indigenous race, of almost wherever we are.

-The white savior thing especially in this book is... not great.

-Though it's interesting that there seems to be something really similar going on in Dragons in the Waters as what's happening in A Swiftly Tilting Planet, where there's some kind of notion of the ancestry of a key person in history being pivotal or important.

#dragons in the waters #madeleine l'engle #a swiftly tilting planet

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none-ofthisnonsense · 2 years ago

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Okay time to get to the REAL debate

(there is a right answer)

#poll #polls #madeleine l'engle #a wrinkle in time #time quintet #a wind in the door #a swiftly tilting planet #many waters #an acceptable time

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s1utspeare · 1 year ago

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Me: oh boy I’m gonna do so much world building and space/sci-fi shenanigans in this first chapter of Eternal Voyage!

Also Me: *spends basically the whole chapter whumping Zhang Rishan*

#unfortunately it’s my favorite pastime #my writing #dmbj fic #a swiftly tilting planet #an eternal voyage #THATS RIGHT BESTIES ITS FUCKING TIME!!!!

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specificpollsaboutbooks · 2 months ago

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Famous Authors, Lesser Known Works

Round 1

Madeleine L'Engle is better known for A Wrinkle in Time

A Ring of Endless Light :

This is my favorite book in L'Engle's subseries about the Austin family. While this series is linked to her more famous books about the O'Keefe's, there aren't nearly as many fantastical elements in it. I love this book because of the nuanced way it explores grief. Also, it made me really want to swim with dolphins at some point in my life!

A Swiftly Tilting Planet :

I didn't even know stories could have a structure like this when I read it as a kid, I feel like it genuinely expanded my brain or something. Just read the wikipedia plot summary for this book, it's absolutely wild, and when the Madoc/"Mad Dog" thread finally comes together at the end and you realize what all the time travel soul-merging stuff has been about, it just really blew my mind when I first read it. Also, the variation on St Patrick's Rune stuck in my head for years.

#specific polls about books #spab polls #tournament polls #spab #round 1 #lesser known works #madeleine l'engle #a ring of endless light #a swiftly tilting planet #books #bookblr

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commodoreshock · 4 months ago

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I love when Sandy and Dennys play the skeptics in the family to Meg and Charles Wallace’s fantastical theories because… you two time-traveled back to literal biblical times, fought angels, rode unicorns, and helped Noah build his freaking ark. But nooo, *Charles Wallace’s* time-traveling unicorn is crazy and unscientific.

#I know the books’ chronological order but not necessarily their published order so maybe it’s just a continuity thing #madeline l'engle #the time quartet #a swiftly tilting planet #I’m rereading that one right now and it does not pass the modern standards test very well #but I love it all the same #Charles Wallace voice: he’s not unscientific! … he is a eugenicist tho…

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moderncivilization · 7 months ago

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This is the most stunning book cover I've seen in years

#a swiftly tilting planet #text

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iviarellereads · 4 months ago

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A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 6 The lightning with its rapid wrath

In which I don't know whether to keep the same character tags on these posts, or unique ones.

Charles thanks Meg for the info, and tells Gaudior about it, and how Mrs. O'Keefe must be descended from the author. Gaudior thinks that word makes generations sound like falling.(1) Charles asks to go to 1865.

They make to travel, but there's an Echthroi attack on the wind again, but Gaudior manages to snatch Charles back after he falls off. Charles is worried they might be in the wrong time, but Gaudior says it's more important to go where they're sent on their charged mission than it is to try to control where they go just to look at the things they want to look at. He points to the fact that Charles is still himself and not Within anyone here as proof that his meddling drew the Echthroi and may have compromised the mission. Still, when Charles asks what he should do, Gaudior asks the wind, and guides Charles to where he's supposed to be.

And where Charles ends up is Within another young man, Brandon Llawcae. He's meeting with a young woman, Zylle, who is heavily pregnant. Charles resists integrating, focused too much on why they're in pilgrim times, as he can tell from their language pattern, and what they could possibly learn here, but Gaudior tells him to let go.

Zylle wants Brandon to gather some herbs that her husband fears will have her labeled a witch if found out. Zylle, however, knows that Brandon can keep a secret, since he has a gift of Seeing that the town also can't know about. Zylle knows because her brother Maddok(2) was Brandon's best friend until the settlement got larger, he felt less welcome, and he had more work to do anyway. Brandon and Maddok both miss each other, but will always be friends.

At any rate, Zylle suggests Brandon can tell her what he Sees in reflective surfaces, even as he used to tell Maddok. Brandon says Ritchie, his brother and Zylle's husband, is afraid of the images, even though back in Wales it might be seen as a gift, too.

The last vision Brandon saw was of here (the star watching rock), and a young man (Madoc) who looked a lot like Maddok, but not, somehow. Zylle recognizes her ancestor from description. They finish gathering the herbs, and she lays them out on the rock, and sings under the moonlight to imbue them to give her an easy birthing. The song tells of "blue from a distant eye" coming to save them, and is reminiscent of the song Madoc and Reschal sang.

When they're done, Zylle doesn't take the flowers, saying she wouldn't want the midwife, Goody Adams, to see them when she gives birth tomorrow. On the walk back, she and Brandon talk about how the natives are scorned in the community, and Zylle's people's legend about her ancestor from across the sea. She wonders if her son will be allowed to know her side of his heritage.(3)

They pass by a brook, and at first Brandon sees Zylle with a baby in her arms, with blue eyes with gold behind them. Then, the vision changes: a man, prideful and dark and cruel. Brandon startles out of the vision, and Zylle asks what he saw, so he tells her. She doesn't know what to make of it, but it doesn't sound good. Brandon says before his people got scared of his pictures, they were all good, and now this. Zylle asks to tell her father about this one, he's good at interpreting such things, and Brandon consents.

They get back to the family cabin at the settlement, and go to bed. When Brandon wakes, racist Goody Adams is already there, ordering Goody Llawcae (Brandon's mother) about to prepare for the birth. Goody Llawcae tells Brandon to tend his chores instead of arguing with Goody Adams. He does so, but when he's done, his mother just sends him and Ritchie to help their father instead of helping with the birth (and arguing with Goody Adams). Brandon is mad about it, but Ritchie says, despite her manner, there's been so much less death in childbirth since Goody Adams came.

Eventually they split off to finish their chores, and when Brandon returns again, he sees another vision of a mother and child, like Zylle but somehow not, in a hot country with different clothes than he's used to.(4) He hears a real cry from inside the cabin, which startles him out of the vision, and Goody Llawcae tells him to get his father, to see the child.

After Goody Adams leaves, the whole family gathers around Zylle in the bed she shares with Ritchie. She says Bran's eyes are blue, and should stay that way, if Brandon doesn't mind them using his name. He agrees, honoured. Richard prays, and says Zylle blesses their family by being in it.

As Brandon sets about his evening chores, Maddok comes to see them, and ask if it would be all right for his family to come see the baby. Brandon assures him it is, no matter what anyone else in town says. Maddok also carries a warning, that the town is brewing with talk of witchcraft, especially after Zylle shed no tears while giving birth. He simply asks Brandon to take care of Zylle and protect her and the child.

Zylle's family comes to see her, and after they leave, Brandon is restless, so he's awake to hear his parents telling Ritchie that one of the women passed along a warning, the same one we heard from Maddok. The family is already marked as different, and Zillo told them Brandon had another vision.

At this, Brandon storms out into the main space, and accuses Zylle (still sleeping) of telling them. Richard says no, Brandon said Zylle could tell Zillo, and it was Zillo who told them. Brandon is ashamed of his visions, because his parents wish he didn't have them. Richard feels bad about his son not feeling he could trust his own parents, but says Brandon can't talk about his visions with anyone outside the family right now, with the witchcraft accusations brewing. Then, Richard tells Brandon to go back to bed.

The next evening, Davey Higgins comes by to say that Pastor Mortmain told him he's no longer allowed to be Brandon's friend, because Zylle is bad luck for the village. Davey knows it's nonsense, and asks what Brandon's pictures say. Brandon, feeling guilty, tells him he's too old for such childish nonsense, and walks away.

Maddok comes around to tell Brandon Maddok has been assigned to watch over him. Brandon is afraid, and Maddok wishes it would rain. His weather sense only feels thunder, no rain.

The Llawcae evening prayers are as much about asking for rain as for their faith.

The other children in the settlement won't talk to Brandon anymore, either.

The next evening, Pastor Mortmain comes with his son Duthbert and Goodman Higgins. They ask to see Zylle, to determine if she is Christian or not, to their satisfaction. Zylle had retired, but gets up again and comes to talk to them. She says she accepted Ritchie's beliefs when she married him, but contrary to Pastor Mortmain's interjection, Christianity is not incompatible with her people's beliefs because "Jesus of Nazareth sings the true song."(5)

Pastor Mortmain is horrified at the implication that Jesus sings, but Zylle asks if they don't sing hymns at church. He says that's different, and she doesn't understand. Zylle says that the scripture says God loves everyone, so he must love her people the same as the white people.

Higgins tells her not to blaspheme, but Mortmain cuts to the chase and asks her why she's stopping the rain. She says "our"(6) crops suffer just the same as anyone else's. Duthbert asks her about the cat, but she says her cat doesn't help her fly any more than Pastor Mortmain's, though she says only the most holy of people are granted the ability to fly which undermines her case to the men.

Eventually, Pastor Mortmain says he believes her to be a witch, and that she must die for it, but they will meet in church to decide together. Richard Llawcae asks Goodman Higgins if he really thinks the PotW are evil, but Pastor Mortmain says he's been informed of the stories and finds it uncompelling to suggest they were harmless.

Soon thereafter, a baby dies in the settlement. It's a normal death, as much as any child death can be considered normal, but it's all the pastor needs to convict Zylle. He summons an expert witchfinder, and the town seems to revel in the process. It makes Brandon sick. Even Davey taunts that he could tell Pastor Mortmain that Brandon is a witch, too, if he wanted to, though he backs down when Brandon stares at him after he says it.

Richard and Ritchie refuse to mount a gallows to hang Zylle, even though it means they'll likely be accused too. Richard says another carpenter(6) would not have done it in his place, and he'll follow that one. So, without the expert, the rest of the village assemble a crude one.

Maddok comes again, to ask Brandon to go visit Zillo, who asks Brandon to look for visions about what's to come. Brandon hesitates, given his father's attitudes, but proceeds. He sees the village and the lake as it used to be, and he sees it start to rain. Zillo teaches him "some words"(7) that can be used to save Zylle.

The next day, the men bring Zylle up to be hanged, and when Maddok whispers to him, Brandon recites the rune. At the lightning line, lightning strikes the church, setting it ablaze instantly, and the natives emerge from the forest en masse. Ritchie manages to convince them that, because of Brandon's phrasing, clearly the church was hit as an act of God, because Pastor Mortmain tried to kill an innocent woman. The pastor tells them to stop the natives, and Ritchie shouts, asking why they should show more compassion than Mortmain, but Zylle asks him to remember his own compassion.

Ritchie frees Zylle and they return to Goody Llawcae, who gives Zylle back her baby. Brandon watches his family turn their backs on the church and return to their cabin. As the villagers try weakly to put out the flames, it starts to rain, saving them the trouble. The PotW stand watch as all the people of the settlement returnn to their cabins, and only then leave.

The horror was over, but nothing would ever be the same again.(8)

Brandon and Maddok return to the Llawcae cabin.(9) Ritchie is still angry, but his father hopes it doesn't turn to bitterness, as anger can be spent in time. Ritchie asks where Brandon learned those words, and Brandon admits, it was from Zillo. Zillo, for his part, just says Brandon's a good boy. Richard admits the ways of God are mysterious, but he doesn't need to understand to accept.

As Brandon tries to sleep, he hears Ritchie say he can't live in the settlement anymore, and he and Zylle and the baby will go live back in Wales. Brandon's world is bleak after they leave. One day some time after, Maddok approaches Brandon and says they should be brothers, Zillo is willing to perform the ceremony, and it would unite their peoples. Brandon likes that plan.

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(1) I'm sure this is just a very normal thing where, expressions get interpreted differently by people from outside your own culture, you know? But it also feels like L'Engle trying a little too hard to put some clever wordplay in unless it's setting something up specifically to do with a fall of some sort. Do you think it might be setting something up? (2) Not another one! Well, one can suppose that this one's descended from the other, given they're in the same place and later in the timeline. (3) I have some real complicated feelings about the implications of, y'know, all this and all that happens in this whole book about it. It's hard to go into detail about, but, I have Indigenous ancestry, and, literally the forced integration of my ancestors and my people was so brutally effective, families were literally torn apart between the people who wanted to fight for recognition, and the people who believed it was shameful to the family to even suggest they were native, a fight that only finally took place in my parents' and my generations. It's a whole thing and I'd forgotten how much parallel there was in this book. And seeing L'Engle write it but from such a white perspective… I'm probably not having as much grace for the story as I could give it but it also hurts to see her try so hard but still stab a painful spot. Intent only goes so far sometimes. (4) Ancestry playing such a part in the story, who and where do you think this is? (5) Aside from me getting itchy every time L'Engle puts words in the mouth of this tribe she isn't even making clear if she made up or not, framing the truth of the universe as a song and making it known that Jesus was definitely part of it… I'm sure L'Engle had the best and most Christ-like of intentions, but it's so pushy in a way I got real uncomfortable with over the years. (6) Jesus, both literally and as an expression of my frustration. I have such big complicated feelings about this whole chapter, the way it treats the witch hunt era, the way it keeps invoking Jesus, the whole Indigenous thing… This just makes me real tired. (7) The rune, clearly. (8) Isn't that ever the way. (9) And by the way, did you catch that Llawcae is nonsense Welsh and just a letter jumble of Wallace, instead of Charles this time?

#madeleine l'engle #time quintet #a swiftly tilting planet #meg murry #charles wallace murry #gaudior #zylle llawcae #brandon llawcae #ritchie llawcae #richard llawcae #goody llawcae #maddok (ttq)#zillo (ttq)#davey higgins #pastor mortmain #duthbert mortmain (ttq 1600s)#goodman higgins

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