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Book Club: A Wrinkle in Time · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: When never told your prediction of ihet radio, And today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are bringing a book that I am so excited
0:24
Speaker 1: we chose I thrilled about this. So for our book
0:28
Speaker 1: club for Women's History Month, we're doing I don't think
0:31
Speaker 1: we've ever done one quite like this. We are talking
0:35
Speaker 1: about Madeline Lingles nineteen sixty two classic, A Wrinkle in Time.
0:40
Speaker 1: It's a young adult science fiction fantasy novel that explores
0:44
Speaker 1: themes of feeling different, conformity, science, religion, family, and love.
0:50
Speaker 1: It tackles some pretty big ideas, but in a way
0:53
Speaker 1: that is accessible and really creative and draws you in.
0:57
Speaker 1: It encourages curiosity, it asks questions, It encourages you being yourself.
1:05
Speaker 1: While it was rejected by several publishers, about twenty six publishers.
1:12
Speaker 1: Apparently they thought it had too much evil for a
1:15
Speaker 1: children's book, and having a girl being the main protagonist,
1:18
Speaker 1: and the science fiction book just wasn't done At the time,
1:21
Speaker 1: they were really struggling with like, what is this? How
1:25
Speaker 1: do we classify this book? It did go on to
1:28
Speaker 1: be a massive critical success, including winning at numerous awards
1:34
Speaker 1: like the Newberry Medal in nineteen sixty three, and it's
1:37
Speaker 1: a hugely popular and beloved book. It is still relevant today.
1:41
Speaker 1: I was struck by it rereading it this time. It
1:44
Speaker 1: sold over ten million copies. It's been adapted more than
1:47
Speaker 1: once as a film. It has audio productions, there's an opera,
1:53
Speaker 1: there's a graphic novel, and it's featured in countless other properties.
1:57
Speaker 1: And it helped pave the way for other feet male protagonist.
2:01
Speaker 1: This book is also the first in a series that
2:03
Speaker 1: follows the characters and their families. I believe she wrote
2:07
Speaker 1: like forty to sixty books. She wrote a lot of books. Yes,
2:14
Speaker 1: just a fun fact about Lingole, who we are going
2:17
Speaker 1: to talk about more about her beliefs in the themes.
2:22
Speaker 1: She worked alongside Betty Frieden on her university literary magazine
2:27
Speaker 1: and once said, I'm a female. Why would I give
2:29
Speaker 1: all the best ideas to a male?
2:32
Speaker 2: Amen?
2:33
Speaker 1: Right? Right? So there were a couple of reasons that
2:38
Speaker 1: this was on my mind, But one of the big
2:40
Speaker 1: ones was I was hanging out with a friend of
2:42
Speaker 1: mine and we were talking about I used to have
2:46
Speaker 1: this bookshelf that she would kind of use as a library,
2:50
Speaker 1: and she would you borrow my books, and that The
2:55
Speaker 1: Wrinkle in Time was just so well born, and I
2:59
Speaker 1: still have it, and it's like falling apart. I read
3:02
Speaker 1: it so much. I loved it so much, and she said,
3:08
Speaker 1: she said, like, I remember thinking I should choose this one,
3:12
Speaker 1: because clearly this is a well loved book of hers.
3:17
Speaker 1: And it's true. I did want to go over this
3:19
Speaker 1: before we get started, and then I wanted to ask you,
3:22
Speaker 1: because you've also read it before this, so I really
3:26
Speaker 1: did remember quite a bit about it. On the reread.
3:30
Speaker 1: I remembered the plot pretty much. I remembered there's an
3:34
Speaker 1: illustration in it, for clear as day. I remember that illustration,
3:40
Speaker 1: which we are going to talk about. There's a character
3:43
Speaker 1: named Calvin. I did not remember at all, which I
3:46
Speaker 1: think is very telling given some things about me I
3:53
Speaker 1: will talk about. I do remember when they get to
3:57
Speaker 1: Kamisots and kind of the like uniform jump roping and
4:02
Speaker 1: playing and that being really creeped out by that whole idea.
4:07
Speaker 1: I really remember the eating scene where they were eating
4:12
Speaker 1: the food and it's like bland, and then Charles, Charles
4:16
Speaker 1: Wallace gets super into it, and then I remember the
4:18
Speaker 1: Big Brain and how Meg defeated it, So I feel
4:23
Speaker 1: I think it was there. I think most of the
4:25
Speaker 1: stuff was there. I remember, other than Calvin, the characters
4:31
Speaker 1: were all there.
4:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, No, I remember very little. Actually I only
4:37
Speaker 2: read it once, and I think I read it due
4:40
Speaker 2: to its popularity and being religious as a young kid
4:44
Speaker 2: and loving C. S. Lewis. I think I had like
4:49
Speaker 2: a pretty conceived feeling that it wasn't going to be
4:52
Speaker 2: as good or it wasn't going to be as good
4:54
Speaker 2: in my book, because I loved all of the like
4:58
Speaker 2: the Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobes, Chronicles of Narnia, so
5:01
Speaker 2: this was a little different. So I don't remember, like
5:04
Speaker 2: I can clearly tell you everything about the Chronicles of
5:07
Speaker 2: Narnia the things about this book, and I don't know.
5:10
Speaker 2: I read the other two that go along with it.
5:12
Speaker 2: It's a trilogy, right, it's Quintet, oh Quintet. But I
5:16
Speaker 2: did not remember hardly anything. I knew there were three
5:19
Speaker 2: kids that went on the adventure. I knew the dad
5:22
Speaker 2: was missing, and I remember thinking that because the dad
5:26
Speaker 2: was not as significant a role as it plays out
5:31
Speaker 2: to be. Like the recent release with Chris Pine, you
5:37
Speaker 2: know I'm talking about you know, he plays the father.
5:41
Speaker 1: Disney The New Yeah, okay, I didn't know Chris Pine was.
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Speaker 2: Yes, he plays the father, but yeah, I just remember again.
5:49
Speaker 2: I also forgot about Calvin. I really thought it was
5:52
Speaker 2: three sibling groups. I forgot the youngest existing, uh at all.
6:00
Speaker 1: I don't know why.
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Speaker 2: In my mind it was the twins who were but
6:03
Speaker 2: they weren't twins. It was just two boys, so it
6:06
Speaker 2: wasn't like the twins specifically. It could have been the
6:08
Speaker 2: youngest one, but I didn't remember how young he was.
6:12
Speaker 2: What I do remember again is the three sibling groups.
6:15
Speaker 2: I remember the two D world because that whole feeling
6:18
Speaker 2: of like I couldn't breathe. I was like, oh yeah,
6:20
Speaker 2: I remember the scene because it made me panic a
6:23
Speaker 2: little bit the way it was described. I remember the
6:26
Speaker 2: three creatures, the women missus which missus what all of those?
6:32
Speaker 2: I remember them, and that they weren't worldly. That I remember.
6:37
Speaker 2: That's all I remember. I forgot about Aunt Beast, which
6:41
Speaker 2: if I read it back then, I probably would have
6:44
Speaker 2: loved and fixated on her mainly because of like the
6:47
Speaker 2: kindness and the touch and all of that. That I
6:50
Speaker 2: was like, huh, I can't believe I can't remember her either,
6:54
Speaker 2: like I did not remember much at all. I did
6:57
Speaker 2: not remember the brain and didn't remember the brain I remember.
7:04
Speaker 2: I think that probould be about it. And I remember
7:07
Speaker 2: again the mother being the beautiful woman. M h that
7:11
Speaker 2: was a clear part in my head.
7:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well this was a big I obviously read
7:25
Speaker 1: it a ton when I was a kid, and I
7:28
Speaker 1: read all of the series, and I read a lot
7:30
Speaker 1: of her books. I obviously did not read all forty
7:33
Speaker 1: to sixty, however mean it is, but I read a
7:35
Speaker 1: lot of the I read that whole quintet, and then
7:37
Speaker 1: I read she did like a some others that were
7:40
Speaker 1: kind of similar, and I read those. So maybe it
7:45
Speaker 1: was just my thing. I'm not sure. But it is
7:51
Speaker 1: a quick read. It goes fast, like the plot is
7:56
Speaker 1: like nope, we're moving on. Yeah.
8:00
Speaker 2: I thought like the ending was a lot faster, Like
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Speaker 2: the resolve was way quicker than the actual adventure part
8:06
Speaker 2: that I was like, wait, that was quick.
8:09
Speaker 1: She solved that really quickly. What just happened? Yep, yep,
8:14
Speaker 1: you just need to figure out the power of love, Samantha,
8:17
Speaker 1: power of law? Yes, okay, well I would I would
8:22
Speaker 1: love to hear from listeners about this because it is
8:25
Speaker 1: a big As I said, it's had a huge impact.
8:29
Speaker 1: It's also very commonly on like reader's list or something
8:34
Speaker 1: that you read for school. So let us know your
8:39
Speaker 1: thoughts and I've yeah, I guess no spoilers, but because
8:44
Speaker 1: this has been out for a while, yes, and it
8:48
Speaker 1: gets referenced everywhere. But uh, here we go. Let's go
8:52
Speaker 1: over the plot. The story follows thirteen year old Meg Murray,
8:57
Speaker 1: who is a bit of an outcast at her school,
9:00
Speaker 1: playing as she calls herself an incredibly smart Her younger brother,
9:03
Speaker 1: Charles Wallace, is also incredibly smart and seems to have
9:07
Speaker 1: some kind of extrasensory gift, and Meg's parents are both scientists. However,
9:13
Speaker 1: her father went missing while doing some top secret work
9:17
Speaker 1: for the government, and he hasn't been seen or heard
9:20
Speaker 1: from in many years, a fact that causes a lot
9:23
Speaker 1: of gossip around town that infuriates Meg. Meg has never
9:29
Speaker 1: given up on the facts that he will return. One night,
9:34
Speaker 1: Meg and her mom meet an acquaintance of Charles Wallace's,
9:37
Speaker 1: a quirky neighbor named missus What's It? She brings up
9:42
Speaker 1: a tesser act, something that seems to leave Meg's mom
9:45
Speaker 1: really shaken to get answers. Charles Wallace and Meg go
9:50
Speaker 1: to visit her the next day and run into a
9:52
Speaker 1: boy Meg's age, named Calvin. Calvin explains that he had
9:56
Speaker 1: a feeling that he should be there, and the three
9:59
Speaker 1: of them go to visit Missus What's It, only to
10:02
Speaker 1: meet Missus Who a woman who speaks through quotes and
10:06
Speaker 1: literary references, and they also meet an unseen presence named
10:11
Speaker 1: Missus Witch. They promise to help Meg and Charles Wallace
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Speaker 1: find their father. The three women teleport the children through
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Speaker 1: space time to the planet Uriel, where they explain that
10:24
Speaker 1: they just traveled by tess ring or wrinkling, And this
10:28
Speaker 1: is where the illustration comes in. But basically, by using
10:31
Speaker 1: the fifth dimension, they take something that would be a
10:35
Speaker 1: long distance and wrinkle it so it is a short one.
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Speaker 1: So in the illustration, it's a string pulled tot with
10:41
Speaker 1: an ant going across it, and then the fingers holding
10:45
Speaker 1: the string come together to wrinkle the string and the
10:48
Speaker 1: ant has to travel a much shorter distance. I remember
10:51
Speaker 1: it so clearly. The process is more noticeably uncomfortable to Meg,
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Speaker 1: who doesn't have the extrasensory whatever that Charles Wallace and
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Speaker 1: Calvin do Missus What's It, the youngest of the three women,
11:07
Speaker 1: who is still over a billion years old, has the
11:09
Speaker 1: easiest time vocalizing, meaning speaking in English to them in
11:14
Speaker 1: this case at least, so she transforms into a pegasus
11:19
Speaker 1: and takes the three children up past the atmosphere to
11:22
Speaker 1: show them the Black Thing, a cloud of black that
11:25
Speaker 1: threatens the entire universe, including Earth. They visit a friend
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Speaker 1: of the women, happy Medium, who uses her crystal ball
11:34
Speaker 1: to show the partial cover around Earth that so far
11:38
Speaker 1: has been held back over the years by various thinkers, scientists,
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Speaker 1: and artist. Missus What's It informs the kids that she
11:45
Speaker 1: was once a star that sacrificed herself to fight back
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Speaker 1: the dark. They then go to Kamizots, a planet completely
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Speaker 1: overtaken by the Black Thing, and the W's as they're
11:58
Speaker 1: called tell them that their father is somewhere here. He's
12:03
Speaker 1: somewhere nearby. They tell the children that it will be
12:07
Speaker 1: very dangerous and that they need to stay together. While
12:10
Speaker 1: the women cannot accompany them, they give them gifts and
12:13
Speaker 1: some parting words. They strengthen Calvin's ability to communicate, Charles
12:18
Speaker 1: Wallace's childhood resilience, and they give Meg her faults Missus,
12:23
Speaker 1: who also gives Meg her glasses to be used as
12:27
Speaker 1: a last resort, and Charles Wallace is warned that he
12:30
Speaker 1: doesn't know everything. Then the children set off. It is
12:36
Speaker 1: immediately clear something is wrong here. They walk through a
12:40
Speaker 1: neighborhood where everything looks the same. The children jump rope
12:44
Speaker 1: at exactly the same rhythm. They bounce their balls at
12:47
Speaker 1: the same time. Their mothers all open the door at
12:50
Speaker 1: the same time. When one of the children falters bouncing
12:54
Speaker 1: his ball out of sink, his terrified mother rushes him
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Speaker 1: inside and refuses to answer any of the trio's questions
13:01
Speaker 1: when they attempt to return his ball back to him,
13:03
Speaker 1: especially because they don't have papers. She keeps asking, like
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Speaker 1: where are your papers? They stop someone else who is
13:11
Speaker 1: equally suspicious of them, and he tells them to go
13:13
Speaker 1: to Central Central Intelligence, where they immediately are reported and
13:19
Speaker 1: taken it to the Man with the Red Eyes, who
13:21
Speaker 1: is controlled, along with everybody else, by a large telepathic
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Speaker 1: brain called it Red Eyes, hypnotizes Charles Wallace, who Charles
13:32
Speaker 1: Wallace kind of let it happen because he thought I
13:34
Speaker 1: could use this to find our father before Meg stops him.
13:39
Speaker 1: They are able to get away, and Charles Wallace leads
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Speaker 1: them deeper inside, explaining that everything is the way it
13:46
Speaker 1: is here because everyone's uniqueness has been stripped away. They
13:50
Speaker 1: find Meg and Charles Wallace's father being held prisoner, but
13:53
Speaker 1: he cannot see them or hear them through the glass
13:56
Speaker 1: walls that are encasing him. Meg uses missus Who's glasses
14:00
Speaker 1: to reach him and they reunite, only for Charles Wallace
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Speaker 1: to lead them to it. It attempts to hypnotize Meg,
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Speaker 1: her father, Doctor Murray, I guess I should have said,
14:12
Speaker 1: and Calvin, just as it has Charles Wallace. At first,
14:17
Speaker 1: they are able to resist by shouting things that might
14:20
Speaker 1: not make much sense to it, but upon realizing that
14:24
Speaker 1: they won't last long, doctor Murray testers them away to
14:28
Speaker 1: a nearby planet, leaving Charles Wallace behind. This requires them
14:33
Speaker 1: moving through the black Thing, and Meg is temporarily paralyzed.
14:38
Speaker 1: The planet's inhabitants have forearms, tentacles, and featureless faces. They
14:43
Speaker 1: cannot see. One of them patiently nurses Meg back to health.
14:48
Speaker 1: Meg calls her aunt Beast. The W's arrive and say
14:52
Speaker 1: that it is up to Meg to save Charles Wallace,
14:55
Speaker 1: claiming that she has something it doesn't. She is transported
14:59
Speaker 1: back to it and realizes it is her love for
15:01
Speaker 1: Charles Wallace that will save him. Once the hypnosis is broken,
15:06
Speaker 1: the W's and the rest tester back to Earth to
15:09
Speaker 1: the Murray Home. A few minutes before they left there,
15:13
Speaker 1: their mother had a reunion with her husband, and the
15:16
Speaker 1: W's disappear the end. I loved it. I'm so glad
15:21
Speaker 1: we chose this lego. I remember, I remember why I
15:26
Speaker 1: loved this so much. People have written a lot about this,
15:39
Speaker 1: So we are going to go over some themes, but
15:42
Speaker 1: just know there's so much written about this, right If
15:47
Speaker 1: you want to look more.
15:48
Speaker 3: Into theological studies on this series, oh yes absolutely, But
15:55
Speaker 3: that does bring us to one of the first themes
15:57
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about, which is signed It's in Religion,
16:01
Speaker 3: because this is a very science heavy book, and it's
16:07
Speaker 3: really interesting to me that it was aimed at a
16:11
Speaker 3: young adult audience, but it's talking about like the fifth dimension,
16:15
Speaker 3: and it has all these scientific principles that they bring in.
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Speaker 1: They have all these scientists they bring up. Both Charles
16:22
Speaker 1: Wallace and Meg are very smart, like scientifically, mathematically all
16:30
Speaker 1: of that. But then you have these big themes of
16:34
Speaker 1: religion also in spirituality, so the themes of light and dark,
16:41
Speaker 1: that's a big one, and the light being like the
16:45
Speaker 1: love of God or the love of Jesus Christ or
16:48
Speaker 1: something like that. You do have this moment where the
16:55
Speaker 1: children are saying of the w's, oh my gosh, you're
16:58
Speaker 1: guardian angels, and they're kind of like, uh, yeah, but
17:02
Speaker 1: not really. And I think that's interesting too, because there's
17:09
Speaker 1: a lot in this book I love about how language
17:15
Speaker 1: limits ys maybe, or understanding limit says maybe. And it's
17:21
Speaker 1: fascinating to me just the different ways that ws communicate
17:26
Speaker 1: because they've been around so long and so having that
17:30
Speaker 1: idea of maybe this is the best way you can
17:32
Speaker 1: understand a concept, but that might not necessarily be what
17:38
Speaker 1: it is, but that's how you understand it. There's also
17:45
Speaker 1: a big thing throughout the whole book of curiosity and
17:49
Speaker 1: asking questions, so you know their names, what's it missus? Who? Missus?
17:56
Speaker 1: Which just having these questions. It is a very creative
18:03
Speaker 1: story in terms of you know, on this plant as
18:07
Speaker 1: a two dimensional planet. You know, here they're singing the
18:11
Speaker 1: song you don't understand, but maybe somebody can interpret it
18:14
Speaker 1: for you or with missus Beast. You know, she kept
18:20
Speaker 1: saying to Meg, I don't understand this sea concept that
18:25
Speaker 1: I don't see. You need to tell me in a
18:27
Speaker 1: different way, and so asking those questions and trying to
18:33
Speaker 1: not always arriving at the answers. So here's a quote.
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Speaker 1: But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't
18:39
Speaker 1: mean that the explanation doesn't exist. So there is that
18:45
Speaker 1: level of it, but there's also a very mysteries of
18:48
Speaker 1: the universe level of it, like we might never know,
18:51
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, here's a quote. We look not at
18:57
Speaker 1: the things which are what you would call seen, but
19:00
Speaker 1: at the things which are not seen. For the things
19:02
Speaker 1: which are seen are temporal, but the things which are
19:05
Speaker 1: not seen are eternal. Yeah, that was a Missus Beast.
19:12
Speaker 1: M m hmmm. I like miss Beast. Missus Beast was great, Yes,
19:19
Speaker 1: And so I did want to put a quick point
19:21
Speaker 1: in here about the author's views because I was really like, huh,
19:28
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Because it's got so much science
19:30
Speaker 1: in it, and it's got all this religion in it.
19:33
Speaker 1: So Lingol was very interested in modern science. She was
19:37
Speaker 1: also what was called a liberal Christian or a universal Christian,
19:41
Speaker 1: and she got a lot of flak for that at
19:44
Speaker 1: the time from conservative Christians. She got the most flack
19:49
Speaker 1: for that than from any secular audience. Obviously. Yeah, they
19:56
Speaker 1: hated that she brought up Buddha. They hated that she
19:59
Speaker 1: had a happy meat a witch using a crystal ball.
20:02
Speaker 1: They thought, like the three the W's were witches. And
20:07
Speaker 1: also universal Christian if you don't know means even if
20:12
Speaker 1: you don't believe God loves you enough, you're gonna be fine,
20:15
Speaker 1: which conservative Christians do not like.
20:20
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, apparently she attended Episcopal Church, which is a
20:25
Speaker 2: lot more well known now. But yeah, during the hell
20:29
Speaker 2: far Burnstone era of these times, that was not so
20:34
Speaker 2: much alive. But we also know the splintering of different
20:36
Speaker 2: kinds of religion a bit different sects, and especially like
20:40
Speaker 2: among the Protestants, that they want it, they love hating
20:45
Speaker 2: on their own.
20:45
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've talked about before. Yep, we sure have,
20:52
Speaker 1: We sure have. And she she wrote a lot of
20:54
Speaker 1: essays about it and kind of came to terms with it,
21:00
Speaker 1: and she was a very she had her specific belief
21:03
Speaker 1: system and I believe she said of this book, this
21:07
Speaker 1: is like the most religious thing I've ever written, Like
21:09
Speaker 1: this is the most true to how I feel in
21:12
Speaker 1: my spiritual beliefs. So she also uses a lot of
21:20
Speaker 1: names from different religions in the books. So like camizots
21:24
Speaker 1: is I think, a Mayan god, Uriel obviously, Archangel Malek
21:32
Speaker 1: is Hebrew, I think. So a lot of a lot
21:35
Speaker 1: of the names are there in there are very religious,
21:37
Speaker 1: and she is somebody who was really interested in religion
21:43
Speaker 1: and studying religion. So that was interesting. And the book
21:47
Speaker 1: has been on the top one hundred most banned books
21:50
Speaker 1: list since at least the nineteen nineties for being anti
21:54
Speaker 1: Christian and promoting witchcraft Bible verses in there. When asked
22:03
Speaker 1: about this by The New York Times, Lingle said, first
22:06
Speaker 1: I felt horror than anger, and finally I said, all
22:09
Speaker 1: the hell with it. It's great publicity. Really she is correct, yep, yep, okay.
22:21
Speaker 1: So another big theme is conformity versus individuality. So I
22:28
Speaker 1: wanted to read this quote from the forward by Anna Quinnlin,
22:33
Speaker 1: Conformity knows no time or place. It is the struggle
22:36
Speaker 1: all of us face to be ourselves despite the overwhelming
22:39
Speaker 1: pressure to be like everyone else. Perhaps one of the
22:42
Speaker 1: most compelling and moving descriptions of that internal battle comes
22:45
Speaker 1: near the end of the book when Missus Watson tells
22:48
Speaker 1: the children that life, with its rules, its obligations, and
22:51
Speaker 1: its freedoms, is like a sonnet. You're given the form,
22:55
Speaker 1: but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you
22:57
Speaker 1: say is completely up to you. This book came out
23:05
Speaker 1: during the Cold War and America's fear of communism. However,
23:11
Speaker 1: later interviews and a cut passage from the book revealed
23:14
Speaker 1: that it is not a commentary on communism so much
23:18
Speaker 1: as dictatorship and totalitarianism. It also came out after the
23:23
Speaker 1: growing post World War two suburbia, so we're getting these
23:27
Speaker 1: blossoming of neighborhoods that do look exactly the same. Yes,
23:35
Speaker 1: and if you think about the dark thing, there's obviously
23:41
Speaker 1: the darkness, the light versus dark, but it's also kind
23:45
Speaker 1: of the conformity of it's taking away, it's shadowing your uniqueness,
23:52
Speaker 1: it's flattening things, it's holding earth back. And there is
23:58
Speaker 1: a through line through the book of when conforming or
24:01
Speaker 1: following the rules hold you back. And so one of
24:04
Speaker 1: the examples that really suck out to me is Meg
24:07
Speaker 1: is talking about doing her math home work. Now she's really,
24:12
Speaker 1: really good at it, but the teacher always docks her
24:15
Speaker 1: because she doesn't she doesn't show her work in the
24:18
Speaker 1: way he thinks she should show her work. And this
24:22
Speaker 1: happened to me in high school.
24:24
Speaker 2: It happened to me in middle school.
24:26
Speaker 1: It's what I was the only one who got the
24:30
Speaker 1: answer right, and the teacher brought me up to the
24:34
Speaker 1: board to show everybody, and I did it, and he
24:36
Speaker 1: was like, how did you do that? I said, well, look,
24:41
Speaker 1: I just did it. I was saying what I was
24:44
Speaker 1: doing it. And he was like, but that doesn't make sense,
24:46
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I got the right answer.
24:49
Speaker 2: Apparently it does me.
24:50
Speaker 1: It did to me, but it didn't make sense to
24:53
Speaker 1: anybody else. I guess, you know, sometimes it works that way,
25:00
Speaker 1: and it's okay, yes, yeah, So that being an instance
25:04
Speaker 1: of conforming holding her back, like she's having to spend
25:07
Speaker 1: more time to do it in this one specific way.
25:10
Speaker 1: And then the language I do, Like I said, I
25:14
Speaker 1: I love that aspect of this where and this is
25:19
Speaker 1: a really popular something that's popularly explored in science fiction
25:25
Speaker 1: books is when we don't have the words for things
25:30
Speaker 1: and they exist, but we just the language isn't there
25:35
Speaker 1: to describe it. And so I love that with the
25:42
Speaker 1: Wus and how they communicate, and I love how they're
25:45
Speaker 1: trying to communicate with these kids from Earth who have
25:48
Speaker 1: this kind of because language can put your thoughts in
25:53
Speaker 1: a box if you're not careful, like because you don't
25:55
Speaker 1: have the words for something, then you can you're like,
25:59
Speaker 1: well that doesn't exist, but it might and you just
26:02
Speaker 1: don't have the words for it yet. So here's a quote.
26:07
Speaker 1: It's in miss Witch's voice, and I'm not going to
26:09
Speaker 1: do it, but she is kind of like an embodied
26:11
Speaker 1: ghostly voice. Everybody, there will no longer be so many
26:17
Speaker 1: pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not
26:20
Speaker 1: do something about the unpleasant ones. Yes, and then there's
26:27
Speaker 1: this whole idea of taking away choice or relinquishing choice,
26:34
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe doing that willfully or not. Here's
26:39
Speaker 1: a quote from it. You see, what you will soon
26:43
Speaker 1: realize is that there is no need to fight me.
26:46
Speaker 1: Not only is there no need, but you will not
26:48
Speaker 1: have the slightest desire to do so. For why should
26:51
Speaker 1: you wish to fight someone who is here only to
26:54
Speaker 1: save you pain and trouble for you, as well as
26:58
Speaker 1: for the rest of all of the happy, useful people
27:01
Speaker 1: on this planet I and my own strength am willing
27:04
Speaker 1: to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the
27:07
Speaker 1: burdens of thought and decision. So obviously this is a
27:18
Speaker 1: been a theme that has been explored in a lot
27:20
Speaker 1: of things. One that has through like the test of time.
27:25
Speaker 1: I remember is a book I got at the book fair,
27:29
Speaker 1: which the book fair was awesome, by the way, still around.
27:33
Speaker 1: I'd loved the book fair. It was like the most
27:35
Speaker 1: exciting thing. But there was a series called pen Dragon,
27:41
Speaker 1: and it was It was a series where in the
27:45
Speaker 1: main character would go to different planets and try to
27:48
Speaker 1: save them from falling. I like a like some historical
27:52
Speaker 1: point that they point of no return, you try to stop.
27:56
Speaker 1: And I think for the first four books success, but
28:00
Speaker 1: like I think it's the fifth one. The fourth or
28:03
Speaker 1: fifth one. He goes to this planet where they invent
28:09
Speaker 1: like a pod you can get into and you can
28:12
Speaker 1: live like a virtual life, and you know, it looks
28:17
Speaker 1: like it's going on all great and all this stuff,
28:19
Speaker 1: and then in the end everybody chooses to go into
28:23
Speaker 1: the pod, even though they know they'll die, because they'd
28:26
Speaker 1: rather live their virtual life than live their real life.
28:31
Speaker 1: And I've never forgotten it that was the first planet
28:35
Speaker 1: he lost. Yea, yes, it's dark right, They all even
28:42
Speaker 1: and he was like, don't you know you'll die? Like
28:45
Speaker 1: I don't care. I don't care. Oh my gosh. And
28:49
Speaker 1: I'm like a twelve year old reading this thing. Oh no,
28:55
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things where you can't like.
28:57
Speaker 1: When I was reading that book, I was thinking, their
29:02
Speaker 1: their virtual lives do sound really nice. They would describe
29:05
Speaker 1: them like, oh, it's a matrix for kids, exactly exactly.
29:13
Speaker 1: It got me. I still remember it. I still remember
29:17
Speaker 1: if anybody's read Pin Dragon.
29:19
Speaker 2: I have never read Pin Dragon, but I did. We
29:21
Speaker 2: were driving by a bus in our little town near
29:24
Speaker 2: us and they had a giant truck for the book
29:27
Speaker 2: fair art there unloading books.
29:29
Speaker 1: I was like, oh.
29:30
Speaker 2: Yaych Elastic book Fair made me very happy.
29:35
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, I loved it so much. Another part of
29:50
Speaker 1: this whole thing is embracing your weirdness. So if you're
29:55
Speaker 1: fighting against the conformity of it all, embracing your weirdness,
29:59
Speaker 1: and it go out of its way to show that
30:03
Speaker 1: children being taught conform me. They're being taught it from
30:07
Speaker 1: a very young age that you should this is how
30:09
Speaker 1: you should be. If you're not that, then something is
30:12
Speaker 1: wrong with you. You've got Meg being bullied for not being
30:17
Speaker 1: smart enough or pretty enough, even though she's, like we've said,
30:21
Speaker 1: very smart, she just doesn't do it in the quote
30:26
Speaker 1: traditional way. Here's a quote. But of course, we can't
30:29
Speaker 1: take any credits for our talents. It's how we use
30:32
Speaker 1: them that counts. And then here's another one, Meg, I
30:37
Speaker 1: give you your faults, my faults. Meg cried your faults, but
30:41
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to get rid of my faults. Yes, missus,
30:45
Speaker 1: what's it said? However, I think you'll find they'll come
30:48
Speaker 1: in very handy on camasots. And they did, yeah, because
30:53
Speaker 1: the brain didn't know what to do. It was like
30:57
Speaker 1: whoa had to deal with this before? And then you
31:04
Speaker 1: can see like it's a real air of paranoia on Camus.
31:08
Speaker 1: Eye's everybody being worried that people are trying to catch
31:12
Speaker 1: them out for not conforming that they're going to be reprocessed.
31:16
Speaker 1: So having those faults are that uniqueness being erased by
31:23
Speaker 1: fear or controlled by fear. There's also some ableism in
31:29
Speaker 1: it because Charles Wallace is four years old. I believe
31:34
Speaker 1: he's young, and he's very smart, but he only really
31:39
Speaker 1: talks to his family, and there's just a lot of
31:44
Speaker 1: rumors that something is wrong with him and his development.
31:49
Speaker 1: And I think Meg also got some of those. I
31:52
Speaker 1: haven't been talking about the twins much because they're barely
31:54
Speaker 1: they're siblings of twins, because they're barely there in this book.
31:57
Speaker 1: But they were sort of the quote normal ones. But yeah,
32:02
Speaker 1: there's an air of that as well. And then you know,
32:08
Speaker 1: also fighting conformity. We've got some weird role models who
32:12
Speaker 1: are women perhaps because this is another thing I like
32:16
Speaker 1: about science fiction. They present as women on earth, but
32:23
Speaker 1: they also transform, potentially change genders. And I know I
32:29
Speaker 1: talked about this with Octavia Butler, but Octavia Butler wrote
32:32
Speaker 1: about this a lot in her books about again, if
32:35
Speaker 1: the language doesn't exist, like we're still in kind of
32:39
Speaker 1: a binary perhaps, but there's all this other stuff that,
32:45
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's not what we were, and we
32:48
Speaker 1: just that they were, and we don't have the word
32:51
Speaker 1: for it, yeah, or the understanding for it yet, right, Yes,
32:56
Speaker 1: and they are billions of years old, billion eOne. We'll
33:01
Speaker 1: talk about that. That she was a star, Yes, this
33:05
Speaker 1: is what's it. Yeah, And so they would have such
33:09
Speaker 1: a different understanding of things than all of us would have,
33:17
Speaker 1: all of us mere humans would have. I think about
33:19
Speaker 1: this a lot with Yoda, like he must have a
33:24
Speaker 1: completely different maybe nine hundred years old right then, and
33:31
Speaker 1: people different like humans die so young compared to I
33:38
Speaker 1: don't know. I do think about this, yes, yeah, well
33:44
Speaker 1: I have to. I have to. And also yeah, through that,
33:48
Speaker 1: through all of that challenging what you think, and they
33:51
Speaker 1: do often ask the kids questions like what do you
33:57
Speaker 1: think of this? Or do you think this? Are just
34:02
Speaker 1: pushing them to really consider and I kind of love
34:07
Speaker 1: that there. They don't back down. They're like, no, really
34:11
Speaker 1: think about this. You've kind of made me angry with
34:16
Speaker 1: what you said, actually, so I want you to think
34:18
Speaker 1: about it. And then kind of going off of that
34:24
Speaker 1: at the end, when Meg has to go, she's the
34:28
Speaker 1: one that they say, You're the one that asks to
34:29
Speaker 1: go to Camusots to rescue Charles Wallace and her dad
34:32
Speaker 1: and Calvin are both like, no, way, it's me or
34:38
Speaker 1: she's not going alone, and it's the three ws that
34:41
Speaker 1: are like, no, she can do it. She's gonna do it.
34:43
Speaker 1: You can't do it. And so I kind of liked
34:48
Speaker 1: that flip because it could come off as pretty brutal
34:50
Speaker 1: that they're selling no, send this young girl right there
34:55
Speaker 1: by herself. But instead they're no, she can do it,
35:00
Speaker 1: and we're not gonna hold her back, right, yes, And
35:05
Speaker 1: that brings us to the power of love. This is
35:09
Speaker 1: what saves Charles Wallace. This is what Meg realizes, Oh,
35:16
Speaker 1: this is what I have that not only the brain
35:19
Speaker 1: it doesn't have, but her father doesn't have because he
35:23
Speaker 1: wasn't really there. He didn't know Charles Wallace. Calvin doesn't
35:27
Speaker 1: have right. She was the one that loved Charles Wallace
35:34
Speaker 1: and he loved her, and he loved her. Yeah, and
35:38
Speaker 1: they were siblings who really saw each other and had
35:45
Speaker 1: a connection. And we're both outcasts but understood each other.
35:50
Speaker 1: Like Charles Wallace will say stuff completely out of nowhere
35:54
Speaker 1: and Meg would just be like, all right, yeah, sure,
35:57
Speaker 1: let's go. Okay, I believe you. And this brings us
36:04
Speaker 1: to my final point. I would say, as I mentioned,
36:08
Speaker 1: you can read so much about these books, but I
36:13
Speaker 1: wanted to just say the importance of childhood books like this,
36:16
Speaker 1: the importance of the book fair, the importance of something
36:20
Speaker 1: that you read and means so much to you. And
36:24
Speaker 1: this book has a lot of themes about coming of
36:29
Speaker 1: age at your own time, on your own terms, feeling
36:33
Speaker 1: less alone, and as a reader, you feel less alone
36:38
Speaker 1: reading it. It also has a theme of when you
36:41
Speaker 1: realize your parents aren't perfect. Because Meg thought her dad,
36:45
Speaker 1: like finding her dad would fix everything, he would fix everything,
36:50
Speaker 1: and she gets kind of mad him because he, in
36:53
Speaker 1: her mind, left Charles Walls behind and then he's not
36:56
Speaker 1: the one that can save him. She is, but also
37:01
Speaker 1: that you are not perfect and that's okay. So like
37:05
Speaker 1: giving men her faults and being like, nope, this is
37:08
Speaker 1: what's this is what's going to say to you. And
37:13
Speaker 1: it is really cool to see how many people of
37:15
Speaker 1: all types were impacted by this book and how young
37:18
Speaker 1: people today are still reading it. I was reading a
37:21
Speaker 1: Smithsonian article about it, and it was just so many
37:26
Speaker 1: people have mentioned this book. Without this book, I don't
37:31
Speaker 1: know if I would have done what I did, and
37:34
Speaker 1: so that's amazing and I do too. I do too.
37:39
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we chose this book.
37:42
Speaker 2: I'm glad to read it as an adult and not
37:44
Speaker 2: a prejudiced Christian child.
37:50
Speaker 1: I was glad to read it as an adult too,
37:52
Speaker 1: because it does have some pretty big concepts in it.
37:58
Speaker 1: And I after I read it, I thought, oh, I
38:01
Speaker 1: think I understood this well enough as a child, but
38:04
Speaker 1: I really understand it. Yeah now as an adult. It's
38:09
Speaker 1: just fantastic. Well listeners, please let us know if you
38:14
Speaker 1: have any thoughts about this book, or any books that
38:17
Speaker 1: you feel had a huge impact on your childhood, We
38:20
Speaker 1: would love to know. You can email us at Hello
38:24
Speaker 1: at stuffonnevertold you dot com. You can find us on
38:26
Speaker 1: Polu Scott Mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
38:28
Speaker 1: at Stuff I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
38:31
Speaker 1: We have merchandise at Common Bureau, and we have a
38:33
Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
38:35
Speaker 1: as always too, our super just Christine, our executive Bruce,
38:38
Speaker 1: to my an contributor Joey, thank you and thanks to
38:40
Speaker 1: you for listening Stuff I've Never Told you this prediction
38:42
Speaker 1: of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
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