On Wrinkles

Mostly about wrinkles in time, as in L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time"...

I took Science Fiction in college to fulfill an English requirement. It was most certainly not a first choice as the only science fiction or fantasy I had read thus far in my life had been the first Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, as far as I could tell those were in the Children's Books classifications in my mind, so I felt that I had no business being in this SF class and it was the only thing I could fit into my schedule and I was running out of time, so I sucked it up and enrolled in the class with a quick prayer that I would make it through this crazy semester in a class where I was sure I was going to be the only normal person among Clingon speakers and Trekkies and black shirted youth who studies Lord of the Rings and knew Elvish. I was pleasantly surprised. There were a few of those types in class, but I have to admit that this was far and away one of the most influential classes and I came to really enjoy the professor's style and have embraced this whole SF thing. And I realized that I had missed out on some really good writing and a facet of literature that I wrote off as "boy lit" or "Trekkie fad" books.

Since I grew up loving the Narnia books, I really have no idea how I arrived to adulthood without ever reading A Wrinkle in TIme. I guess I could ask that of myself about any number of other books as well, but the point is, I hadn't read it and I just did.

I read the entire book in a day and half, easily so because we had a lot of errands to run for my husband on his day home and I was the resident car sitter/snack hander to the kids in the backseat and trying to cram in as much reading as I could in between.

One thing that always amazes me about children's fantasy and science fiction books is the complete sense of wonder into which one can so easily slip. That and everything is described so plainly that there is really no trouble visualizing or imagining just what is going on and even the science concepts (whether they are real or not, I couldn't say), seem to make perfect sense in the suspended sense of wonder. I am always pleasantly surprised with fantasy and science fiction as a genre and have been lead into worlds with tesseracts and wrinkles, other dimensions, floo powder, shadows and magic... and now I sound like "One of Them" and I don't seem to mind. I used to read books that I thought grown ups would read so I could be, I dunno, ready for something, but now, being an adult being whisked away into worlds that don't exist seems so wonderfully appropriate.