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Backwards Book Review: A Wrinkle in Time Pt II

Backwards book reviews are when I revisit a book that I’ve already read. Before I read the book, I’ll write down everything I can remember about it. Afterward, I’ll write up my thoughts and see how well my memories stacked up.

If you’d like to read what I remembered of A Wrinkle in Time before I read it again, read Part I of this backwards book review. There will probably be spoilers.

Pt II: The Aftermath

What a charming book! I completely forgot that for this (intuitive) (intelligent) girl, how utterly captivating the world of A Wrinkle in Time is. It’s also funny to note what stuck with me and what did not. Memory can be a fickle creature (if you rely on it as a strictly historical record).

First of all, I must rectify the misspellings in the Backwards part of this review. It’s Madeleine L’Engle and the Murry family. That’s what I get from doing this from memory.

What I got wrong

The snake. While the tree (it was really an apple orchard) and the stone fence did appear in the story, the snake did not. I think I was confusing Wrinkle with A Wind in the Door again.
“I think at certain points Charles Wallace bogs them down because he’s only like 6 years old or something”. Fact check: while it’s true that Charles Wallace is only like 6 years old, that wasn’t his age that was the issue. It’s only a major plot point!
This isn’t wrong, per se, but I completely missed the “growing up” themes of the book, that dovetail perfectly with the overt message about the importance of free will. Meg’s character development hinges on her moving from counting on someone else to save her, to reluctantly shouldering the burden that only she can bear. Interesting that I did not remember this part at all, but that it stuck out at me so obviously this time. Perhaps it’s because I’ve now gone through that transition that I can see it more clearly.

What I got right

2D planet. They did indeed go to a 2D planet, and I still love thinking about how it would work. I did, however, fail to remember the other interesting planets that they visited.
The theme of humanity vs tyranny, and the importance of making decisions for yourself.
The secondary and tertiary characters: Mrs Who, Mrs Which, and Mrs Whatsit, Meg’s mother and twin brothers.

Thoughts from the second round

This book is a simple fantasy-adventure story that dramatizes really important ideas. The edition I read has a little interview with MLE in the back, and she says that she wrote this book after reading the theory of general relativity–she wanted to explore some of the concepts in it. I quite like how she did that (caution: I haven’t read that yet) in a way that makes sense, but also in a way that incorporates it into the fabric of the greater universe. By that I mean, God is still sovereign, and there are many different variations of “creation” in that each planet has a unique sense of time and terrain that is reflected in its inhabitants.

It’s a fun adventure of ideas – the fantasy elements are firmly rooted in real life but explored to almost absurd extremes and baked into every element of the plot. This isn’t a veneer of fantasy, this is the real thing. Books like this are the kind that a father wouldn’t mind reading to his child at night.

Reading this book now, in the era of fake news, in the era where children are “elected” to go to college and come out just another rubberstamped BS or BA, in the era where CIA projects may well cause the end of the world, it feels so prescient. I feel like I can walk out of my house and feel the throbbing thrum of the mighty villainous brain at the center of the book. The themes, of choosing for yourself over letting someone choose for you, of choosing to make those difficult decisions that leave you with skin in the game (tbd), of realizing that you can’t rely on someone else to save you (or the day), these themes are essential to us if we endeavor to live for ourselves.

As far as mechanics go, the plot ends quite abruptly. As a reader, I was a little let down as there was very little resolution from all the family-level worries that undergird the story. I wanted some discussion from the Murry family about what went on and what it means. I wanted to know more about the happy reunion between Mr. Murry and his family. But as an aspiring writer, I appreciated the ending, however abrupt it may be. Everything was wrapped up, and out. There may be discussion, but it’ll be in the slow build of the next book. I suppose I recognize some of my own habits in the rhythm of the book: a long slow introduction and then a lot of activity before abruptly dropping to stillness again.

Overall

I loved this book when I was twelve and I enjoyed it as an adult as well. I won’t say that I “loved” it because it didn’t grab me as much as it did when I was the same age as the heroine. It was worth the read, both for the flights of fancy and the serious message.

Would read again.

Reality is the literal word of God

2018-04-01 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

(Listen to it.)

Today is Easter. The day when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the act that frees those who believe from the bondage of entropy, sin, and death.

I’m going to take another stab at putting into words what I mean by “upside-down world” and “right-side up world,” because I finally put some pieces together – thanks to the requisite Easter sermon – that provide some additional links in the chain.

This is a mental model that has helped me figure out how to interact with people who are not believers, or who are not on the road to believing. I don’t know if it will be helpful for you, but maybe it will bring some illumination to your understanding of reality.

At the beginning of time, God spoke the universe into existence. The words of God became reality. Normal, garden-variety right-side up world where “yes means yes and no means no.”

God creates Adam and then Eve, and they Be in the garden with God. All of what He has created He has given to them, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Man participates in creating reality by naming the things that God has made; it’s not the phenomenal cosmic power that is held by the God of the Universe, but it’s still pretty cool. We create within the boundaries of our comprehension.

Then enters the Serpent, the Deceiver, the Father of Lies. He tells mankind that the truth is the exact opposite of what God had told them. They believe him, eat of the fruit of the tree, and behold, upside-down world is created. It’s not a new reality because man can only create within his comprehension, but it’s a distorted version of reality where yes means no and no means yes.

Upside-down world, in which every man does what is right in his own eyes, wreaks havoc on mankind and the earth that God has created. During this time there are some people who seek God and His Truth, who uphold rightside-up world.

Many years later, God sent another of his Words into the world He created – this time His Son, Jesus Christ. Literally the Word of God became flesh and blood and lived as a human being in upside-down world.

Jesus spends much of His time on earth upending the high muckety mucks of upside-down world – the pharisees, the tax collectors – and generally defying the laws of thermodynamics in the best possible ways. He can, you see, because His manipulation of reality is not bounded by human comprehension.

In the end, the political machinations of the pharisees catch up to Him, and He lets them, because it is His purpose. The reason that he became human in the first place. He, a completely innocent man, takes on the guilt of mankind, so that the guilty man can become as innocent. He does the exact opposite of what should be done in upside-down world, and by doing so shatters the distorted version of reality so that it has no more power. His resurrection conquers death.

Through Him, Jesus Christ, the Way and the Truth and the Life, we can stand upright in rightside-up world. Not all of us stand completely tall – some are still stumbling along in the darkness or the mind-tricking light of twilight – but those who are headed in the right direction can generally all see things in common with the rightside-up frame.

There are those, however, who choose to turn away from the Light and who decide to follow the Father of Lies into the darkness. Those people still live in upside-down world, who say that black is white and white is black.

Because these two worlds exist simultaneously, it can be difficult to suss out who lives according to which frame. We all use the same worlds to describe things, although those worlds mean different things to people in each version of reality.

This is how I can have a conversation with my neighbor, but each of us is getting the opposite understanding of the exact same worlds.

Some people call this “two movies on the same screen.” This is true. But its roots are much, much deeper than mere perception. The roots go all the way down to bedrock reality and the acceptance of Truth, or the rejection of it.

The two cannot coexist.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)

This is how I’m starting to see the Truth of the Bible as I get older and my eyes can see more and more. These stories are not merely cutesy anecdotes that can be overlaid on our lives – the metaphysical implications of this stuff strikes deep into the core of each of us, and deep into the core of the earth.

If you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading the book of John. John delves more into the metaphysical and philosophical angle of the gospel story.

Appreciation post: /pol/

2018-03-31 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Little did I–or any of us–know that the what I used to call the “armpit of the internet” would become a driving force in truth.

Back in the day, when I was first exploring the internet thanks to high-speed connections in my college dorm, I discovered the delightful world of Encyclopedia Dramatica. In retrospect, it was just a giant wiki for jokes and memes from the chans. It’s probably overrun with malware and anime girls at this point.

Let’s be real: I liked it mostly because it was really, really naughty. And while I really enjoyed the writeups, I instinctively knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle the source material directly. (I was a very sensitive child.)

So I kept my distance, but I always appreciated that most of the funniest memes originated somewhere in the chans. It became kind of fun watching memes go through a life cycle, through image hosting services like imgur and then joke aggregation sites and reddit, then on through twitter and facebook and sometimes even real life. I saw an ad on TV recently (I was in a sports bar, sue me) that was basically a mashup of two oldmemes from back in that era.

(These days I have to hand it to twitter, a lot of good stuff originates there too.)

Somewhere along the line, the commitment of the various boards of the chans to shitposting and contrariness made them immune from public shame and questioners of the narrative.

While the rest of the world has become uptight, unfunny, and unfailingly Correct, the denizens of /pol/ solve real-world puzzles and make a game out of trying to make the most offensive comment possible. In the process, they continue to make funny, effective memes and are responsible for opening a lot of peoples’ eyes to the truth.

They’ve even withstood various attempts to infiltrate, astroturf, and otherwise corrupt the operations there.

If you had asked me 10 or 12 years ago if I ever thought that the chans would be doing the Lord’s work, I would have laughed at you. But I think about someone who was into gore back in the day, and wonder if that experience hardened their emotional exoskeleton enough that they could investigate all the pedophilia and sex trafficking rumors going around, and I can’t help but be grateful.

At the end of the day, in a free market, the truth will win. /pol/ is a testament to that.

Long live /pol/.

Image of the week: Constitutional crisis edition

2018-03-30 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

It is known that the left can’t meme.

But it is extra funny when a meme hits home so hard that the left is actively doing damage control.

It’s photoshop, people. We all know that.

Another thing we all know is that no matter what you claim, you would repeal the 2nd Amendment if you could.

So this image tells the truth, even though it’s just a meme.

Put on your own oxygen mask first

2018-03-29 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I came across a faculty rant this week, under the guise of a Q&A session with the university president, that illustrates quite well why certain college majors and dying out and why nobody seems all that sad about it.

When reading this, imagine a middle-aged woman’s voice with a meditative poetry reading-type cadence and more than a touch of condescension, coupled with a very combative slice of body language, like it’s stressful for this person to get these words out.

I’m [faculty member] in [social sciences] and I’m also the director of our undergraduate program. I study symbolic politics and what I saw today was, there was absolute, pretty much nothing from social sciences that was – that was actually accentuated in your program. And I find this very much a shame because I know that in our school we are doing so many very exciting things, whether it’s from the [Very Important Institute], our whole school is dedicated to solving the wicked problems of the world. So I just want to raise that issue but I’m going to attach it to a funding issue and also the [strategic plan].

Our school has been very dedicated in terms of being very productive and has a very high international/national reputation. I was co-editor of [some academic publication] for eight years, it was housed in our department. I’m quite well known in the world myself, not saying that you should have put me up there. But we just had a meeting with our dean, with the college: we are now down to nine full time faculty and we are staffing a PhD program. A PhD program. And we have 500 [undergrads in one major] and I’m not talking about [another major], this is just [the main campus]. And we were told that this is going to continue. We have three positions opening up this year, and they’re not being filled. So my question to you is very specific: what it is that – and we’re told that this is going on for three more years. So if we’re trying to do the [strategic plan] and we only have a cohort of nine – you know we used to have 17 faculty. I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this. I really don’t. And I think it’s quite telling that you didn’t have anything from the college of liberal arts, you didn’t have people from the social sciences or the humanities who are doing fantastic things.

And so I’ll just close with an even more provocative remark which is: it is the feeling on the part of quite a few people who I’ve worked with for quite a few years that we are seeing an instance of robbing Peter to pay Paul. We saw the headlining of the medical school, and it’s many peoples’ understanding that the budget that’s being brought together for that is being at the cost of many units within the college of liberal arts specifically. So thank you very much, with all my respect, but I’m a [social scientist] and I do critical thinking and I believe that it’s important to talk about these issues up front. Thank you.

First of all, there is no actual question. We were promised a question, and it never materialized. The faculty just went off on a tangent instead. If you don’t ask a question, it is highly unlikely that you’ll get an answer.

The accusation comes through just fine, though.

Now. I haven’t sat down with this person to talk about the specifics of her program. But what I don’t here in this forum, or any other, is talk like this: if your program used to have 17 full-time faculty, but now only has 9, why is that? Are you over-relying on adjunct faculty? Or is it perhaps that there is much less demand for your discipline?

If there’s less demand, maybe it’s time to explore if that’s an issue with your particular program, or if it’s a problem that is facing similar programs around the nation or world. Sometimes enrollments do lag, and that’s when you go out recruiting.

Is it that the PhD in your discipline isn’t relevant anymore?

There’s a defeatist attitude in your approach. Perhaps you could outline your unorthodox plan and run it by the president to garner his reaction. Perhaps your solutions to the wicked problems of the world could bring in some outside funds to stretch your budget.

Many ailing departments want to have it both ways. They pull back from participating in faculty governance activities, usually citing reasons like “we don’t agree with the way you’re approaching this topic,” but complain when a decision is reached without them. They enjoy the autonomy provided to faculty at a university, but when it comes to budgetary matters, rely with a childlike faith on the university.

When it comes to robbing Peter to pay Paul, many of the small humanities-type (although it’s not just them) are the ones being subsidized by other departments and colleges.

Rich departments (or programs or labs or PIs) are usually rich for a reason: they do things that create value, that make money.

I feel like this is yet another repackage of Christ’s talk of judgement in the Book of Matthew: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

First put on your own oxygen mask, then help your brother take the speck out of his eye.

Warning: Too much Starbucks

2018-03-28 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

The ever thought-provoking Wrath of Gnon posted a quote from Leopold Kohr tonight:

Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. If the stars in the sky or atoms of uranium disintegrate in spontaneous explosion, it is not because their substance has lost its balance. It is because matter has attempted to expand beyond the impassible barriers set to every accumulation. Their mass has become too big. If the human body becomes diseased, it is, as in cancer, because a cell, or a group of cells, has begun to outgrow its allotted narrow limits. And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the disease of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or massive derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units such as mobs, unions, cartels, or great powers.

And if the careful calibration of mental wellbeing falls to pieces, it is because someone was a complete idiot and visited the campus Starbucks not once but three times to ingest tepid cups of overly-charred and hyper-caffeinated coffee-like drinks.

The best Starbucks is a gamble. The worst Starbucks is old, Pike roast from a “proudly serving” outpost that’s not staffed by coffee-obsessed baristas and will sink you into a deep, deep depression. Whether that’s because of how the char interacts with the excess caffeine, or whether that combination helps one become excessively dehydrated, or if it’s just the physical consequences of ingesting the product of a late-stage corporatist SJW-converged company, I don’t have an answer for that one.

Seriously, though, I am becoming convinced that any and every large system is evil. Not just suboptimal, but evil. Any time you remove yourself from immediate consequences through a system, there is opportunity for exploitation and dehumanization. And anything that does not treat human beings as human beings, is evil. Like Starbucks.

There are other ways to be evil, certainly, but I’m not so sure we can build something both BIG and GOOD.

We humans have this horrible problem of dreaming too small and building too big.

I’m curious about this “new organ” that scientists have discovered

2018-03-27 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

On the one hand, modern medical science has just discovered something. Sound the trumpets.

Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium”.

These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins.

I’m glad that curious people are able to find out this stuff and get the research published.

However, on the other hand, it sounds a lot like Modern Science ™ has discovered the underlying principles of Counterstrain therapy.

Strains of these vital tissues can provoke a protective reflex spasm of the structure involved and any near-by somatic tissue (via reflex-arc). Once triggered the reflex can persist, spread and form palpable tender points. Counterstrain releases the tissue in spasm and the corresponding tender point by mechanically unloading the injured structure.

Dysfunction of this web of vital connective tissue often negatively impacts everything from our nutrition and diet, to physical health and susceptibility to disease, to the very strength of our mental and spiritual wellbeing.

I’m not completely sold on counterstrain, although I know people who have been greatly helped by it. And not just helped in a way that could also be the placebo effect, but in a documentable way: the counterstrain practitioner reached the end of what could be done with the technique, identified a problem area, sent my friend to a specialist, and lo and behold the specialist discovered a bulging disc situation that requires surgery.

(I’ve done some counterstrain therapy, for the record; it just wasn’t enough at the time.)

Do I sound of two minds about this? Probably, because I am of two minds about this.

I really am happy that scientists have “found” this organ that has existed all along. It is always good to develop a deeper, richer understanding of ourselves and our universe. Perhaps some good research will reveal how this interstitial space contributes to wellness.

But I’m always a bit leery of ~scientific progress~ when techniques like counterstrain have been derided by the scientific community for a long time. These techniques are typically developed as practice, not on theory, and often work.

It is important to spend time outside

2018-03-26 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

This is a PSA mostly to myself, but also to all y’all internet dwellers out there.

Go outside.

Ideally to a part of the world that isn’t divided into gridded streets with convenient sidewalks or tended to by a groundskeeping squad.

Find a piece of this earth that is still mostly wild, overrun with native plants and insects and birds. Go look at the light as it shines off the water, go smell the heavy scent of newly-blooming flowers, go breathe air that has just cavorted with a mountain.

Walk on a dirt road, or a hiking path, or through a meadow. Run, if you want.

Let your body remember where it came from: the dust of the earth.

Let your mind appreciate the elegant complexity of our universe.

Let your soul breathe.

Go outside.

It is good.

Appreciation post: Wovenhand

2018-03-25 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Unlike the woman I met at a cold bus stop after a Wovenhand show sometime in 2014, I’m a quiet fan of this band. That lady was absolutely obsessive over David Eugene Edwards, down to telling me his life story and vowing to marry him. (I think he’s already married.)

But because the music is so good, I understand the enthusiasm of the fans.

Refractory Obdurate had always stuck me as a winter album, spare and muted but layered, so perhaps posting about it in March is inappropriate, but it has been dancing in and out of my head all weekend.

If you can see Wovenhand live, do. This is the kind of music that is only half alive until it is performed.

Book preview

2018-03-24 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I’m out of my regularly scheduled routine this weekend, in a cabin that unexpectedly has no WiFi. It’s been great to be forced to read more, but I’m grateful for the tiny sliver of 3G data that’s allowing me to make this update. As such, I’m a bit behind on the posts I had planned to knock out, such as Part II of the Backwards Book Review for A Wrinkle in Time and a voice-based storytime highlighting on if my favorite passages.

The reason for this trip is a memorial service for a man who has been hugely influential in my life. Today I found myself scanning his bookshelves, both in memory of him and in search of books for my own reading list.

Solzhenitsyn
Tolstoy’s retelling of Russian fairy tales
Vince Flynn novels
L. Somerset Maugham

My progress in reading has been proceeding at a glacial pace as of late, but it’s been proceeding.

Inspired by Tolstoy, I’m considering taking my book of Brothers Grimm tales and making it the centerpiece of a weekly feature here. It would be fun to take a look at fairy tales in light of current developments.

Goodness knows we all need some extra help in remembering that we can defeat the dragons.