Wednesday, March 2, 2011
THE MOON BY NIGHT
Madeleine L’Engle’s second novel about the Austin family is more interesting than the first (the family takes a cross-country road trip while Vicky comes of age as a teenager) and definitely a solid, classic YA novel, but it still felt rather stale and square to me in contrast to the awesomeness of the Murry family. (Maybe because I’m pretty sure Meg Murry would never say of her parents, “Daddy doesn’t like women in pants and Mother never wears them.”) I felt no real attachment to Vicky as a character and found myself most interested in the period details: the Austins’ journey gives a good snapshot of America circa 1963, and Vicky’s bad-boy crush, Zachary Gray, is such a Holden Caulfield type (“Religious guys are phonies, that’s all, phonies, every crumby one of them”). I much prefer the Time Quartet with its fantasy/sci-fi elements, and my understanding is that the later Austin books tend more strongly in that direction, so I’m hoping I’ll love them more. But I’ll admit that L’Engle’s strength as a writer lies in grounding those wacky metaphysical adventures in warm, good, levelheaded characters like the Austins, so it’s entirely likely that the relatively mundane first two volumes are just setting the stage for things to come.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Have you read "A Ring of Endless Light"? It's one of my favorite L'Engle books, and my favorite of the Austin series. I didn't care for "The Young Unicorns," but I did enjoy "The Moon by Night" even though it is kind of square. I love how Zachary keeps reappearing in these books, and in one of my most favorite L'Engle books--"An Acceptable Time"--he hooks up with Polly (Meg's daughter) and they do some time traveling.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading them all in order, so I just finished The Young Unicorns (I liked it, actually, although it was a little wacky) and A Ring of Endless Light is up next. I believe I may have tried that one once when I was younger, but I was reading it out of context (perhaps unaware of the other books?) and wasn't sure what to make of it. I can't wait to check it out (and, eventually, An Acceptable Time)! We'll have to have a big L'Engle confab when I've finally finished. I remember you were reading some of them when we went to Portland years ago, and that helped inspire me to do this.
ReplyDelete