tek's rating: see introduction

A Wind in the Door (pub 1973)
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I thought we might learn in a later book what Mrs Whatsit was going to say, but the Mrs W's never reappeared, at least not in any of the books I've read. "A Wind in the Door" takes place perhaps a year after "Wrinkle." It begins with Charles Wallace telling Meg he's seen dragons outside their house. He takes her out to find them, though she doesn't believe he really saw dragons. Why this should be so hard for her to believe after the events of the first book, I'm sure I don't know. Meanwhile, she's more concerned to learn that there's something wrong with his health, and that their mother had had a friend, Dr. Louise Colubra, examine him earlier that day. Charles, of course, was more interested in the dragons. Besides all this, he was having trouble at school, both with the other first grade students, and his teacher, because he was smarter than all of them. So he got beat up a lot. Meg went to see Mr. Jenkins about it, who had until this fall been the principal of Meg's high school, but was now the principal of Charles Wallace's grade school. She'd had plenty of troubles with him in the past herself, and he clearly wouldn't be of any help to Charles Wallace, now.

While waiting outside by a stone wall - wait, let me talk about something else first. In this stone wall there lived a snake who the twins had named Louise the Larger, after Dr. Colubra. We hear a conversation at one point as to why they called the snake "the Larger." Let me quote Dennys here: "Louise the Larger is very large for a snake who lives in a garden wall, and Dr. Louise is a very small doctor - I mean, she's a tiny person. I suppose as a doctor she's pretty mammoth." I mention this merely because, reading the line now as I skim back through the whole volume to write this review, I find it amusing, after having read the last book in the volume.

Anyway, back to what I was going to say. While waiting by the stone wall, Charles Wallace talks to Meg about mitochondria, which live within human cells, independently of humans, but upon which we depend. If our mitochondria get sick, we could die. Mitochondria could get sick if something happens to the farandolae which live independently within them, as the mitochondria do within us. Of course, all this is sort of speculation, because at this point, no microscopes are powerful enough to detect farandolae. But Mrs. Murry has been researching them, and may be on the brink of a breakthrough. Charles suspects that she suspects the reason he's been unwell of late is because there's something wrong with his mitochondria. Meanwhile, Mr. Murry is off somewhere researching a problem that has been observed in a distant part of the galaxy, and in other galaxies. Stars seem to be disappearing without a trace.

Later that night, Meg goes out alone, and is confronted by Mr. Jenkins. Then Louise the snake hisses at him, and he screams and vanishes into thin air. This, needless to say, confused and frightened Meg. But Calvin O'Keefe shows up and comforts her. Then Charles Wallace joins them. Then the dragons show up. They aren't alone, however, and they aren't a "they." It is a single creature, even though it looks rather like a whole drive of dragons. He is, in fact, a cherubim named Proginoskes. Which is odd, because "cherubim," as Calvin points out, is plural for "cherub," but nevertheless, he is a single cherubim. He is accompanied by a Teacher; a tall, dark man called Blajeny. Proginoskes (or "Progo," as the children take to calling him) is to be one of his students, along with Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin. Blajeny wants their help, and in the course of their lessons, they should learn what is wrong with Charles, and how his illness might be cured.

Assignments are given them: Charles Wallace will have to learn to adapt while remaining wholly himself, Meg will have to pass three trials, and Calvin...will have to wait, for now. Oh, and it turns out that Louise the Larger is also a Teacher. Blajeny also says that someday Sandy and Dennys will be Teachers (again, I find this somewhat interesting after the fourth book, and suspect it might well become more interesting if I ever read further in the series).

I also want to mention that that evening, Dr. Colubra mentioned that it was a great many years ago that Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. (This book, you'll recall, came out in 1973.) Mrs. Murry, who's 10 years younger than Dr. Colubra, was young at the time, but also remembers the moon landing. Obviously, that hadn't happened when the first book was written, more than a decade earlier, even though this book isn't set more than a year after the first. And I've no idea what was meant by "a great many years," though personally, I wouldn't call four years (from 1969 to 1973) a great many, even though she may have been exaggerating for the sake of the children's perceptions. Charles Wallace, of course, was only 6 years old at this point. Of course, there are new concepts in the book, which even teachers didn't know about or believe in... which I can't help thinking of as vaguely common knowledge for any schoolchild, so it can't be set too far after the book was written, even if we're talking about a small, rural community grade school... Anyway... I find it a bit amazing that a book could give a clear temporal touchstone like the first moon landing to help point to the book's setting, and yet simultaneously manage to use it to make that setting even more confusing and uncertain.

The next morning before Meg goes to school, she talks with Progo. He is a Namer, and thinks she may be as well. Naming is... well, it's hard to say what it is, but somehow it helps things to be more particularly what they are. Anyway, Meg and Progo try to figure out what their first trial is to be, as part of the trial is figuring out what it actually is. When she told him about her experience of the previous night with the fake Mr. Jenkins, he told her it sounded like she'd seen an Echthros. So, to explain to her what Echthroi are, he takes her yesterday to some other world to observe what they do. They X (annihilate, negate, extinguish, un-Name). They're like fallen angels, they cause war and hate, they can be responsible for the deaths of stars, people, farandolae, whatever. And they are after Charles Wallace, who is a threat to them. Progo also helped her remember a conversation she'd overheard some time ago between her parents, about a possible connection between his studies of the rips in space and her studies of ailing farandolae... and that there is yet hope. Progo also tells her she's beginning to learn to kythe, which is how cherubim communicate, without words. Telepathy might be called the very beginning of learning to kythe, which can be done not only with people, or beings like cherubim, but also with stars and... well, I don't want to get into too much exact quoting, so... with lots of things, large and small.

Anyway, Progo feels that their trial must have something to do with Mr. Jenkins, so they go down to the grade school. There are three Mr. Jenkinses there, and Meg has to Name one of them as the real one. The others, of course, are Echthroi. This will be difficult for her, because her experience with Mr. Jenkins over the years has made it her natural inclination to hate him; but to Name him, she has to love him. After much fretting, she manages to Name him, and Blajeny shows up, and transports Meg, Progo, and Mr. Jenkins to another world, where size is irrelevant, along with Calvin, and Louise the Larger. And then another student shows up, a farandola named Sporos.

Later, Progo, Meg, Mr. Jenkins, Calvin, and Sporos all go into Yadah - one of Charles Wallace's mitochondria, the one Sporos comes from. It seems their second trial is to help convince Sporos (and all the farandoale of his generation) to Deepen. That is, to mature, and take root, instead of moving around. Which isn't limiting, because they can kythe with other farandolae in all the mitochondria in their human host, and some can do so even with those in other hosts. They can sing with the stars. And Meg can kythe, too. In a way, she and Charles Wallace have always done it with each other. And she can do it with Calvin, as well. In the past, none of them really realized it, but now Meg has to learn to do it intentionally, and more fully. And she has to do so with Mr. Jenkins, as well, who isn't so open to any of this stuff that's going on, being so far outside his rigid concepts of reality. And Sporos doesn't want to kythe with any humans, who he considers unworthy. And what's worse, an Echthos has followed them into Yadah. But... Calvin kythes to Meg, helps her figure out how to kythe things to Mr. Jenkins that might help him understand all these strange things. And they all kythe to Sporos, along with Senex, the fara (Deepened farandola) who had spawned him. They had to convince him to leave the mad dance of the farandolae, who were being influenced by Echthroi, and killing farae, thus Yadah, and thus Charles Wallace, who was their galaxy. It's all about... the connectedness of all things, the irrelevance of size or distance or such matters. That's pretty much what the book is about, and it really comes into focus during the second trial.

The third and final trial comes about as a direct result of the second trial having been passed. I haven't anything really to say about it, however. All I can really think to say is that the book's ending is mostly quite happy, but with one... sort of ambiguously sad note, possibly quite sad... but still not as sad as it might have been. *shrug* Sorry, can't say any more....

Followed by A Swiftly Tilting Planet