A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engel

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

A Swiftly Tilting Planet is the third in L’Engel’s “Time” series, beginning with her best known book, A Wrinkle in Time, then A Wind in the Door. The story takes place a number of years chronologically after the others, with the Murry children all grown up, Meg married to Calvin, and pregnant with their first child.

The story itself is rooted in an old legend of Madoc, a Welsh prince who, in the folklore, sailed to the New World over a thousand years ago. His ostensible father, Owain Gwynned, was a real person, but his story and those of his children are, like King Arthur, papered over with much that is fantastic and imaginary. According to the legend, Madoc, fed up with the sibling squabbles over the throne, set sail across the Atlantic Ocean, eventually settling in...well, there are competing sites from Canada to Argentina, intermarrying with the Native Americans, and playing some role in the various indigenous empires in the Americas. 

This legend was widely believed, apparently, during the 18th and 19th Centuries, and the existence of a race of “Welsh Indians” was taken for granted as true. No surprise that it was the Welsh blood that was credited with establishing the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca empires, or that the tribes with white heritage were believed to be superior. It is this white supremacist assumption that taints the whole book just a bit, despite L’Engel’s efforts to remove it. Her fault lies solely in  the use of the legend, not her handling of it, which is mostly progressive by the standards of 1978, when the book was written. 

L’Engel starts with the legend, but adds layers of symbolism. One might say that it is really about Cain and Abel, with those two standing in for the dual nature of humanity. (It is fair to say that learning to think about Genesis as metaphor rather than literal history opened the book up to me as one of the finest explorations of human violence and hatred ever written.) For L’Engel, the Madoc legend becomes a way of looking at our good and evil natures in various expressions. 

The setup story is kind of meh. The Murrys are already insufferably above average in the other books, but now, Dad gets a call from the President of the United States with a request to somehow fend off nuclear war, started by a crazy dictator in an (imaginary) South American country. So, it ends up being Charles Wallace to the rescue. The more interesting twist is that Calvin’s mother, the bitter and difficult Mrs. O’Keefe, holds the key to success, in the form of an ancient Rune that was passed down to her for generations. This Rune, based on a condensed version of Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, ends up as the backbone of the book, and the adventures which follow. 

Charles Wallace goes to the star-watching stone (famous from the other books), and is put into a trance, where he is carried through time by a unicorn. His mission is to enter into the minds of various characters in the past, and, if he can, make a subtle change which leads to a different “might have been.” At the same time, he “kythes” with Meg - a kind of telepathic connection, so she can remain in the present world and yet experience his travels as if she were there. She is also able to assist him, but obtaining other information he needs. 

Charles Wallace starts by witnessing an incident in the original Madoc legend. Madoc turns out to have come to the New World with his brother, Gwydyr, but they become separated. Madoc and his descendents become the Abel figure, the personification of the good in humankind, while Gwydyr represents Cain, and the evil and violence of humankind. The two have a standoff, in which Madoc prevails, and Gwydyr flees, his descendents eventually ending up in Vespugia, the imaginary country near Patagonia. 

Next is a scene in Colonial America. A Welsh settlor has married a Native American woman, a descendent of Madoc. Charles Wallace has to work to prevent her from being hanged as a witch. In this way, L’Engel ties violence to witch hunts as well as genocide of the Native Americans, and suspicion of other cultures. (As I said, L’Engel does her best to defuse the racism in the original - she was pretty universalist in her views, which is why the Fundie culture I grew up in distrusted her.) 

After that, the book gets chronologically kind of weird. There are three connected threads, the first involving Mrs. O’Keefe’s brother Chuck, who had kind of a second sight before he was killed by their violent stepfather (the reason Mrs. O’Keefe is so bitter.) The second is their ancestor, the fictional novelist Matthew Maddox - another descendant of Madoc - who has written the definitive book on Madoc’s story, but doesn’t know the ending. The third involves Maddox’s brother and sister, who travel to Vespugia to find the Welsh colony. There, they encounter Gwydyr’s descendents, and the battle for who gains dominance and produces the ancestor of the dictator will determine the future. 

Throughout, L’Engle uses variants of the same names throughout. Madoc/Maddox, Gwydyr and various attempts to pronounce it, Zill/Zilla/Zillo representing both the feminine and the Native American element, and Bran as the Irish part of the line. (For the Rune, and for another link to Mrs. O’Keefe and her ancestors.) The names are combined and altered and remixed throughout, lending a continuity to the themes. One could view the characters as leitmotifs, perhaps, representing ideas rather than people. In that sense, I might classify Bran as some form of human potential, which is why his name is part of the dictator’s name, and so on. Charles/Chuck/Matthew and the equivalent Native American characters are both the alter egos for Charles Wallace and the prophetic voice. Zilla isn’t just Native American and female, she is also Mrs. O’Keefe and Meg and the other women who advocate for goodness, and yet are vulnerable to being victimized by the Gwydyrs of the world. 

I’ll admit to mixed feelings about this book. In general, I like L’Engel and her unusual perspectives. I thought that her idea of making a story of the dichotomy of human nature, and the way that small things can turn tides. She brought out the “brother versus brother” idea in a way that, unlike our discussion of the Civil War, doesn’t gloss over evil. She is spot on with her analysis that lust for power and privilege (economic and social) is at the root of evil of all kinds. The worlds she builds are fascinating, and are as consistent and well thought out as her plots. And she really worked hard to purge racism and sexism from her stories.

My main quibbles with this book are as follows. First, because of her choice of a framing myth, she cannot entirely escape the impression that this is a White Man’s Story. Both international politics (the threatened nuclear disaster) and Native American history become co-opted by a narrative of white people. It’s all about these two Welsh princes, ultimately, right? So that rubbed me wrong. 

Likewise, I had multiple issues with the idea of good and bad seed as a genetic legacy. Obviously, this is on one level a related issue to that of whiteness. Since both Madoc and Gwydyr intermarried with the Native Americans - as did their descendents - the Welsh blood would have been diluted significantly over the thousand year period. Why does the Welsh blood become the part that matters? Were there no Madocs and Gwydyrs (in the metaphorical sense) in the non-white lineage? 

Then too, there is the issue with the idea of character being passed genetically or culturally. I’m a bit sensitive about this for two reasons. The first is that both the genetic and cultural arguments have been and are still being used to justify white supremacy. The second is that the very premise is undermined by its origin. Madoc and Gwydyr both have the same parents (or at least parent - the book doesn’t mention which of Owain’s many wives and concubines mothered the two brothers, although it seems implied that they were closer than the average brothers.) And goodness knows my siblings and I are very different. 

So yeah, I get the need for that as part of the metaphor that runs through the whole thing, but it seems a bit determinativist. And also morally icky in the idea that whether the dictator is a good or evil man depends on who his [white] ancestor 1000 plus years ago is. 

That’s where my mixed feelings came from. For the first two books, there wasn’t really anything I could point to as problematic. The imprisonment of the father by a conformist cult leader? Hey, I can really relate to that one. The idea of love overcoming evil? The fruit of love being more important than theological differences? There was so much to love in the first book. The second book was very different, of course, but the exploration of molecular and cellular biology was fascinating, as was the damage caused when individual selfishness is allowed to take over. The idea that we are interconnected with our fellow humans - and nature - and that harm to one is harm to all is more timely than ever. That’s why L’Engel’s central point about power and privilege was so good, but the flaws detracted from that. It’s still an interesting book, and has some wonderful moments. 

***

The audiobook we listened to was read by Jennifer Ehle, best known to me for her turn as Elizabeth Bennet, in the BBC/A&E series, Pride and Prejudice, which is one of the best book adaptations ever. She did a fine job, although it was very different from version of the first book - read by L’Engel herself. 

The Collected Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Source of book: I own this. 

I picked this book up used from the library - a random find that cost next to nothing. I will confess that I hadn’t read anything by Edna St. Vincent Millay since my high school days, and I didn’t remember that much about the experience. In retrospect, I think it is likely that I was given one of her “safe” poems, one that tends to get picked by literature courses, rather than her more dangerous and radical ones.

In any event, I was immediately taken by this collection - it is fantastic. It was one of the more pleasant surprises in this year’s reading. I am a great lover of sonnets anyway. The form itself speaks to me (and indeed, my pathetic attempts at poetry during high school were often in sonnet form), and hers are some of the best I have read. 

 Edna St. Vincent Millay was a fascinating character. Living and writing mostly during the first half of the 20th Century, she refused to adhere to convention. She was raised by a divorced mother, whose poverty was in contrast to her dedication to introducing her daughters to classic literature. All three daughters were infamous at school for speaking their minds. Edna herself insisted in being called by her middle name: Vincent. Her teacher refused, calling her by random female names starting with V. (The name comes from the St. Vincent hospital, where Millay’s uncle was saved from death at one point.) 

Millay was openly bisexual, documenting relationships with women from her teens. Many of her poems are about love between women, which caused some scandal during her lifetime. (Although, to be fair, times were less puritanical in the 1920s than they would become later.) Millay would eventually marry in her 30s, after a number of love affairs with both men and women, having refused multiple offers of marriage, gotten pregnant, and had an abortion. The marriage was explicitly an open relationship, with both spouses continuing to have affairs with others. Her husband (like her) was strongly feminist, and fully supported her work. In fact, he took primary responsibility for domestic duties. 

In 1936, she was flung from an automobile in a freak accident, and suffered significant nerve and spinal damage. In constant pain for the rest of her life, she became addicted to morphine and alcohol, which contributed to her death at age 58. 

Even more tragic than that, however, was the tale of her career. She had previously been opposed to war, but, seeing the dangers of Fascism long before most of her fellow artists, she strongly advocated in favor of the United States entering World War II. This led to her essentially being blacklisted in artistic circles, effectively ending her career. At the same time, pro-Fascist poets such as Ezra Pound continued to receive accolades. 

Millay wrote about 160 sonnets, about the same as Shakespeare. They are not all related in the same way, but there are definitely themes that flow through most of them. There are three sonnet sets, both of which are haunting and moving. The first is Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree, which tells, over the course of 17 poems, the story of a wife caring for her dying husband who she separated from years ago. The second is The Harp Weaver, a tale of a mother who freezes to death creating a lavish wardrobe for her child. It is not difficult to see in both of these a reflection of Millay’s mother, whose life was harshly circumscribed by her failed marriage to a worthless man, and her need to sacrifice herself to keep her children fed. The third collection is Fatal Interview, believed to have been written about a long term relationship of hers which had ended. It is a devastating look at love, loss, and the ravages of time and age. 

Although there are a few exceptions, these themes tend to run through the other sonnets as well. Millay’s musings on the nature of love, desire, sex, loss, grief, pain, and endings are just amazing, really. I had not realized that these poems existed, but this book is now one of my favorites. 

Here are a few that stood out - although I could have listed most of them here. This one is from her first collection, Renascence, written in her late teens. 

THOU art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,     

Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair     

Than small white single poppies,—I can bear 

Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though 

From left to right, not knowing where to go,        

I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there     

Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear 

So has it been with mist,—with moonlight so.   

Like him who day by day unto his draught     

Of delicate poison adds him one drop more        

Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten, 

Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed     

Each hour more deeply than the hour before, 

I drink—and live—what has destroyed some men.

This illustrates one of her skills: taking a mushy love-sentiment, and somehow turning it a wee bit poisonous. There is a sting in this and other poems. Like this one. 

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,

And drag me at your chariot till I die,—

Oh, heavy prince! O, panderer of hearts!—

Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie

Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,

Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,

Who still am free, unto no querulous care

A fool, and in no temple worshiper!

I, that have bared me to your quiver’s fire,

Lifted my face into its puny rain,

Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire

As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!

(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,

Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)

A bit of reverse psychology there, and yet so much angst. 

This next one is definitely a favorite. Having been raised in a subculture pounded into us the ideas that Marriage is Miserable Hard Work™, Commitment™, Keep Your Vows Even If Abused™ and the rest of the idolatry of marriage and family, I have been drawn very much to the counter-idea: that a good relationship shouldn’t feel like martyrdom, and that one should actually be happy to be around one’s beloved. 

OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow!

Faithless am I save to love's self alone.

Were you not lovely I would leave you now:

After the feet of beauty fly my own.

Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,

And water ever to my wildest thirst,

I would desert you–think not but I would!–

And seek another as I sought you first.

But you are mobile as the veering air,

And all your charms more changeful than the tide,

Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:

I have but to continue at your side.

So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,

I am most faithless when I most am true.  

Elizabeth Barrett Browning also captured some of this in her sonnets (also favorites of mine - I’m a hopeless romantic). Here is another one with delightful ambiguity about love:

Loving you less than life, a little less

Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall

Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess

I cannot swear I love you not at all.

For there is that about you in this light—

A yellow darkness, sinister of rain—

Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight

To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.

And I am made aware of many a week

I shall consume, remembering in what way

Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek

And what divine absurdities you say:

Till all the world, and I, and surely you,

Will know I love you, whether or not I do.

Less lighthearted is this one:

Once more into my arid days like dew,

Like wind from an oasis, or the sound

Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,

A treacherous messenger, the thought of you

Comes to destroy me; once more I renew

Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found

Long since to be but just one other mound

Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.

And once again, and wiser in no wise,

I chase your colored phantom on the air,

And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise

And stumble pitifully on to where,

Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,

Once more I clasp,—and there is nothing there.

Again, just a brilliant picture. Bitter and yet full of desire. 

This next one is another favorite. 

Let you not say of me when I am old,

In pretty worship of my withered hands

Forgetting who I am, and how the sands

Of such a life as mine run red and gold

Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold,

Here walketh passionless age!"—for there expands

A curious superstition in these lands,

And by its leave some weightless tales are told.

In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;

I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;

Impious no less in ruin than in strength,

When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,

Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site

The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in prayer." 

A few layers to this one, to say the least. Millay challenges the idea that the elderly are sexless, or extra-righteous, or merely to be reverenced. She is still herself, passionate, impious, and the same as she ever was. 

I quote this next one because of an experience of my wife. This obnoxious racist dickhead who was the parent of a kid (poor guy) who was in band with one of my kids came up to her and said something nearly word for word as that said in this poem. (Do I even need to add that this guy is a huge Trump fan? Or that he was FINALLY banned from a local homeschool forum after repeated posts of neo-confederate and other vile propaganda?) 

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!

Give back my book and take my kiss instead.

Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,

“What a big book for such a little head!”

Come, I will show you now my newest hat,

And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!

Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.

I never again shall tell you what I think.

I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;

You will not catch me reading any more:

I shall be called a wife to pattern by;

And some day when you knock and push the door,

Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,

I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

Dude was literally acting surprised my wife was reading a “big book.” He probably has no idea about the stuff that she read while still a kid. After this incident, when she withered him with a glare, we have taken to calling him “Tiny Books.” Because his books are probably like the “hands” of his political idol. I am also reminded of one of my favorite bits by James Thurber. 

I unfortunately cannot quote all of Fatal Interview, but highly recommend it as a poem cycle. Here is the opening sonnet:

What thing is this that, built of salt and lime

And such dry motes as in the sunbeam show,

Has power upon me that do daily climb

The dustless air?—for whom those peaks of snow

Whereup the lungs of man with borrowed breath

Go labouring to a doom I may not feel,

Are but a pearled and roseate plain beneath

My wingèd helmet and my wingèd heel.

What sweet emotions neither foe nor friend

Are these that clog my flight? what thing is this

That hastening headlong to a dusty end

Dare turn upon me these proud eyes of bliss?

Up, up, my feathers!—ere I lay you by

To journey barefoot with a mortal joy.

From there, the cycle veers from the ecstacy of love to the depths of despair to the resignation to the depredations of time. This one, from early in the series, is as good of a love poem as I have read. 

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls

Or rich with red corundum or with blue,

Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls

Have given their loves, I give my love to you;

Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring

Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—

Semper fidelis, where a secret spring

Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:

Love in the open hand, no thing but that,

Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,

As one should bring you cowslips in a hat

Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,

I bring you, calling out as children do:

"Look what I have!—And these are all for you."

It just gets better every time I re-read it. And the form is perfect. The two ideas in the two quatrains, followed by the turn in line nine, and the last couplet so memorable and true. 

A later poem from the series take the theme carpe diem, but with the twist that what youth doesn’t use, age will twist into something ugly. Unfortunately, what came to mind with this one was the way that my parents’ generation has mostly grown unwise with age, giving in to “compromise and fear,” selling their souls to preserve a mythical past. 

Heart, have no pity on this house of bone:

Shake it with dancing, break it down with joy.

No man holds mortgage on it; it is your own;

To give, to sell at auction, to destroy.

When you are blind to moonlight on the bed,

When you are deaf to gravel on the pane,

Shall quavering caution from this house instead

Cluck forth at summer mischief in the lane?

All that delightful youth forbears to spend

Molestful age inherits, and the ground

Will have us; therefore, while we're young, my friend—

The Latin's vulgar, but the advice is sound.

Youth, have no pity; leave no farthing here

For age to invest in compromise and fear.

This next one is pretty dang dark. The relationship has begun to turn a bit, and the combination of doubt, ennui, and suspicion creep around the corner. 

Most wicked words!-forbear to speak them out.

Utter them not again; blaspheme no more

Against our love with maxims learned from Doubt:

Lest Death should get his foot inside the door.

We are surrounded by a hundred foes;

And he that at your bidding joins our feast,

I stake my heart upon it, is one of those,

Nor in their councils does he sit the least.

Hark not his whisper: he is Time’s ally,

Kinsman to Death, and leman of Despair:

Believe that I shall love you till I die;

Believe; and thrust him forth; and arm the stair;

And top the walls with spikes and splintered glass

That he pass gutted should again he pass.”

While not the bulk of the poems, there are a few which are about altogether different topics. One that I found particularly interesting is this one, written in honor of suffragist Inez Milholland. Who also happened to be Millay’s husband’s first wife - she died a few years prior to Millay’s relationship with her husband. 

Upon this marble bust that is not I

Lay the round, formal wreath that is not fame;

But in the forum of my silenced cry

Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.

I, that was proud and valiant, am no more; ---

Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,

Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,

Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.

The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.

Only my standard on a taken hill

Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust

And make immortal my adventurous will.

Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:

Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

That’s a seriously great epitaph. Milholland would die before realizing the dream of voting rights for women - a cause Millay also supported. 

This next poem is more about nature - both nature in the sense of the natural world, but also in the sense of human nature. And not a very nice part of that second nature either. 

Enormous moon, that rise behind these hills

Heavy and yellow in a sky unstarred

And pale, your girth by purple fillets barred

Of drifting cloud, that as the cool sky fills

With planets and the brighter stars, distills

To thinnest vapor and floats valley-ward, —

You flood with radiance all this cluttered yard,

The sagging fence, the chipping window sills!

 Grateful at heart as if for my delight

You rose, I watch you through a mist of tears,

Thinking how man, who gags upon despair,

Salting his hunger with the sweat of fright

Has fed on cold indifference all these years,

Calling it kindness, calling it God’s care.

Millay was concerned about the modern American - or perhaps Western - tendency toward social darwinism and of a “science” devoid of humanity or empathy. In our own times, we are still continuing to pay for this soulless vision of technology and raw capitalism. As Millay points out, we embrace data points without context, without wisdom, without kindness. It is power for power’s sake. 

Upon this age, that never speaks its mind,

This furtive age, this age endowed with power

To wake the moon with footsteps, fit an oar

Into the rowlocks of the wind, and find

What swims before his prow, what swirls behind ---

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,

Rains from the sky a meteoric shower

Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.

Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill

Is daily spun; but there exists no loom

To weave it into fabric; undefiled

Proceeds pure Science, and has her say; but still

Upon this world from the collective womb

Is spewed all day the red triumphant child. 

It’s a bit of a downer to end on, alas. Millay’s poems do seem to get darker over time, and it is easy enough to see why. This poem was published in a collection dated 1939, and there is no secret about the state of the world at that time. Fascism threatened to envelope at least Europe, and possibly the world. Although it would be anachronistic to read the horrors of nuclear war into this poem, it fits all too well. 

The collection as a whole is more thoughtful than exuberant, more focused on time and loss than on the ecstacy of love - although that is present as well. The poems stand up so well, though, because of this emotionally realistic approach to life and love. All is not well, and along with joy and love come loss and pain.