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Time Quintet #4
Many Waters
Sandy and Dennys have always been the normal, run-of-the-mill ones in the extraodinary Murry family. They garden, make an occasional A in school, and play baseball. Nothing especially interesting has happened to the twins until they accidentally interrupt their father's experiment.
Then the two boys are thrown across time and space. They find themselves alone in the desert, where, if they believe in unicorns, they can find unicorns, and whether they believe or not, mammoths and manticores will find them.
The twins are rescued by Japheth, a man from the nearby oasis, but before he can bring them to safety, Dennys gets lost. Each boy is quickly embroiled in the conflicts of this time and place, whose populations includes winged seraphim, a few stray mythic beasts, perilous and beautiful nephilim, and small, long lived humans who consider Sandy and Dennys giants. The boys find they have more to do in the oasis than simply getting themselves home--they have to reunite an estranged father and son, but it won't be easy, especially when the son is named Noah and he's about to start building a boat in the desert.
Then the two boys are thrown across time and space. They find themselves alone in the desert, where, if they believe in unicorns, they can find unicorns, and whether they believe or not, mammoths and manticores will find them.
The twins are rescued by Japheth, a man from the nearby oasis, but before he can bring them to safety, Dennys gets lost. Each boy is quickly embroiled in the conflicts of this time and place, whose populations includes winged seraphim, a few stray mythic beasts, perilous and beautiful nephilim, and small, long lived humans who consider Sandy and Dennys giants. The boys find they have more to do in the oasis than simply getting themselves home--they have to reunite an estranged father and son, but it won't be easy, especially when the son is named Noah and he's about to start building a boat in the desert.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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September 7, 2014
Yes, there will be spoilers, but, seriously, it doesn't matter, because you don't want to read this book.
All right. So this book deals with Sandy and Dennys, who have been little better than side characters in the other books. They are Meg and Charles Wallace's "normal" brothers. Twins. It also takes place prior to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, while the twins are sports stars in high school. The impression I got is that they are probably juniors and about 17 years old. Basically, the boys walk into their mother's lab and, when they walk out of it, rather than going back into the kitchen of the house, they end up in the days of Noah. Yes, that Noah. The one that built the big boat. Hence the title of the book.
There's never any firm conclusion as to how they got transported back in time. It may or may not have had to do with an experiment that was going on in the lab, though the type of experiment is never explained, or it may have had to do with them messing with their dad's weird computer, or, maybe, it was just God.
They end up in the desert. Of course, they're wearing winter clothing, which they soon discard... all the way down to their skin. Because that's always a smart thing to do in the desert. Get nearly naked, that is. The end result of that is that about 1/3 of the book deals with them being nursed back to health by Noah's family, who mistake the twins for giants, because no one in Noah's day was even near to being 5' tall. A lot of this section of the book also has the repeated conversation with, well, every freaking character they meet, "We're not giants." And it's not that I don't think they wouldn't have had to have had that conversation, but does L'Engle really need to repeat it 10 or so times.
This book also follows the pattern of all of the books in the series: The characters really don't ever do anything. Sandy and Dennys talk a lot about how they will get home... um, no, wait... They ask that question a lot. Every few pages it seems. "How will we get home?" "I don't know." "What should we do?" "Let's go garden." Seriously, that's their solution every time the question comes up, to work in Noah's father's garden. Basically, they end up being observers to the action going on around them and that's pretty much it. And what that comes down to is that the rising action in this book is about like a road in West Texas with a speed bump on it when Sandy gets kidnapped.
Aside from the lack of any real story or character development, the book is full of all kind of ridiculousness:
1. There are mammoths. Yes, in the desert. But these are not the mammoths you're thinking of. You know, the big, hairy elephants. No, these are tiny mammoths. Terrier-sized mammoths. In fact, they pretty much are small dogs that look like mammoths. The mammoths can scent things and follow trails like a bloodhound, but they are also used as dowsing rods to find water. Which explains why the desert people keep them as pets, I suppose, but how did they get tiny? Well, evidently, they... evolved to be that way? The explanation is something along the lines of them having grown smaller and smaller over a great time.
2. However, the Earth in this book is a brand new Earth. A very young planet still going through its growing pains, so the whole thing with the mammoths doesn't really make any sense. L'Engle seems to want to have the Earth both be billions of years old and only 5000 (or so) years old as in the strict Creationist viewpoint.
3. There are manticores and griffons. Or a manticore and a griffon. It's never clear on whether there are more than one of each. The manticore is "bad" and just shows up rather like a cartoon character to shout "hungry" and try to eat the little doggy-mammoths and have to be shooed away. The griffon shows up to chase "bad" girls away from Sandy and Dennys.
4. L'Engle seems to have a thing with unicorns, because there are more unicorns in this book. Virtual unicorns, as the twins call them. They don't always exist, only when you decide you believe in them and, of course, they can only be approached by virgins. The annoying thing with the unicorns is that even after the boys have experiences with the unicorns, they go on and on about how they can't believe in them because they don't exist, so they can only believe in the unicorns when the unicorns are actually standing right in front of them. I have to suppose that they ceased to believe in their family, too, when their family quit being right in front of them.
-- The issue with all of this is that L'Engle, from what I can tell, wants us to accept this book as being set in reality, our reality, and, yet, she undermines reality by introducing all of this mythological stuff into what we're supposed to believe is the actual pre-flood setting. It's more suspension of disbelief than I could handle, and I haven't even gotten to the Angels.
5. Oh, yes, the Angels. The pseudo conflict in the book is between the seraphim (the good Angels) and the nephilim (the bad Angels). In fact the whole "conflict" revolves around a girl, Yalith, who everyone is in love with, so it becomes a matter of whom she will choose: one of the twins (or both) or Eblis, the nephilim. It's an empty conflict through which L'Engle seems to deliver her message of "bad things don't happen to good people" (a message which makes me wonder what reality L'Engle lived in, because it's the same kind of message all of her books have: Love will always win and, ultimately, nothing bad happens to people who believe in love).
Speaking of Yalith and male/female relationships in general in this book: This may have been the most difficult part of the book for me to deal with. Yalith is the youngest child of Noah; she's nearly 100 years old (because people in Noah's time lived much longer (Noah is 700ish)), but she's basically a teenager. Because, you know, living longer means slower growth? Which makes me wonder how long would remain a baby in this time. 20 years? Because, man, if I was a mom, I'd be pissed. Having to care for an infant for 20 years... I can't even imagine it, especially since pregnancy still only last nine months (because there was a birth during the book). You could end up with, well, a lot of babies. Actually, what I think she wants us to believe is that everyone ages normally until they hit puberty when they, for whatever reason, quit developing. Still, that means around 90 years as a teenager! That would be the worst!
Oh, back to the twins and male/female relationships:
So Sandy meets Yalith; Yalith is basically naked, because the people in Noah's time only wear loincloths. In the desert. Because we have examples of people today who live in the desert but only wear loincloths? At any rate, Yalith is all but naked, and Sandy is a teenage boy confronted with a naked girl and his response is to get a "funny feeling." Um, what? A funny feeling? What does that even mean? And that's how all of the interactions between the twins and girls go: They get funny feelings. I'm sorry; these boys are supposed to be 16 or 17 years old, and L'Engle is treating them as if they're, at best, 10. It's ridiculous.
The twins do end up back at home after spending at least a year in the desert with Noah. One of the Angels removes the boys' tans and, I suppose, the year or more they had aged, although that's not actually mentioned. So they end up back at home right at the point they'd left and nothing has changed. There was no character growth for the twins and nothing of consequence affected in the past. The flood still happens and all of that. It's a book where the goal is to return to the status quo but without even the benefit of the characters learning anything from the journey. In fact, the boys pick up talking about getting their driver's licenses as if nothing had even happened.
All right. So this book deals with Sandy and Dennys, who have been little better than side characters in the other books. They are Meg and Charles Wallace's "normal" brothers. Twins. It also takes place prior to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, while the twins are sports stars in high school. The impression I got is that they are probably juniors and about 17 years old. Basically, the boys walk into their mother's lab and, when they walk out of it, rather than going back into the kitchen of the house, they end up in the days of Noah. Yes, that Noah. The one that built the big boat. Hence the title of the book.
There's never any firm conclusion as to how they got transported back in time. It may or may not have had to do with an experiment that was going on in the lab, though the type of experiment is never explained, or it may have had to do with them messing with their dad's weird computer, or, maybe, it was just God.
They end up in the desert. Of course, they're wearing winter clothing, which they soon discard... all the way down to their skin. Because that's always a smart thing to do in the desert. Get nearly naked, that is. The end result of that is that about 1/3 of the book deals with them being nursed back to health by Noah's family, who mistake the twins for giants, because no one in Noah's day was even near to being 5' tall. A lot of this section of the book also has the repeated conversation with, well, every freaking character they meet, "We're not giants." And it's not that I don't think they wouldn't have had to have had that conversation, but does L'Engle really need to repeat it 10 or so times.
This book also follows the pattern of all of the books in the series: The characters really don't ever do anything. Sandy and Dennys talk a lot about how they will get home... um, no, wait... They ask that question a lot. Every few pages it seems. "How will we get home?" "I don't know." "What should we do?" "Let's go garden." Seriously, that's their solution every time the question comes up, to work in Noah's father's garden. Basically, they end up being observers to the action going on around them and that's pretty much it. And what that comes down to is that the rising action in this book is about like a road in West Texas with a speed bump on it when Sandy gets kidnapped.
Aside from the lack of any real story or character development, the book is full of all kind of ridiculousness:
1. There are mammoths. Yes, in the desert. But these are not the mammoths you're thinking of. You know, the big, hairy elephants. No, these are tiny mammoths. Terrier-sized mammoths. In fact, they pretty much are small dogs that look like mammoths. The mammoths can scent things and follow trails like a bloodhound, but they are also used as dowsing rods to find water. Which explains why the desert people keep them as pets, I suppose, but how did they get tiny? Well, evidently, they... evolved to be that way? The explanation is something along the lines of them having grown smaller and smaller over a great time.
2. However, the Earth in this book is a brand new Earth. A very young planet still going through its growing pains, so the whole thing with the mammoths doesn't really make any sense. L'Engle seems to want to have the Earth both be billions of years old and only 5000 (or so) years old as in the strict Creationist viewpoint.
3. There are manticores and griffons. Or a manticore and a griffon. It's never clear on whether there are more than one of each. The manticore is "bad" and just shows up rather like a cartoon character to shout "hungry" and try to eat the little doggy-mammoths and have to be shooed away. The griffon shows up to chase "bad" girls away from Sandy and Dennys.
4. L'Engle seems to have a thing with unicorns, because there are more unicorns in this book. Virtual unicorns, as the twins call them. They don't always exist, only when you decide you believe in them and, of course, they can only be approached by virgins. The annoying thing with the unicorns is that even after the boys have experiences with the unicorns, they go on and on about how they can't believe in them because they don't exist, so they can only believe in the unicorns when the unicorns are actually standing right in front of them. I have to suppose that they ceased to believe in their family, too, when their family quit being right in front of them.
-- The issue with all of this is that L'Engle, from what I can tell, wants us to accept this book as being set in reality, our reality, and, yet, she undermines reality by introducing all of this mythological stuff into what we're supposed to believe is the actual pre-flood setting. It's more suspension of disbelief than I could handle, and I haven't even gotten to the Angels.
5. Oh, yes, the Angels. The pseudo conflict in the book is between the seraphim (the good Angels) and the nephilim (the bad Angels). In fact the whole "conflict" revolves around a girl, Yalith, who everyone is in love with, so it becomes a matter of whom she will choose: one of the twins (or both) or Eblis, the nephilim. It's an empty conflict through which L'Engle seems to deliver her message of "bad things don't happen to good people" (a message which makes me wonder what reality L'Engle lived in, because it's the same kind of message all of her books have: Love will always win and, ultimately, nothing bad happens to people who believe in love).
Speaking of Yalith and male/female relationships in general in this book: This may have been the most difficult part of the book for me to deal with. Yalith is the youngest child of Noah; she's nearly 100 years old (because people in Noah's time lived much longer (Noah is 700ish)), but she's basically a teenager. Because, you know, living longer means slower growth? Which makes me wonder how long would remain a baby in this time. 20 years? Because, man, if I was a mom, I'd be pissed. Having to care for an infant for 20 years... I can't even imagine it, especially since pregnancy still only last nine months (because there was a birth during the book). You could end up with, well, a lot of babies. Actually, what I think she wants us to believe is that everyone ages normally until they hit puberty when they, for whatever reason, quit developing. Still, that means around 90 years as a teenager! That would be the worst!
Oh, back to the twins and male/female relationships:
So Sandy meets Yalith; Yalith is basically naked, because the people in Noah's time only wear loincloths. In the desert. Because we have examples of people today who live in the desert but only wear loincloths? At any rate, Yalith is all but naked, and Sandy is a teenage boy confronted with a naked girl and his response is to get a "funny feeling." Um, what? A funny feeling? What does that even mean? And that's how all of the interactions between the twins and girls go: They get funny feelings. I'm sorry; these boys are supposed to be 16 or 17 years old, and L'Engle is treating them as if they're, at best, 10. It's ridiculous.
The twins do end up back at home after spending at least a year in the desert with Noah. One of the Angels removes the boys' tans and, I suppose, the year or more they had aged, although that's not actually mentioned. So they end up back at home right at the point they'd left and nothing has changed. There was no character growth for the twins and nothing of consequence affected in the past. The flood still happens and all of that. It's a book where the goal is to return to the status quo but without even the benefit of the characters learning anything from the journey. In fact, the boys pick up talking about getting their driver's licenses as if nothing had even happened.
March 27, 2014
It always amuses me when people say "coming of age story" when what they really mean is "sexual awakening". And don't be confused, there *is* a difference. Take for instance Hayao Miyazaki's 2001 film Spirited Away, this is a great example of a coming of age film. Yes, the protagonist Chihiro does meet a certain dragon/boy she may like more than a friend but this is not what pushes the character development, what pushes her to "grow up" are the lessons she learns about hard work, sacrifice and caring about others. Sandys and Dennys on the other hand don't change much throughout Many Waters - they exit our story much as they enter it, self sufficient, hard working and caring. What changes in their story is the capacity of sexual and emotional desire they become aware of.
Reading this I got a very different vibe from the rest of the Time books. While this one is no exception to the publisher's rule where it's cover has the words "a companion to a Wrinkle in Time" written across the front, unlike all the other books in the series, I felt that this was the only one that was self sufficient enough to stand on its own. Almost to the point where I wonder if Le'Engle, after having written these books several decades apart, didn't write this as more of an adult novel, knowing like many authors who undertake long IR series (such as Harry Potter), that the original demographic would have grown up by then. After all, there's quite a few things that make this book a questionable choice for the younger set that AWiT was aimed at. Sandy, tied and bound in a tent hears his captors voice and calls her name. When she expresses delight at him recognizing her she thinks it's by her voice and yet we see him say to himself quite clearly "I recognized you by your scent you slut". And earlier on Dennys tells of his afternoon walk through the oasis bazaar and his difficulty in looking at all the faces around him for he knows they're to be drowned. Again, not exactly elementary school stuff.
However, that being said, you'd think a children's book by a Christian author set in biblical times where the village seductress is called a slut would be pretty stuffy when it came to messages on sex and women, but surprisingly it's not. Le'Engle makes a pretty radical move by having some of her characters call the Noah story chauvinistic from the get go, addressing some of the tension head on. And while the story does not drastically alter from that in the bible Le'Engle surprised me by angling the story from a pretty feminine perspective. Yes, two young adolescent boys are the main narrators, and yet most of the story revolves around activities like watering animals and plants, gardening, cooking, caring for the elderly, birthing and marriage - all the things our society typically considers to be feminine. The first place Dennys is taken to that is considered safe and whole in the story is the tent the women use for menstruation, and while there are an equal number of men and women in Noah's tent less time is given to the sons than the daughters. It would have been easy to center this story around the building of the arc, hunting and other masculine activities and yet we spend time in the women's tent and out on rocks under star lit skies where sisters talk about husbands and children.
And the sex. Ah the sex. This isn't your grandma's bible story that's for sure. Or maybe not, but somehow the constant sexual tension of a might-have-been threesome never made it's way into any of MY Baby's First Bible. The message here is not so much one of abstinence as other's have suggested as it is understanding that who you have sex with the first time matters just as much as who you have sex with once you are settled down. The message here isn't "don't do it" it's "don't do it carelessly".
So in the end did I like it more than AWiT? Yes, and no. It's a horse of a different color to be sure. I think as a piece of children's literature I loved, and always will love, AWiT the best. But as a grown up's book Many Waters is a finely crafted and startling re-imagination of Biblical times that belongs right up their with The Red Tent. Highly recommended.
Reading this I got a very different vibe from the rest of the Time books. While this one is no exception to the publisher's rule where it's cover has the words "a companion to a Wrinkle in Time" written across the front, unlike all the other books in the series, I felt that this was the only one that was self sufficient enough to stand on its own. Almost to the point where I wonder if Le'Engle, after having written these books several decades apart, didn't write this as more of an adult novel, knowing like many authors who undertake long IR series (such as Harry Potter), that the original demographic would have grown up by then. After all, there's quite a few things that make this book a questionable choice for the younger set that AWiT was aimed at. Sandy, tied and bound in a tent hears his captors voice and calls her name. When she expresses delight at him recognizing her she thinks it's by her voice and yet we see him say to himself quite clearly "I recognized you by your scent you slut". And earlier on Dennys tells of his afternoon walk through the oasis bazaar and his difficulty in looking at all the faces around him for he knows they're to be drowned. Again, not exactly elementary school stuff.
However, that being said, you'd think a children's book by a Christian author set in biblical times where the village seductress is called a slut would be pretty stuffy when it came to messages on sex and women, but surprisingly it's not. Le'Engle makes a pretty radical move by having some of her characters call the Noah story chauvinistic from the get go, addressing some of the tension head on. And while the story does not drastically alter from that in the bible Le'Engle surprised me by angling the story from a pretty feminine perspective. Yes, two young adolescent boys are the main narrators, and yet most of the story revolves around activities like watering animals and plants, gardening, cooking, caring for the elderly, birthing and marriage - all the things our society typically considers to be feminine. The first place Dennys is taken to that is considered safe and whole in the story is the tent the women use for menstruation, and while there are an equal number of men and women in Noah's tent less time is given to the sons than the daughters. It would have been easy to center this story around the building of the arc, hunting and other masculine activities and yet we spend time in the women's tent and out on rocks under star lit skies where sisters talk about husbands and children.
And the sex. Ah the sex. This isn't your grandma's bible story that's for sure. Or maybe not, but somehow the constant sexual tension of a might-have-been threesome never made it's way into any of MY Baby's First Bible. The message here is not so much one of abstinence as other's have suggested as it is understanding that who you have sex with the first time matters just as much as who you have sex with once you are settled down. The message here isn't "don't do it" it's "don't do it carelessly".
So in the end did I like it more than AWiT? Yes, and no. It's a horse of a different color to be sure. I think as a piece of children's literature I loved, and always will love, AWiT the best. But as a grown up's book Many Waters is a finely crafted and startling re-imagination of Biblical times that belongs right up their with The Red Tent. Highly recommended.
January 18, 2008
Just barely edged out as my favorite book in the series (right behind "A swiftly Tilting Planet"). Tells a story less concerned with love and justice and all about the hard choices that people (and deities) make in a flawed world.
An out and out retelling of the Biblical Deluge from the point of view of two modern teenagers. Unique in that it makes no apology for all the fantastical stuff the Bible referred to in antediluvian times. Angels getting it own with the village girls, men who live for centuries, strange voices in the forest. Surprisingly, this was one of the most original fantasy lands a novel had taken me to up till that point.
An out and out retelling of the Biblical Deluge from the point of view of two modern teenagers. Unique in that it makes no apology for all the fantastical stuff the Bible referred to in antediluvian times. Angels getting it own with the village girls, men who live for centuries, strange voices in the forest. Surprisingly, this was one of the most original fantasy lands a novel had taken me to up till that point.
July 30, 2018
HOOW DID THAT HAPPEN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN. How did the pure beauty and truth and utter heartbreaking melody of A Wrinkle in Time turn in to this monstrous, sensualized, romantic Bible Fanfiction.
Did I just read that.
Did my eyes behold those pages.
I really hope that was some nasty, Echtroi-induced dream.
Unfortunately...
Did I just read that.
Did my eyes behold those pages.
I really hope that was some nasty, Echtroi-induced dream.
Unfortunately...
March 25, 2018
Many Waters is the fourth book in A Wrinkle in Time series and it's probably my least favorite. It was just a really boring book to breeze through. I mean they are only like.. 12 chapters each book but man was I bored with this one.
Sandy and Denny messed with their dad's new computer and traveled to a different time. They end up within Noah and the Ark storyline which seemed pretty cool.. but was just really boring and disappointing. For some reason, it just didn't work for me and kind of rubbed me the wrong way. No amount of coffee, wine, or puppy snuggles could get me to like this book. I'm just happy that I'm almost done with this series.
The one thing I didn't like, and trust me there was a lot of things I didn't like, was the sex talk. Or sexual references. ANYTHING to do with sex in this book - I didn't like. I think the reason I didn't like it was because this series isn't supposed to be that type of young adult.. more like middle school young adult.. with no sex. EVER.
Overall, this book was a hot mess in my eyes. I just didn't like. I hope the last book is way better.
Sandy and Denny messed with their dad's new computer and traveled to a different time. They end up within Noah and the Ark storyline which seemed pretty cool.. but was just really boring and disappointing. For some reason, it just didn't work for me and kind of rubbed me the wrong way. No amount of coffee, wine, or puppy snuggles could get me to like this book. I'm just happy that I'm almost done with this series.
The one thing I didn't like, and trust me there was a lot of things I didn't like, was the sex talk. Or sexual references. ANYTHING to do with sex in this book - I didn't like. I think the reason I didn't like it was because this series isn't supposed to be that type of young adult.. more like middle school young adult.. with no sex. EVER.
Overall, this book was a hot mess in my eyes. I just didn't like. I hope the last book is way better.
September 20, 2018
Many Waters: I saw someone describe this novel as bible fanfiction, and that really is the perfect description for it. Bad bible fanfiction.
Initially I was excited for Many Waters. I was keen to follow Dennys and Sandy for the first time. However, I was less keen to follow them to pre-Flood times. You know the one with Noah and the ark? That flood. At the very least, L'Engle starts by acknowledging that way back then, people were a heck shorter than now. In fact, she mentions multiple times that these people were less than four foot tall. Comparatively, Dennys and Sandy were 20th century fifteen-year-olds who towered over them to the point of being called "giants". So tell me why I had to suffer through the constant descriptions of the female characters' breasts and Dennys and Sandy's sexual desires from the moment the twins met these tiny humans. It was excruciating. The whole book is excruciating.
I mean, it's not the religious nature of the book that bothers me. The story is just so dumb. And it's a shame because L'Engle is not a bad writer. The actual mechanics of her writing aren't bad. It's the content that is just so ludicrous. Dennys and Sandy spend so much of the book doing nothing. Like so much of the book is just them recovering from their sun exposure. And the moment they learn one fella is named Noah? There's this immediate realisation by both that they must be in pre-Flood times like there has never been another person named Noah. And the weird fucking 'romantic' subplots! One girl is 'in love' with both boys and 'loved' by both and another is painted as the Classic Seductress, to the point that she's referred to as a slut. I literally replayed that part of the audiobook to make sure I'd heard it right. The novel just constantly felt like it was written with such a hyper-religious agenda that L'Engle let actual craftsmanship fall to the wayside.
If you need a good fucking laugh, go full steam ahead and read this. If not, please don't ever pick this book up. It is not worth it. It really is thatbad awful horrific abysmal and I could never seriously recommend Many Waters to another person.
Initially I was excited for Many Waters. I was keen to follow Dennys and Sandy for the first time. However, I was less keen to follow them to pre-Flood times. You know the one with Noah and the ark? That flood. At the very least, L'Engle starts by acknowledging that way back then, people were a heck shorter than now. In fact, she mentions multiple times that these people were less than four foot tall. Comparatively, Dennys and Sandy were 20th century fifteen-year-olds who towered over them to the point of being called "giants". So tell me why I had to suffer through the constant descriptions of the female characters' breasts and Dennys and Sandy's sexual desires from the moment the twins met these tiny humans. It was excruciating. The whole book is excruciating.
I mean, it's not the religious nature of the book that bothers me. The story is just so dumb. And it's a shame because L'Engle is not a bad writer. The actual mechanics of her writing aren't bad. It's the content that is just so ludicrous. Dennys and Sandy spend so much of the book doing nothing. Like so much of the book is just them recovering from their sun exposure. And the moment they learn one fella is named Noah? There's this immediate realisation by both that they must be in pre-Flood times like there has never been another person named Noah. And the weird fucking 'romantic' subplots! One girl is 'in love' with both boys and 'loved' by both and another is painted as the Classic Seductress, to the point that she's referred to as a slut. I literally replayed that part of the audiobook to make sure I'd heard it right. The novel just constantly felt like it was written with such a hyper-religious agenda that L'Engle let actual craftsmanship fall to the wayside.
If you need a good fucking laugh, go full steam ahead and read this. If not, please don't ever pick this book up. It is not worth it. It really is that
January 30, 2020
“There’s no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change.”
I never read anything quite like this series, and the first book, A Wrinkle in Time, has become my favourite book of all time. I rated all the other books five stars, and this is the only one I had doubts on. Don't get me wrong, I would never rate it less than four stars, and I still adore Madeline L'Engle's writing style and I still flew through these pages without being able to put it down, but I guess I liked this book just a tiny bit less than the rest. I can think of three reasons why this book, still being a masterpiece like the others, was a little less enjoyable for me: number one, it centers around the twins, who are my least favourite characters; number two, it is one whole adventure with less time/space travel and, overall, less fantasy; number three, the unicorn ex-machina was a little underwhelming in some moments. But, overall, another amazing read. I want and I don't want to pick up the last book now! This series had been one A-M-A-Z-I-N-G read!
I never read anything quite like this series, and the first book, A Wrinkle in Time, has become my favourite book of all time. I rated all the other books five stars, and this is the only one I had doubts on. Don't get me wrong, I would never rate it less than four stars, and I still adore Madeline L'Engle's writing style and I still flew through these pages without being able to put it down, but I guess I liked this book just a tiny bit less than the rest. I can think of three reasons why this book, still being a masterpiece like the others, was a little less enjoyable for me: number one, it centers around the twins, who are my least favourite characters; number two, it is one whole adventure with less time/space travel and, overall, less fantasy; number three, the unicorn ex-machina was a little underwhelming in some moments. But, overall, another amazing read. I want and I don't want to pick up the last book now! This series had been one A-M-A-Z-I-N-G read!
June 27, 2025
Sandy and Dennys are identical twin boys and they are also the middle children of Madeleine L'Engle's Murry family in her Time Quintet series (coming in between older sister Meg and younger brother Charles Wallace). And yes, in A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (as well as in An Acceptable Time where the twins in fact do not appear at all), Sandy and Dennys basically appear to function mainly as kind of family place holders and do not really play any major and significant textual roles at all (which I personally do find kind of annoying and frustrating, but because Sandy and Dennys Murry are rather representing standard American childhood and teenagerhood, they also do not really fit in with either their parents or their two siblings, and in fact, to tell the truth, Sandy and Dennys feel to and for me more like they should actually be members of Madeleine L'Engle's Austins than the Murrys, and which might well also be why I kind of do tend to prefer the twins as characters in and of themselves, since I am definitely much more enamoured of L'Engle's Austin Family novels than of her novels featuring and presenting the Murrys). But in Many Waters (which happens when Sandy and Dennys are fifteen year old teenagers and their sister Meg has just started attending college), the twins finally do take centre stage so to speak, as they rather magically are transported from their mother's laboratory to Biblical times and just prior to the Great Flood (with therefore the majority of Many Waters taking place in the Old Testament and during the time of Noah).
And with a thin but still solid and intriguing grounding in Genesis, in the Old Testament stories of the Creation up until the start of the Flood Many Waters is simple (well, really deceptively simple) on the surface (and basically also a wonderful tale of love, of family and of course also of faith) but delightfully intricate and involved if one chooses to read between the lines, as Madeleine L'Engle features complex characters and intricate relationships (for the Biblical characters, including the good and the fallen angels, for the Seraphim and the Nephilim, and not to mention that Sandy and Dennys Murry are suddenly and happily so no longer just basically and simplistically depicted either, but solidly nuanced, deeply thinking and at times even quite religiously philosophical and ecstatic).
Furthermore and with regard to descriptiveness, the ancient world of Many Waters with its, with Madeleine L'Engle's deserts, oases, unicorns, mammoths, griffons and human beings similar to us but also not quite the same (especially with regard to physical appearances and age), this might in Many Waters at first glance feel really and totally different from today. However and sadly, the evils and the problems that (if you know your Bible) have precipitated the Great Flood as being necessary (or as supposedly being necessary) definitely and obviously also are still mirrored by our modern world, they still reflect today, as old and established customs are flouted and denigrated, that even Noah himself is constantly bitterly quarrelling with his father Lamech and that many young women are wedding the Nephilim, are producing babies with Biblical fallen angel types.
But while the two main protagonists of Many Waters, while stranded in the Old Testament Noah and the Flood story Sandy and Dennys Murry become compassionate participants in pre-flood events, helping where they can, including with the construction of the Ark, and that Sandy and Denny also manage to reconcile Noah and Lamech before Lamech's death, the twins are equally always more than aware of the fact that they are not supposed to in any manner actually change the course of the story itself, and that thus, warning others regarding the coming waters and rains would for example not be allowed, and that if Noah's daughter Yalith is not supposed to be, is not meant to be on the Ark, then this would have to simply be accepted as being the word of God, of El. So indeed, while Sandy and Dennys Murry during the course of Many Waters do have major issues with Yalith's potential fate in particular, they also have faith that she will actually not come to any real harm (and that yes, this faith is finally rewarded in so far as Dennys and Sandy are shown that Yalith is to be taken up to El directly and will thus of course not be threatened with and by drowning during the Flood). However and very much painfully and poignantly, Sandy and Dennys Murry also must realise in Many Waters that El's, that God's experiment of the Great Flood (and only allowing Noah, his three sons and their respective wives to survive the deluge on the Ark) has indeed rather failed in the long run, since the negative aspects of human nature remain the same today and are as bad if not even actually worse than during the time of Noah, which does give Many Waters a rather poignant and saddening feel and scope, as does the twins pointing out (after they are themselves safely back at home) that they, that Sandy and Dennys will always be feeling a bit homesick and missing in particular Noah, Japheth, their respective wives and of course Yalith.
And finally, the Old Testament story of Noah and the Great Flood also and bien sûr takes place before The Tower of Babel, and thus, in Many Waters Madeleine L'Engle's universal Old Language (albeit of course English since Many Waters is penned in English) is spare, direct and without ANY modern vernacular and colloquialisms, with her descriptions, with the brilliance of the singing stars (and no light and noise pollution) lending a mythic timelessness to the setting, but also definitely showing a universally poignant, delightful and heartbreaking, heartwarming family tale, textually wonderful, both sweet and painful, and for me (and even though Many Waters does feel quite different from the rest of the Murry Family stories, being my absolute favourite of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet, solidly five stars, and yes, those five stars remain even though I do think that Many Waters could definitely do with a glossary explaining the Biblical allusions and names).
And with a thin but still solid and intriguing grounding in Genesis, in the Old Testament stories of the Creation up until the start of the Flood Many Waters is simple (well, really deceptively simple) on the surface (and basically also a wonderful tale of love, of family and of course also of faith) but delightfully intricate and involved if one chooses to read between the lines, as Madeleine L'Engle features complex characters and intricate relationships (for the Biblical characters, including the good and the fallen angels, for the Seraphim and the Nephilim, and not to mention that Sandy and Dennys Murry are suddenly and happily so no longer just basically and simplistically depicted either, but solidly nuanced, deeply thinking and at times even quite religiously philosophical and ecstatic).
Furthermore and with regard to descriptiveness, the ancient world of Many Waters with its, with Madeleine L'Engle's deserts, oases, unicorns, mammoths, griffons and human beings similar to us but also not quite the same (especially with regard to physical appearances and age), this might in Many Waters at first glance feel really and totally different from today. However and sadly, the evils and the problems that (if you know your Bible) have precipitated the Great Flood as being necessary (or as supposedly being necessary) definitely and obviously also are still mirrored by our modern world, they still reflect today, as old and established customs are flouted and denigrated, that even Noah himself is constantly bitterly quarrelling with his father Lamech and that many young women are wedding the Nephilim, are producing babies with Biblical fallen angel types.
But while the two main protagonists of Many Waters, while stranded in the Old Testament Noah and the Flood story Sandy and Dennys Murry become compassionate participants in pre-flood events, helping where they can, including with the construction of the Ark, and that Sandy and Denny also manage to reconcile Noah and Lamech before Lamech's death, the twins are equally always more than aware of the fact that they are not supposed to in any manner actually change the course of the story itself, and that thus, warning others regarding the coming waters and rains would for example not be allowed, and that if Noah's daughter Yalith is not supposed to be, is not meant to be on the Ark, then this would have to simply be accepted as being the word of God, of El. So indeed, while Sandy and Dennys Murry during the course of Many Waters do have major issues with Yalith's potential fate in particular, they also have faith that she will actually not come to any real harm (and that yes, this faith is finally rewarded in so far as Dennys and Sandy are shown that Yalith is to be taken up to El directly and will thus of course not be threatened with and by drowning during the Flood). However and very much painfully and poignantly, Sandy and Dennys Murry also must realise in Many Waters that El's, that God's experiment of the Great Flood (and only allowing Noah, his three sons and their respective wives to survive the deluge on the Ark) has indeed rather failed in the long run, since the negative aspects of human nature remain the same today and are as bad if not even actually worse than during the time of Noah, which does give Many Waters a rather poignant and saddening feel and scope, as does the twins pointing out (after they are themselves safely back at home) that they, that Sandy and Dennys will always be feeling a bit homesick and missing in particular Noah, Japheth, their respective wives and of course Yalith.
And finally, the Old Testament story of Noah and the Great Flood also and bien sûr takes place before The Tower of Babel, and thus, in Many Waters Madeleine L'Engle's universal Old Language (albeit of course English since Many Waters is penned in English) is spare, direct and without ANY modern vernacular and colloquialisms, with her descriptions, with the brilliance of the singing stars (and no light and noise pollution) lending a mythic timelessness to the setting, but also definitely showing a universally poignant, delightful and heartbreaking, heartwarming family tale, textually wonderful, both sweet and painful, and for me (and even though Many Waters does feel quite different from the rest of the Murry Family stories, being my absolute favourite of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet, solidly five stars, and yes, those five stars remain even though I do think that Many Waters could definitely do with a glossary explaining the Biblical allusions and names).
April 13, 2018
This novel in the Wrinkle In Time Quintet focuses on the twins and takes us back a few years from A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Sandy and Dennys are still teenagers and inadvertently tesser themselves back to the time of the Big Flood. Instead of helping with modern problems, they find themselves assisting with conflicts in the time before Noah and family board the ark. The audio version is very well done by Ann Marie Lee. Recommended!
Read
May 24, 2024The evil-twins thing was mostly a joke. They're really just normal twins, unless you have a really original take on Sandy and Dennys Murray that I've never heard of before.
Re-re-reading this (one of my favorite books as a kid) and re-reviewing it. On one hand, not much has changed regarding my opinion of this book. On the other hand, everything has. It's still my favorite of the Time Quintet, and I still consider it a classic of middle-grade fiction. At the same time, I guess from a pretentious literary standpoint, I don't think it's necessarily the best or even second-best of the Quintet. Honestly that award probably goes to the first two books. It's hard to beat the ingenuity of A Wrinkle in Time. And yet I've always had a soft spot for Many Waters, maybe because I've always had a soft spot for Sandy and Dennys, and for "ordinary, dependable" characters in general. I think partially because Charles Wallace and Meg irritated me a little bit, either because of their precociousness or just because it started to feel unfair that they were getting all the adventures. While the twins don't seem to go through as much of a character evolution during their time-quantum journey as I might have liked, at least they get to have a journey, period.
In hindsight, a lot of details make it sort of clear that Many Waters is one of the weaker books of the series. Unlike the first two books, the reader never receives even a semblance of an explanation as to how Sandy and Dennys end up where they are, other than a vague mention of "quantum leaps." It's also telling that about half of the narrative takes place from the perspective of characters that aren't Sandy or Dennys--the plot was apparently flagging, and/or the twins were just too boring to carry it all on their own. But these pale in comparison to the flaw I think most people would find here--it's basically Bible fanfiction.
But...I kind of love it? Like I was into it as a child and I'm still sort of into it now. Sure, anything even remotely scientific or believable flies straight out the window, and the whole plot becomes dependent on the trajectory of an ages-old Biblical tale, but L'Engle...managed to make it work? I mean, the story of Noah and the Flood-slash-the-coming-of-age/sexual-awakening of two "ordinary" teenagers. In many ways, it's much ballsier than the other four books. Like this is a whole-ass Old Testament story, but one that's at least partially considered science fiction, where the angels talk about quantum physics. And of course, L'Engle doesn't skimp on comments about the inherent misogyny of the people who wrote the Bible and its real-world effects.
Which isn't to say that this book is perfect or that it has aged with total grace. Sandy and Dennys are kind of the same character except that one knows a lot about medicine and the other one knows less. Some of the characters are described as having an "Oriental strangeness." It challenges the Bible, but not as much as it could, partially because of a weird random element about the dangers of changing the sequence of events. Fear of this potential butterfly effect basically chains the characters to the original story, keeping it from branching off in any notable way. Reading this as an adult I find myself wishing that Yalith and the twins put up more of a fight to get Yalith on the ark. The end solution to the Bible's disregard for unmarried women is heartwarming but still feels a little lacking.
The other people of the oasis are as simplistically evil as in the Biblical flood story, with no ambiguity or even a pause to wonder whether they deserve to be wiped out. This mostly surprises me because the book seems intended for a Young Adult audience, probably the readers that have grown up since the more Middle-Grade-level three first books were written. One of the main characters definitely has a sexual-awakening type plot with a girl of the oasis named Tiglah, which was going well until the twins start variously referring to her as "an easy lay", "a delicious dish", and, more to the point, a "slut." When eleven-year-old me first read this, I was thrilled ("oooh, you're allowed to write that?") Now all I can think is, Dude. You're 15. Get over yourself.
My favorite element of the novel continues to be the nephilim. As quintessentially, hand-rubbing-and-cackling-ly evil as they are, I still think they're the most perfect example of badassery here. The seraphim are fine. Angels whose names all start with "A" that transform into "good", "noble" animals, like lions, swans, and scarab beetles (actually I really liked the beetle). But the nephilim get to shapeshift into cool-ass cockroaches, dragons, vultures, mosquitos, red ants, they get to screw around with the "children of men", and the seraphim basically just exist as their necessary opposition. I would have liked to find out what exactly happened to the nephilim when the inevitable floods come, whether they end up meeting an unexpected death with everyone else, or if they leave their human brides to the wayside with everyone else and feast on the chaos and destruction. ("I smell that we will soon have much to eat.")
The only thing that REALLY bothers me, though? That this is the fourth book but takes place before the events of the third. Obviously it was written after, and maybe the coming-of-age tale wouldn't have made as much sense if the twins weren't teenagers anymore. The thing is, when you read A Swiftly Tilting Planet after reading Many Waters, it's hard to imagine that Sandy and Dennys are the same twins who spent a year in the Bible.
Re-re-reading this (one of my favorite books as a kid) and re-reviewing it. On one hand, not much has changed regarding my opinion of this book. On the other hand, everything has. It's still my favorite of the Time Quintet, and I still consider it a classic of middle-grade fiction. At the same time, I guess from a pretentious literary standpoint, I don't think it's necessarily the best or even second-best of the Quintet. Honestly that award probably goes to the first two books. It's hard to beat the ingenuity of A Wrinkle in Time. And yet I've always had a soft spot for Many Waters, maybe because I've always had a soft spot for Sandy and Dennys, and for "ordinary, dependable" characters in general. I think partially because Charles Wallace and Meg irritated me a little bit, either because of their precociousness or just because it started to feel unfair that they were getting all the adventures. While the twins don't seem to go through as much of a character evolution during their time-quantum journey as I might have liked, at least they get to have a journey, period.
In hindsight, a lot of details make it sort of clear that Many Waters is one of the weaker books of the series. Unlike the first two books, the reader never receives even a semblance of an explanation as to how Sandy and Dennys end up where they are, other than a vague mention of "quantum leaps." It's also telling that about half of the narrative takes place from the perspective of characters that aren't Sandy or Dennys--the plot was apparently flagging, and/or the twins were just too boring to carry it all on their own. But these pale in comparison to the flaw I think most people would find here--it's basically Bible fanfiction.
But...I kind of love it? Like I was into it as a child and I'm still sort of into it now. Sure, anything even remotely scientific or believable flies straight out the window, and the whole plot becomes dependent on the trajectory of an ages-old Biblical tale, but L'Engle...managed to make it work? I mean, the story of Noah and the Flood-slash-the-coming-of-age/sexual-awakening of two "ordinary" teenagers. In many ways, it's much ballsier than the other four books. Like this is a whole-ass Old Testament story, but one that's at least partially considered science fiction, where the angels talk about quantum physics. And of course, L'Engle doesn't skimp on comments about the inherent misogyny of the people who wrote the Bible and its real-world effects.
Which isn't to say that this book is perfect or that it has aged with total grace. Sandy and Dennys are kind of the same character except that one knows a lot about medicine and the other one knows less. Some of the characters are described as having an "Oriental strangeness." It challenges the Bible, but not as much as it could, partially because of a weird random element about the dangers of changing the sequence of events. Fear of this potential butterfly effect basically chains the characters to the original story, keeping it from branching off in any notable way. Reading this as an adult I find myself wishing that Yalith and the twins put up more of a fight to get Yalith on the ark. The end solution to the Bible's disregard for unmarried women is heartwarming but still feels a little lacking.
The other people of the oasis are as simplistically evil as in the Biblical flood story, with no ambiguity or even a pause to wonder whether they deserve to be wiped out. This mostly surprises me because the book seems intended for a Young Adult audience, probably the readers that have grown up since the more Middle-Grade-level three first books were written. One of the main characters definitely has a sexual-awakening type plot with a girl of the oasis named Tiglah, which was going well until the twins start variously referring to her as "an easy lay", "a delicious dish", and, more to the point, a "slut." When eleven-year-old me first read this, I was thrilled ("oooh, you're allowed to write that?") Now all I can think is, Dude. You're 15. Get over yourself.
My favorite element of the novel continues to be the nephilim. As quintessentially, hand-rubbing-and-cackling-ly evil as they are, I still think they're the most perfect example of badassery here. The seraphim are fine. Angels whose names all start with "A" that transform into "good", "noble" animals, like lions, swans, and scarab beetles (actually I really liked the beetle). But the nephilim get to shapeshift into cool-ass cockroaches, dragons, vultures, mosquitos, red ants, they get to screw around with the "children of men", and the seraphim basically just exist as their necessary opposition. I would have liked to find out what exactly happened to the nephilim when the inevitable floods come, whether they end up meeting an unexpected death with everyone else, or if they leave their human brides to the wayside with everyone else and feast on the chaos and destruction. ("I smell that we will soon have much to eat.")
The only thing that REALLY bothers me, though? That this is the fourth book but takes place before the events of the third. Obviously it was written after, and maybe the coming-of-age tale wouldn't have made as much sense if the twins weren't teenagers anymore. The thing is, when you read A Swiftly Tilting Planet after reading Many Waters, it's hard to imagine that Sandy and Dennys are the same twins who spent a year in the Bible.
April 7, 2023
I think I liked this one more than books 2 and 3! I liked getting a story about the twins and this story had an interesting mix of science and religion, as the previous books had as well. I know almost 10 years passed between the release of book 3 and this one and I just felt like I enjoyed the writing in this book more. I’m interested to see what happens in the final book of the quintet!
November 20, 2016
I enjoy L'Engle's books, for the most part. This one was no exception, but my favorites will always be A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind In The Door, since they don't have the main problem this and A Swiftly Tilting Planet do, mainly the fact that the twins in this one and Charles Wallace in Planet don't really DO anything. Sure, they go to a different time and place, but then what? They just wait to go back home.
That's not to say that the book was written poorly, it just feels like there was not much point to Sandy and Den being there. They just went about their daily life as much as they could, and helped Noah and Grandfather with basic chores. Even at the end, when the arc was being built, they just helped build it; they did not really have anything to overcome. Sure, the nephil were there and halfway worked against them, but the only times either of the twins were in danger, it did not feel like there was any doubt at all that they would be saved, or able to get themselves out of it, and it did not feel like the nephil would have actually hurt them.
Overall, it was a well written story, and does add some depth to Sandy and Den. It is also and interesting way to read the story of Noah and the flood.
That's not to say that the book was written poorly, it just feels like there was not much point to Sandy and Den being there. They just went about their daily life as much as they could, and helped Noah and Grandfather with basic chores. Even at the end, when the arc was being built, they just helped build it; they did not really have anything to overcome. Sure, the nephil were there and halfway worked against them, but the only times either of the twins were in danger, it did not feel like there was any doubt at all that they would be saved, or able to get themselves out of it, and it did not feel like the nephil would have actually hurt them.
Overall, it was a well written story, and does add some depth to Sandy and Den. It is also and interesting way to read the story of Noah and the flood.
February 2, 2014
Many Waters, the fourth book in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet, continues to follow the fantastic time/space travel exploits of the Murry family. Instead of focusing on Meg and Charles Wallace, however, this novel is about their “normal” siblings Sandy and Dennys. The twins have always been the ordinary members of the extraordinary Murry family and haven’t taken part in previous adventures, but when they fool around with their father’s computer and inadvertently mess up his experiment with “tessering” through time and space, they suddenly find themselves in the midst of the story of Noah and the Ark, straight out of the Bible. (It’s just like those “Greatest Adventure” cartoons with Derek, Margo and Moki that they used to make us watch in Sunday School!)
This begins their unbelievable new life in pre-Flood Earth—and by unbelievable, I mean hard for me to believe. I find a lot of elements of L’Engle’s writing difficult to swallow even for Children’s Literature, and this novel is probably my least favorite of the series (although I have yet to read the fifth) in part because the beginning is so badly written. Sandy and Dennys have a very cliché conversation that smacks of speedy, lazy character exposition à la Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys or the Sweet Valley Twins. Then for no particular reason, the two boys are typing a request into the computer that they be transported some place warmer than the cold New England climate where they live. Magically, the computer is able to comply – and I find myself wishing that going on a vacation to Maui were really that simple. L’Engle tries to explain some of this with a lot of talk about quantum leaps and particle physics, but even in a science fictional world where time/space travel is possible, this all sounds like a load of hooey.
If a reader doesn’t get hung up on these things, though, I admit that there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in this novel, even though the plot is rather slow. Seraphim and nephilim, creatures which L’Engle developed from a few vague biblical references, live amongst the humans in pre-Flood Earth. At first, it is not clear exactly who or what they are – they are described as beautiful giants with wings that are able to assume animal forms. Neither is it clear whether they are good or evil at first; the race of men know that these creatures are a different species and some consider it to be an honor to be chosen as a mate for these glorified beings. A great deal of tension comes from the interplay between the humans, seraphim and nephilim as some of the characters wrestle with whether to trust the nephilim in particular. Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the seraphim are angels and the nephilim are fallen angels, and it is the development of this largely-ignored Biblical mythology that I find to be the most interesting aspect of the novel. Though the nephilim are only mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, there is a lot of potential to mine from those brief references.
Sandy and Dennys find themselves amidst the tension between the seraphim and nephalim, as well as the tension between Noah and his father. Though the two boys initially suffer life-threatening heat stroke from prolonged exposure to the desert environs, they manage to help reunite the Biblical patriarch and his stubborn, aging parent – thus securing themselves a place within Noah’s family. Though they miss the rest of the Murrys, who remain back in the twentieth century, they have no idea of how they might return home and so they adjust to life in pre-Flood civilization. They cannot dismiss the nagging question, though, of what will happen to them when the torrential rains come.
As in all of L’Engle’s Time Quintet novels, the journey across time and space is a catalyst for the characters to learn something about themselves and grow into the world around them. Sandy and Dennys are fairly immature and thoughtless at the beginning of the novel, messing with their father’s computer equipment, and they are extremely dependent on each other, functioning as two halves of a whole. Separated while they recover from their heat stoke and severe burns, the two begin to think and operate more independently of one another, and living in the much more harsh environment without the comforts of twentieth century technology forces them to mature in other ways. Finally, while they have generally ignored girls and romance up until this point, they both fall in love with Noah’s youngest daughter Yalith, which becomes another source of tension and a catalyst for further emotional development.
While I found these coming-of-age themes to be interesting, there is a lot of sexual content to this novel that is not present in the first three novels of the Time Quintet. In fact, when reading A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I got the distinct impression that L’Engle went out of her way to avoid any overt romantic or sexual activity. Throughout the first two novels, Meg and Calvin’s relationship is referred to as a “special friendship,” and even when they are married and expecting a child in the third novel, Calvin is attending a scientific conference out of the country and Meg is in many ways still characterized as a young and innocent girl. This novel is therefore quite different – the nephilm seduce and marry human women, then have their women try to seduce the twins in order to discover more information about them. Meanwhile, Sandy and Dennys struggle with their attraction to the same young woman throughout the novel. But although I don’t have a problem when books have sexual content, I find it unsettling that a novel written at the children’s level so openly discusses lust and seduction.
Overall, Many Waters was fairly unappealing to me for these reasons; I found the science fiction aspects to be too incredible for readers any older than eight or nine years old, yet the sexual content to be inappropriate (?) for anyone of that age. Yet I will admit that there were enough aspects of the story that I found interesting that by the time I had read two-thirds of the novel, I wanted to see exactly how Sandy and Dennys would escape the Great Flood and return home. The last one hundred pages were more absorbing, and though I can’t really say that I ever became engrossed in the novel, I will say that I can see why some readers would enjoy this story. If you love L’Engle’s other writing, or if you are really interested in the concept of traveling back through time to experience the events of the Bible, then you will probably like this novel well enough. Therefore, I’ll rate it with a "provisional" three stars – a good read for those of you with specific tastes and interests. Generally, though, I consider this to be more of a two star book and for most readers, the novel probably isn't worth your time.
This begins their unbelievable new life in pre-Flood Earth—and by unbelievable, I mean hard for me to believe. I find a lot of elements of L’Engle’s writing difficult to swallow even for Children’s Literature, and this novel is probably my least favorite of the series (although I have yet to read the fifth) in part because the beginning is so badly written. Sandy and Dennys have a very cliché conversation that smacks of speedy, lazy character exposition à la Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys or the Sweet Valley Twins. Then for no particular reason, the two boys are typing a request into the computer that they be transported some place warmer than the cold New England climate where they live. Magically, the computer is able to comply – and I find myself wishing that going on a vacation to Maui were really that simple. L’Engle tries to explain some of this with a lot of talk about quantum leaps and particle physics, but even in a science fictional world where time/space travel is possible, this all sounds like a load of hooey.
If a reader doesn’t get hung up on these things, though, I admit that there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in this novel, even though the plot is rather slow. Seraphim and nephilim, creatures which L’Engle developed from a few vague biblical references, live amongst the humans in pre-Flood Earth. At first, it is not clear exactly who or what they are – they are described as beautiful giants with wings that are able to assume animal forms. Neither is it clear whether they are good or evil at first; the race of men know that these creatures are a different species and some consider it to be an honor to be chosen as a mate for these glorified beings. A great deal of tension comes from the interplay between the humans, seraphim and nephilim as some of the characters wrestle with whether to trust the nephilim in particular. Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the seraphim are angels and the nephilim are fallen angels, and it is the development of this largely-ignored Biblical mythology that I find to be the most interesting aspect of the novel. Though the nephilim are only mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, there is a lot of potential to mine from those brief references.
Sandy and Dennys find themselves amidst the tension between the seraphim and nephalim, as well as the tension between Noah and his father. Though the two boys initially suffer life-threatening heat stroke from prolonged exposure to the desert environs, they manage to help reunite the Biblical patriarch and his stubborn, aging parent – thus securing themselves a place within Noah’s family. Though they miss the rest of the Murrys, who remain back in the twentieth century, they have no idea of how they might return home and so they adjust to life in pre-Flood civilization. They cannot dismiss the nagging question, though, of what will happen to them when the torrential rains come.
As in all of L’Engle’s Time Quintet novels, the journey across time and space is a catalyst for the characters to learn something about themselves and grow into the world around them. Sandy and Dennys are fairly immature and thoughtless at the beginning of the novel, messing with their father’s computer equipment, and they are extremely dependent on each other, functioning as two halves of a whole. Separated while they recover from their heat stoke and severe burns, the two begin to think and operate more independently of one another, and living in the much more harsh environment without the comforts of twentieth century technology forces them to mature in other ways. Finally, while they have generally ignored girls and romance up until this point, they both fall in love with Noah’s youngest daughter Yalith, which becomes another source of tension and a catalyst for further emotional development.
While I found these coming-of-age themes to be interesting, there is a lot of sexual content to this novel that is not present in the first three novels of the Time Quintet. In fact, when reading A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I got the distinct impression that L’Engle went out of her way to avoid any overt romantic or sexual activity. Throughout the first two novels, Meg and Calvin’s relationship is referred to as a “special friendship,” and even when they are married and expecting a child in the third novel, Calvin is attending a scientific conference out of the country and Meg is in many ways still characterized as a young and innocent girl. This novel is therefore quite different – the nephilm seduce and marry human women, then have their women try to seduce the twins in order to discover more information about them. Meanwhile, Sandy and Dennys struggle with their attraction to the same young woman throughout the novel. But although I don’t have a problem when books have sexual content, I find it unsettling that a novel written at the children’s level so openly discusses lust and seduction.
Overall, Many Waters was fairly unappealing to me for these reasons; I found the science fiction aspects to be too incredible for readers any older than eight or nine years old, yet the sexual content to be inappropriate (?) for anyone of that age. Yet I will admit that there were enough aspects of the story that I found interesting that by the time I had read two-thirds of the novel, I wanted to see exactly how Sandy and Dennys would escape the Great Flood and return home. The last one hundred pages were more absorbing, and though I can’t really say that I ever became engrossed in the novel, I will say that I can see why some readers would enjoy this story. If you love L’Engle’s other writing, or if you are really interested in the concept of traveling back through time to experience the events of the Bible, then you will probably like this novel well enough. Therefore, I’ll rate it with a "provisional" three stars – a good read for those of you with specific tastes and interests. Generally, though, I consider this to be more of a two star book and for most readers, the novel probably isn't worth your time.
April 15, 2019
As I said of A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I didn’t know of these sequels to A Wrinkle in Time until I was an adult and read them when my son was reading the quartet. I now own this beautiful edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... , and have reread the books (along with their respective endnotes) but reviewed them separately.
From what I gather, fans of the Time Quartet have two main issues with this book: first, that it is the Murry twins having an adventure; and, second, that this adventure is set in the time of Noah. I don’t have an issue with the latter. I get the first point, though, in that this adventure is out of character for the twins. They are the static, ‘normal,’ characters in the books; they are there for contrast to the 'eccentric' members of their family, as well as for some comic relief. But I have no problem thinking of this book as alternative, parallel, ‘history.’
I imagine there’s a third, disconcerting, issue for some of the fans: unlike the rest of the series, this book is about sex, mostly lust, though love is promoted. For the teenaged twins, previously concerned only with sports and their upcoming drivers’ licenses, this is the story of their sexual awakening. It’s also a possible primer for their lives together going forward: 1) y’all are likely to fall in love with the same (good) girl who will also be in love with both of you, and that will be complicated; 2) beware of the older, seductive (bad) girl with the “perfect” (L’Engle’s word) body. Unicorns are also a part of the story, and we all know the implications of that. Having a brilliant scientist mother has certainly influenced their views though: they have no issue with thinking and calling the Biblical story they are a part of “chauvinistic.”
My main issue with the book is that it seemed to go on too long (perhaps because my adolescent days are long past), and scenes like the ones of the boys being taken care of after sunstroke started to feel repetitive, and a bit boring--what kept me reading is L'Engle's storytelling skills.
From what I gather, fans of the Time Quartet have two main issues with this book: first, that it is the Murry twins having an adventure; and, second, that this adventure is set in the time of Noah. I don’t have an issue with the latter. I get the first point, though, in that this adventure is out of character for the twins. They are the static, ‘normal,’ characters in the books; they are there for contrast to the 'eccentric' members of their family, as well as for some comic relief. But I have no problem thinking of this book as alternative, parallel, ‘history.’
I imagine there’s a third, disconcerting, issue for some of the fans: unlike the rest of the series, this book is about sex, mostly lust, though love is promoted. For the teenaged twins, previously concerned only with sports and their upcoming drivers’ licenses, this is the story of their sexual awakening. It’s also a possible primer for their lives together going forward: 1) y’all are likely to fall in love with the same (good) girl who will also be in love with both of you, and that will be complicated; 2) beware of the older, seductive (bad) girl with the “perfect” (L’Engle’s word) body. Unicorns are also a part of the story, and we all know the implications of that. Having a brilliant scientist mother has certainly influenced their views though: they have no issue with thinking and calling the Biblical story they are a part of “chauvinistic.”
My main issue with the book is that it seemed to go on too long (perhaps because my adolescent days are long past), and scenes like the ones of the boys being taken care of after sunstroke started to feel repetitive, and a bit boring--what kept me reading is L'Engle's storytelling skills.
April 28, 2024
When I started re-reading this series I realized I had never read the final 2 books. Even though A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books from elementary/middle school, I wonder what my thoughts would have been if I’d read Many Waters at that time?
I loved reading about the twins experience in this strange foreign world they stumbled into. Sandy and Dennis are on the periphery of the other stories; it’s a treat to learn their feelings about their highly unusual family of geniuses.
This is my new favorite of the series. The imagery of the desert and starry nights is simply beautiful and all the characters are so vivid! I definitely recommend this series and book - a classic!
I loved reading about the twins experience in this strange foreign world they stumbled into. Sandy and Dennis are on the periphery of the other stories; it’s a treat to learn their feelings about their highly unusual family of geniuses.
This is my new favorite of the series. The imagery of the desert and starry nights is simply beautiful and all the characters are so vivid! I definitely recommend this series and book - a classic!
April 20, 2010
Still reflecting on this one. It's so lyrical, thoughtful, and strange. Nothing like the other Time books. Though L'Engle uses simple language and descriptions, the world she paints has so much contrast and so many unexpected elements that I was wholly immersed, thinking about it even when I wasn't reading - and it's been awhile since that happened.
If you're anticipating this to be a piece of preachy historical Bible-fiction because of the subject matter, you'll be surprised, as I was. It never goes quite where you think it will, and there is a pervasive sense of melancholy and wisdom - the kind of wisdom gained only from seeing the darker parts of people. I could actually feel the twins growing up as the book progressed.
The following passage really struck me when I read it; a good summary of the book's main themes:
If you're anticipating this to be a piece of preachy historical Bible-fiction because of the subject matter, you'll be surprised, as I was. It never goes quite where you think it will, and there is a pervasive sense of melancholy and wisdom - the kind of wisdom gained only from seeing the darker parts of people. I could actually feel the twins growing up as the book progressed.
The following passage really struck me when I read it; a good summary of the book's main themes:
"I don't like entropy," Sandy said. "The universe winding down."
"I don't think it's winding down," Dennys contradicted. "I think it's still being birthed. Even the flood is part of the birthing."
"I don't understand." Sandy's voice was flat. "Everybody knows that entropy--"
"Everybody doesn't. And entropy is in question, anyhow. Remember, we had that in science last year. There's no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change."
"Grandfather Lamech said that these are last days." The occasional slow drops of rain made Sandy on edge, and argumentative.
Another spash of rain touched Dennys's face, muting the stars. "There have been many times of last days," he said, "and they mark not only endings but beginnings."
February 10, 2017
fascinating blend of science, mythology and Bible epic
In this adventure, the twins Sandy and Dennys take center stage. They are thrust into the prehistoric world before the Great Flood and encounter early civilized men, supernatural beings like the seraphim and nephilim, as well as creatures like the mammoth, manticores, griffiths and unicorns. Along with the mythic elements, it's an incredible coming of age story.
The usually inseparable twins are actually apart for most of the story both physically and emotionally. They find themselves in a time in which things have gone wrong and this society is on the verge of imminent change. The twins experience the best and worst of humanity and must constantly face temptation in different forms. It is a story of endurance, perseverance, faith and family.
I liked this one as much as "The Tilting Planet" -- both are definitely highpoints in the series.
In this adventure, the twins Sandy and Dennys take center stage. They are thrust into the prehistoric world before the Great Flood and encounter early civilized men, supernatural beings like the seraphim and nephilim, as well as creatures like the mammoth, manticores, griffiths and unicorns. Along with the mythic elements, it's an incredible coming of age story.
The usually inseparable twins are actually apart for most of the story both physically and emotionally. They find themselves in a time in which things have gone wrong and this society is on the verge of imminent change. The twins experience the best and worst of humanity and must constantly face temptation in different forms. It is a story of endurance, perseverance, faith and family.
I liked this one as much as "The Tilting Planet" -- both are definitely highpoints in the series.
December 27, 2017
2.5 Stars
The Murray twins take the spotlight for the first time in this book, which actually seems to be taking place somewhere between book 2 and 3 (as Meg isn’t yet married, and Sandy and Dennys are supposed to be in high school during this installment.) After accidentally interrupting an experiment, the boys are thrown back to some version of the pre-global flood days. In a strange oasis, they encounter Noah and his family—just prior to the building of the famed ark—along with some of the more corrupt and deeply unpleasant inhabitants of the ancient world.
Of the first four books I’ve so far read in the series, this one comes in last on my favorites list. Like A Swiftly Tilting Planet, this story involves time travel and altering (or maintaining the balance of) the past. Unlike the third book, our young heroes actually end up living in—and learning to cope with—this historical time period in which they’ve apparently become trapped. It isn’t the premise that disagreed with this reader so much as the slowness of pacing paired with the author’s particular high-fantasy interpretation of the biblically referenced time period. While the 3rd book dealt with a completely made-up timeline and family history, in this book the author is pulling directly from a known source and warping elements of it to suit her own intent.
For some reason, L’Engle chose to portray ancient humanity as a loincloth (only) wearing desert-dwelling people who were incredibly small in stature. I gathered by the end, this was to imply that the cross-breeding with fallen angels resulted in the more modern height increase. (However, this doesn’t explain the miniaturized size or nature of the of the water-detecting desert mammoths, which were described as being the size of dogs. There are also manticores, griffons, and “Virtual Unicorns” (very unlike the unicorns in book #3) that only exist when you decide to believe in them… because reasons. >.>) Humanity’s massive lifespan was also suggested as cause for technical adulthood not being reached until around the centennial mark. As a result, Noah’s 100-year-old daughter Yalith—who becomes the love interest for both brothers—is depicted as a painfully naive teenage-minded girl. Talk about a serious case of arrested development!
To me, the twins weren’t quite distinct enough in their own personalities. While they do prove more intelligent than they’d previously let on, they are nonetheless the most “normal” (i.e. vanilla dull) of all the Murray family. I found I was reading on for the sake of learning the plot more so than out of concern for what might happen to either of them.
Sandy and Denny’s vague knowledge of the Old Testament means they eventually do figure out the significance of the Noah they’ve encountered. But their lack of study and/or interest means they are incredibly slow on the pickup regarding the fallen angels and Nephilim. (Apparently in L’Engle’s hyper mythological vision of the quickly summarized record, humans don’t comprehend what the “winged giants” they’ve been breeding with actually are.)
Content Note: Contextual nudity (and its effect on the modern boys) is addressed with tact and cultural frankness. But this is the first book in the series to repeatedly reference awakening sexuality, and that may come as a surprise for some readers. Lust and seduction are repeatedly depicted as they are used against the twins in a vie for information. Although, compared to some of the more recent trends in Middle Grade and YA, the situations are relatively tame in their graphicness and end result.
The Murray twins take the spotlight for the first time in this book, which actually seems to be taking place somewhere between book 2 and 3 (as Meg isn’t yet married, and Sandy and Dennys are supposed to be in high school during this installment.) After accidentally interrupting an experiment, the boys are thrown back to some version of the pre-global flood days. In a strange oasis, they encounter Noah and his family—just prior to the building of the famed ark—along with some of the more corrupt and deeply unpleasant inhabitants of the ancient world.
Of the first four books I’ve so far read in the series, this one comes in last on my favorites list. Like A Swiftly Tilting Planet, this story involves time travel and altering (or maintaining the balance of) the past. Unlike the third book, our young heroes actually end up living in—and learning to cope with—this historical time period in which they’ve apparently become trapped. It isn’t the premise that disagreed with this reader so much as the slowness of pacing paired with the author’s particular high-fantasy interpretation of the biblically referenced time period. While the 3rd book dealt with a completely made-up timeline and family history, in this book the author is pulling directly from a known source and warping elements of it to suit her own intent.
For some reason, L’Engle chose to portray ancient humanity as a loincloth (only) wearing desert-dwelling people who were incredibly small in stature. I gathered by the end, this was to imply that the cross-breeding with fallen angels resulted in the more modern height increase. (However, this doesn’t explain the miniaturized size or nature of the of the water-detecting desert mammoths, which were described as being the size of dogs. There are also manticores, griffons, and “Virtual Unicorns” (very unlike the unicorns in book #3) that only exist when you decide to believe in them… because reasons. >.>) Humanity’s massive lifespan was also suggested as cause for technical adulthood not being reached until around the centennial mark. As a result, Noah’s 100-year-old daughter Yalith—who becomes the love interest for both brothers—is depicted as a painfully naive teenage-minded girl. Talk about a serious case of arrested development!
To me, the twins weren’t quite distinct enough in their own personalities. While they do prove more intelligent than they’d previously let on, they are nonetheless the most “normal” (i.e. vanilla dull) of all the Murray family. I found I was reading on for the sake of learning the plot more so than out of concern for what might happen to either of them.
Sandy and Denny’s vague knowledge of the Old Testament means they eventually do figure out the significance of the Noah they’ve encountered. But their lack of study and/or interest means they are incredibly slow on the pickup regarding the fallen angels and Nephilim. (Apparently in L’Engle’s hyper mythological vision of the quickly summarized record, humans don’t comprehend what the “winged giants” they’ve been breeding with actually are.)
Content Note: Contextual nudity (and its effect on the modern boys) is addressed with tact and cultural frankness. But this is the first book in the series to repeatedly reference awakening sexuality, and that may come as a surprise for some readers. Lust and seduction are repeatedly depicted as they are used against the twins in a vie for information. Although, compared to some of the more recent trends in Middle Grade and YA, the situations are relatively tame in their graphicness and end result.
January 3, 2014
You know that sliver of Genesis between the interminable lists of old dudes ("And Methuselah lived 969 years, blah blah blah...") and the tempestuous God-rage era of Noah and the Flood? Yeah, that's the setting for this book.
Sandy and Dennys, the unbearably logical Vulcan-esque children of Mr. and Mrs. Murry, end up in biblical times through an accidental encounter with their parents' magic computer. Noah's son, Japheth, rescues them from the desert heat with the help of two unicorns (more unicorns!!!), and they find themselves in a Genesis they never knew existed.
In addition to unicorns (!!!), Noah's desert oasis also offers us tiny mammoths, and two varieties (races? species?) of supernatural humanoids: seraphim and nephilim. While the seraphim reflect the glory of El (God), the nephilim are somewhat more complex. The intentions of the nephilim are unclear: they are pointedly commingling with humans, but also wary of El's undefined plan for Earth. Eventually, L'Engle reveals the nephilim as , but that's not until the veeeeeery end.
I found L'Engle's fantasy elements just as, well, fantastical as always. The unicorns (squee!), mammoths, seraphim, and nephilim are all intricately rendered, and make for a mystical tour of the Book of Genesis. She offers me so much more than the stale lists and epochs of the original work.
However... I don't know. It fell a little flat with me. There was so much buildup for too little resolution: It felt tacked on, underdeveloped.
Plus, how creepy-weird is the love triangle between Sandy, Dennys, and Noah's daughter, Yalith? They both want to bang her, and she wants to bang both of them, but they never exactly talk about it. Quasi-twincest is a strange choice for a kids' book, L'Engle, but okay.
Overall, a welcome return to the Murry family, and a fresh and intriguing look at biblical riffraff.
Oh, and: unicorns!!!!!
Buy this title from Powell's Books.
Sandy and Dennys, the unbearably logical Vulcan-esque children of Mr. and Mrs. Murry, end up in biblical times through an accidental encounter with their parents' magic computer. Noah's son, Japheth, rescues them from the desert heat with the help of two unicorns (more unicorns!!!), and they find themselves in a Genesis they never knew existed.
In addition to unicorns (!!!), Noah's desert oasis also offers us tiny mammoths, and two varieties (races? species?) of supernatural humanoids: seraphim and nephilim. While the seraphim reflect the glory of El (God), the nephilim are somewhat more complex. The intentions of the nephilim are unclear: they are pointedly commingling with humans, but also wary of El's undefined plan for Earth. Eventually, L'Engle reveals the nephilim as , but that's not until the veeeeeery end.
I found L'Engle's fantasy elements just as, well, fantastical as always. The unicorns (squee!), mammoths, seraphim, and nephilim are all intricately rendered, and make for a mystical tour of the Book of Genesis. She offers me so much more than the stale lists and epochs of the original work.
However... I don't know. It fell a little flat with me. There was so much buildup for too little resolution: It felt tacked on, underdeveloped.
Plus, how creepy-weird is the love triangle between Sandy, Dennys, and Noah's daughter, Yalith? They both want to bang her, and she wants to bang both of them, but they never exactly talk about it. Quasi-twincest is a strange choice for a kids' book, L'Engle, but okay.
Overall, a welcome return to the Murry family, and a fresh and intriguing look at biblical riffraff.
Oh, and: unicorns!!!!!
Buy this title from Powell's Books.
January 8, 2014
This book. This book! From the first time I read it maybe four or five years ago, I adored it, and I admire Madeleine L'Engle so much for having the brains and creativity to craft a story so brilliant, so bold, so just-absolutely-magnificent - I can never have enough words. This book is hands-down, pants-down my favorite of the Time Quintet series, and ties for my favorite-ever L'Engle with
A Ring of Endless Light
, which, surprise! is also full of absolutely luminous prose and a glorious plot. The two books are really different, but what they share is this, like, warmth and humaneness that keep the characters incredibly wise, serene, peaceful. I don't really know how to describe it. Just that, the people in these books have so much love between themselves and for the world around them, I fall in love again every time I read these books. And L'Engle's writing is flawless, totally gorgeous. And, I mean: Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown it. I have never been able to get this quote out of my head.
August 23, 2007
so... this was the first of all the books which made me realize while i was reading it that it was all christian imagery. i mean, the arc and all - noah... hard to miss, right? and that's what people say about aslan - just a jesus allegory - but i didn't have any christian education as a child, so i missed all of that. and most people say the same "when i was a kid i didn't realize it had all that christian metaphor." which i think means that in effect, it didn't. if we don't know the corresponding reference than it means only what it describes on the surface, and whatever else we can relate it to in our own experience. if you're not christian, they're not christian books. they are just books, and you can place them in your universe of experience however you see fit.
that said, i remember thinking if the bible was as sexy as this book. i think i was fourteen when i read it and those boys are supposed to be CUTE. and there's that "angel" who keeps trying ot have sex with one of them... i mean, that's pretty cool.
that said, i remember thinking if the bible was as sexy as this book. i think i was fourteen when i read it and those boys are supposed to be CUTE. and there's that "angel" who keeps trying ot have sex with one of them... i mean, that's pretty cool.
October 5, 2018
Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle, also known as: Nothing Happens the Entire Book, but Did I Mention I was a Misogynist with a White Savior Complex who feels Women Really Live their Best Lives When They're Objects that can be Used by Men? Oh, and Beauty = Good, Ugly = Bad, lol, Don't @ Me.
...every time I get up to the review for a book in this series, I just sit here for a minute and stew in the ugly morass of ideologies and messages that this author has compiled into a book. Worse-- into an entire series. You would think that since this is the fourth book, the longest yet, that something would happen in it. Something good, too, you'd think! Something of value. Anything of value. But instead I'm left here with this... mess of hatred and bad writing. And I don't even mean that it's toxic, though it is, but that it's just... so poorly written.
How is it that this is the longest book and yet I feel as if NOTHING happened in it? Oh, right. Because NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK. I'm not even joking.
Pages 1 - 95: Sandy and Dennys arrive at desert, are burnt, separated and wind up in different tents belonging to the desert people.
Pages 96 - 185: Sandy and Dennys finally cross the distance between the two tents (it's not that far) and are together again.
Pages 186 - 290: Did I mention NOAH AND THE FLOOD???
Pages 291 - 352: Oh. Guess neither of us gets the girl, gets to see the flood, aaaaand we're home now. ...man I can't wait until we get our driver's licenses!
The End.
...
*Takes a moment to inhale deeply and exhale slowly*
On the other hand, if you want to talk to me about, "But surely in all that time we got to at least experience the twins' characters! We got to see them in action!" Girl, what action? Nothing happened. Dennys and Sandy laid in bed, healed, pined after a girl, gardened, went home. L'Engle spent the majority of the book writing about characters OTHER than the twins. The twins just had the whole story happen AROUND them. Literally the only things credited to the boys was the apparent reconciliation between Noah and his father, Lamech. *Thinks* ...yeah no, that's about it. Literally the one thing they did.
Oh, and character growth? *Laughs* Darling, if you want character growth, first you need to have a character. For all that we had L'Engle mention several times that the twins were distinct characters that were different from each other in unique ways, I still couldn't tell one from the other. Their personalities, voices, thoughts, actions are all interchangeable. And that's me being generous because, like the majority of L'Engle's characters, Dennys and Sandy are cardboard figures that never really give us anything to react to, to feel one way or another about. The only thing that began to show their emerging personalities was their sexist attitude, but we will get to that in a little bit. *Eyes gleam with the power of a hundred raging storms* Oh, we'll get to that~ Back on track, the very epitome of just how little anything changed or happened was in the culmination of their arrival back home. We just have an Angel (because we got those) wipe away tans and bleached hair, and the twins slip instantly back into talking about hot cocoa and driving like they never left. And they don't even have the excuse that was given in A Swiftly Tilting Planet where memories were wiped so that no one knew that Charles Wallace and Gaudior had changed the past and "fixed" things so the incoming apocalypse was avoided. They're just ready and willing to slip back into the swing of things, with only the mention of "homesickness" to give a nod to the fact that anything had happened at all.
Speaking of, as a little side track I'd like to take: Since when were these books about NOT changing things? Literally all the others have been about changing the course of the great interwoven course of the universe, existence, and all beings within it. We've done that through Space (A Wrinkle in Time), through Time (A Swiftly Tilting Planet), through choosing who lives (A Wind in the Door) and who dies (A Swiftly Tilting Planet, again)... but we're not allowed to do that in... this book. ...why?
It was, in retrospect, a great opportunity for L'Engle to play with the poorly explored concept in A Swiftly Tilting Planet where things could only be changed to a certain extent lest everything derail terrifyingly away from the path that their own timeline has already taken. She's played with things like Time before, so why not use this as the platform to really explore the delicacy and intricacy of how everything that the twins know and love could be at stake if they mess up the slightest thing in the time they landed in?
Unfortunately, we get a story that runs circles around our immovable main characters. Life exists as if they aren't even there. Besides being a topic of conversation in the community they fall amongst, nothing else happens. They leave without creating any ripples, any changes good or bad, and without getting any knowledge or experience out of it. I said it in one of my status updates, and I'll say it again: this is a non-story. No plot and no character growth or story progression happens. This book ends up being an excuse for L'Engle to bring to the fore the one thing she's been losing her grip on steadily as each book progressed: the ability to hold back her Christian (and other far more harmful) beliefs.
Now, I was raised by heavily Christian parents. These are stories I know with the intimacy that I know my own body and self. There is nothing wrong with wanting to write a story in a Biblical setting. The issue is how L'Engle used the setting as yet another excuse for sending dangerous and harmful messages to kids. Don't think for a moment that I've forgotten that these are considered Children's Classics. It's part of the reason I feel as strongly as I do about these books. And this book brings back a lot of already well-used themes that L'Engle's woven into the plots of her other stories: Racism and Discrimination, the White Savior Complex, Enabling and Supporting Abuse, Superficiality that takes the form of Beauty equating to being "Good" and Ugliness equating to being "Bad", and rampant Sexism.
It's like with each book she lets a little more of her actual beliefs slip through, and those beliefs define the message of each book:
A Wrinkle in Time: Being Yourself, and Love, Can Save the World (Though Some Maturing Would Do You Good)
A Wind in the Door: Child Abuse and Bullying are Fine Because They Build Character!
A Swiftly Tilting Planet: Racism and Discrimination are Okay Because the White Male Savior Says So!
Many Waters: Women are Only Objects, Tools, and Plot Devices for Men, Who are the REALLY Important Ones!
...besides the first book, NONE OF THESE BOOKS ARE GOOD THINGS FOR CHILDREN TO BE READING! I wouldn't even want teenagers to read this kind of trash. There are far better books out there they could be enjoying, with proper diversity, complex and well fleshed-out characters, amazing storylines or even just chaotic, adventurous, weaving plots.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the biggest thing I had a problem with, the recurring theme of this book: the Misogyny.
L'Engle has been sexist throughout all of her books in this series. From Meg being defined by her complaining and unwillingness to DO anything (even when it would save the world or her baby brother or even herself) and constantly defaulting to Calvin for motivation, to every minor female character being defined by Pregnancy or Motherhood or who she was the Wife or Daughter of, to how those same female characters had one-note personalities at best and were used only as plot devices to further the story for the MALE characters-- the sexism runs DEEP, to the point where I've questioned multiple times throughout this series whether L'Engle even has the right to call herself a woman with the vitriol she treated EVERY woman in her books with.
And it all culminates in this book with the WORST treatment of women yet. Every stereotypical assault laid against women in the past comes out in Many Waters. There is SO MUCH of men AND WOMEN hating other women based on their appearances, on their sexual appetites and practices, on their independence and choice to live outside traditional roles and activities. We have MULTIPLE accounts of women who are supposed to be in "healthy" and "happy" relationships with the "good" main characters of the story being shushed and suppressed from speaking their minds by their husbands, and worse, they do it through kissing, through sex. Even though L'Engle attempted to make it seem like it was consensual, I still got sirens wailing in my head because of how borderline rape culture it felt. It did NOT feel like "they took comfort in their love". And it happened... SEVERAL times, across multiple couples. Rape when you're married is still rape. And even though this wasn't rape outright, it felt wrong. Just because the women didn't complain doesn't mean it was right.
But oh, it doesn't end there. I wish it hadn't even gotten that far, but it doesn't end there. Because then we have the WORST case of slut-shaming that I've read in a book in a LONG time.
Let me take a minute to say something here. I've had my own struggles with sex and sexuality (amongst other things) for the majority of my life. I was a HUGE, vehement hater of sex and relationships of almost ALL kinds for a large majority of my life. But as I grew outside of my narrow-mindedness and discriminatory mentality, as I learned more about myself and realized how I wrongly turned my own issues against other people, I grew to embrace sex, sexuality, gender identities, and relationships of so many amazing kinds. Consent is the one thing that rules my opinions about relationships today. I was so, so wrong about so much. I was cruel, hurtful, destructive, and none of it-- none of it --was right, no matter WHAT problems I had. So when I come to this book now, having grown so, so far from that aggressive, hurting, confused, hateful person, I see it from a heart that wants nothing more than for people to be happy, to love each other the way they want to love each other. So long as each of them consent, so long as they are happy, nothing else matters-- not gender, not sexuality, not beliefs, not race, not culture, nothing. LGBTQIAP+ peoples, polyamorous relationships, asexuality, marriage-seeking, partnerships-- these things are all valid, and beautiful, and wonderful. The only things I care about are consent and that, if you're not in an open relationship, you do NOT cheat on your partner(s).
Coming to this book now, and seeing how much HATE is dealt to certain female characters, ESPECIALLY Tiglah, just because she's sexually active and flirty and seductive, is outrageous. ESPECIALLY because of the contradictory nature that L'Engle writes into Sandy and Dennys. One moment they're emphasizing how young they are, and the next they're ogling Yalith, our primary love interest, and her--gasp!--EXPOSED BREASTS! So you'll condemn Tiglah for being sexually active and comfortable in her sexual appetite, but you don't judge yourself for wanting to be with Yalith becaaaauuuse...? Oh, right. I forgot. You're the main MALE characters. You get a pass because you're MEN, right?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
One second you're thinking about how Tiglah is nothing like Yalith and then you're thinking, "Yeah I'd be willing to have sex with Yalith though." BECAUSE YALITH ISN'T COMING ON TO YOU? Oh, but I forget, we only like women that DON'T OPENLY SAY THEY WANT SEX. Because they're considered "innocent"? "Pure"? Because that's not rape culture. *Glares*
Tiglah even asks them on multiple occasions, "Don't you like me?" "Didn't you enjoy it?" She tries to reaffirm that she's never doing anything that the twins don't authentically want or like. THAT is good! That is looking for consent with your partner! And when the twins say they don't want to do anything with her, SHE DOESN'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING. That's EXACTLY how consent works! You never do anything that your partner(s) don't want and aren't okay with 100%! It's not even that Sandy and Dennys aren't attracted to Tiglah or think she's ugly, but they go out of their way to OUTRIGHT CALL HER A "SLUT" AND "EASY LAY" because they're so insecure in their own sexual feelings where Tiglah knows what she likes and wants and is willing to pursue it. But the moment a male character encounters a woman that knows what she's doing, they either try to subdue her (the husbands with their silencing of their wives, verbally or physically with "kissing" or "love"-making) or undermine and vilify her (Sandy and Dennys with Tiglah).
...and this is a children's classic? ...this is acceptable for kids and teens and adults to consider normal and okay?
Women are NOT property. They are NOT objects. They are not tools to be USED by Angels, Men, other Women, ANYONE. They are their own individual beings that deserve to live FOR themselves, making their own decisions and having their own passions without being CONDEMNED for it.
There are other things I can talk about, but I've been going on for ages, and I still have one more book in this quintet, and honestly? I just want to be done with this so I can move on to better (hopefully) things. So let's wrap this up.
TL;DR
This book follows Sandy and Dennys, but they don't grow, don't learn anything, and don't change or develop as characters. They, as characters, are entirely interchangeable, because neither of them have a personality to speak of. The side characters are all straight out of the story of Noah and the Flood from the Bible. There are Seraphim (who refuse to "change" things until they are conveniently needed to solve plotholes and then they say, "Okay bruh, we'll change things for you.") and Nephilim (who are your typical bad guys with the un-cuddly animal representations versus the "noble" animals the Seraphim have, and who really could have been cooler characters if L'Engle wasn't so adamant about stereotypical Good vs Evil crap done poorly). We don't even get to EXPERIENCE the flood. Also Sandy and Dennys have the biggest boners for this girl Yalith, but she goes to Heaven cause she's so "Good" and "Pure" so neither of them get the V before they get Unicorn-zapped home. Did I mention everyone in this book is a HUUUUUGE misogynist and hates any woman that isn't a submissive wife/soon-to-be wife? Also, Angels can insta-remove tans, fyi. P.S. Remember kids! Beauty = Goodness and people will love you! Ugly = Badness and you get killed by the incoming God Flood!
Cool. We're done. Next book.
...every time I get up to the review for a book in this series, I just sit here for a minute and stew in the ugly morass of ideologies and messages that this author has compiled into a book. Worse-- into an entire series. You would think that since this is the fourth book, the longest yet, that something would happen in it. Something good, too, you'd think! Something of value. Anything of value. But instead I'm left here with this... mess of hatred and bad writing. And I don't even mean that it's toxic, though it is, but that it's just... so poorly written.
How is it that this is the longest book and yet I feel as if NOTHING happened in it? Oh, right. Because NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK. I'm not even joking.
Pages 1 - 95: Sandy and Dennys arrive at desert, are burnt, separated and wind up in different tents belonging to the desert people.
Pages 96 - 185: Sandy and Dennys finally cross the distance between the two tents (it's not that far) and are together again.
Pages 186 - 290: Did I mention NOAH AND THE FLOOD???
Pages 291 - 352: Oh. Guess neither of us gets the girl, gets to see the flood, aaaaand we're home now. ...man I can't wait until we get our driver's licenses!
The End.
...
*Takes a moment to inhale deeply and exhale slowly*
On the other hand, if you want to talk to me about, "But surely in all that time we got to at least experience the twins' characters! We got to see them in action!" Girl, what action? Nothing happened. Dennys and Sandy laid in bed, healed, pined after a girl, gardened, went home. L'Engle spent the majority of the book writing about characters OTHER than the twins. The twins just had the whole story happen AROUND them. Literally the only things credited to the boys was the apparent reconciliation between Noah and his father, Lamech. *Thinks* ...yeah no, that's about it. Literally the one thing they did.
Oh, and character growth? *Laughs* Darling, if you want character growth, first you need to have a character. For all that we had L'Engle mention several times that the twins were distinct characters that were different from each other in unique ways, I still couldn't tell one from the other. Their personalities, voices, thoughts, actions are all interchangeable. And that's me being generous because, like the majority of L'Engle's characters, Dennys and Sandy are cardboard figures that never really give us anything to react to, to feel one way or another about. The only thing that began to show their emerging personalities was their sexist attitude, but we will get to that in a little bit. *Eyes gleam with the power of a hundred raging storms* Oh, we'll get to that~ Back on track, the very epitome of just how little anything changed or happened was in the culmination of their arrival back home. We just have an Angel (because we got those) wipe away tans and bleached hair, and the twins slip instantly back into talking about hot cocoa and driving like they never left. And they don't even have the excuse that was given in A Swiftly Tilting Planet where memories were wiped so that no one knew that Charles Wallace and Gaudior had changed the past and "fixed" things so the incoming apocalypse was avoided. They're just ready and willing to slip back into the swing of things, with only the mention of "homesickness" to give a nod to the fact that anything had happened at all.
Speaking of, as a little side track I'd like to take: Since when were these books about NOT changing things? Literally all the others have been about changing the course of the great interwoven course of the universe, existence, and all beings within it. We've done that through Space (A Wrinkle in Time), through Time (A Swiftly Tilting Planet), through choosing who lives (A Wind in the Door) and who dies (A Swiftly Tilting Planet, again)... but we're not allowed to do that in... this book. ...why?
It was, in retrospect, a great opportunity for L'Engle to play with the poorly explored concept in A Swiftly Tilting Planet where things could only be changed to a certain extent lest everything derail terrifyingly away from the path that their own timeline has already taken. She's played with things like Time before, so why not use this as the platform to really explore the delicacy and intricacy of how everything that the twins know and love could be at stake if they mess up the slightest thing in the time they landed in?
Unfortunately, we get a story that runs circles around our immovable main characters. Life exists as if they aren't even there. Besides being a topic of conversation in the community they fall amongst, nothing else happens. They leave without creating any ripples, any changes good or bad, and without getting any knowledge or experience out of it. I said it in one of my status updates, and I'll say it again: this is a non-story. No plot and no character growth or story progression happens. This book ends up being an excuse for L'Engle to bring to the fore the one thing she's been losing her grip on steadily as each book progressed: the ability to hold back her Christian (and other far more harmful) beliefs.
Now, I was raised by heavily Christian parents. These are stories I know with the intimacy that I know my own body and self. There is nothing wrong with wanting to write a story in a Biblical setting. The issue is how L'Engle used the setting as yet another excuse for sending dangerous and harmful messages to kids. Don't think for a moment that I've forgotten that these are considered Children's Classics. It's part of the reason I feel as strongly as I do about these books. And this book brings back a lot of already well-used themes that L'Engle's woven into the plots of her other stories: Racism and Discrimination, the White Savior Complex, Enabling and Supporting Abuse, Superficiality that takes the form of Beauty equating to being "Good" and Ugliness equating to being "Bad", and rampant Sexism.
It's like with each book she lets a little more of her actual beliefs slip through, and those beliefs define the message of each book:
A Wrinkle in Time: Being Yourself, and Love, Can Save the World (Though Some Maturing Would Do You Good)
A Wind in the Door: Child Abuse and Bullying are Fine Because They Build Character!
A Swiftly Tilting Planet: Racism and Discrimination are Okay Because the White Male Savior Says So!
Many Waters: Women are Only Objects, Tools, and Plot Devices for Men, Who are the REALLY Important Ones!
...besides the first book, NONE OF THESE BOOKS ARE GOOD THINGS FOR CHILDREN TO BE READING! I wouldn't even want teenagers to read this kind of trash. There are far better books out there they could be enjoying, with proper diversity, complex and well fleshed-out characters, amazing storylines or even just chaotic, adventurous, weaving plots.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the biggest thing I had a problem with, the recurring theme of this book: the Misogyny.
L'Engle has been sexist throughout all of her books in this series. From Meg being defined by her complaining and unwillingness to DO anything (even when it would save the world or her baby brother or even herself) and constantly defaulting to Calvin for motivation, to every minor female character being defined by Pregnancy or Motherhood or who she was the Wife or Daughter of, to how those same female characters had one-note personalities at best and were used only as plot devices to further the story for the MALE characters-- the sexism runs DEEP, to the point where I've questioned multiple times throughout this series whether L'Engle even has the right to call herself a woman with the vitriol she treated EVERY woman in her books with.
And it all culminates in this book with the WORST treatment of women yet. Every stereotypical assault laid against women in the past comes out in Many Waters. There is SO MUCH of men AND WOMEN hating other women based on their appearances, on their sexual appetites and practices, on their independence and choice to live outside traditional roles and activities. We have MULTIPLE accounts of women who are supposed to be in "healthy" and "happy" relationships with the "good" main characters of the story being shushed and suppressed from speaking their minds by their husbands, and worse, they do it through kissing, through sex. Even though L'Engle attempted to make it seem like it was consensual, I still got sirens wailing in my head because of how borderline rape culture it felt. It did NOT feel like "they took comfort in their love". And it happened... SEVERAL times, across multiple couples. Rape when you're married is still rape. And even though this wasn't rape outright, it felt wrong. Just because the women didn't complain doesn't mean it was right.
But oh, it doesn't end there. I wish it hadn't even gotten that far, but it doesn't end there. Because then we have the WORST case of slut-shaming that I've read in a book in a LONG time.
Let me take a minute to say something here. I've had my own struggles with sex and sexuality (amongst other things) for the majority of my life. I was a HUGE, vehement hater of sex and relationships of almost ALL kinds for a large majority of my life. But as I grew outside of my narrow-mindedness and discriminatory mentality, as I learned more about myself and realized how I wrongly turned my own issues against other people, I grew to embrace sex, sexuality, gender identities, and relationships of so many amazing kinds. Consent is the one thing that rules my opinions about relationships today. I was so, so wrong about so much. I was cruel, hurtful, destructive, and none of it-- none of it --was right, no matter WHAT problems I had. So when I come to this book now, having grown so, so far from that aggressive, hurting, confused, hateful person, I see it from a heart that wants nothing more than for people to be happy, to love each other the way they want to love each other. So long as each of them consent, so long as they are happy, nothing else matters-- not gender, not sexuality, not beliefs, not race, not culture, nothing. LGBTQIAP+ peoples, polyamorous relationships, asexuality, marriage-seeking, partnerships-- these things are all valid, and beautiful, and wonderful. The only things I care about are consent and that, if you're not in an open relationship, you do NOT cheat on your partner(s).
Coming to this book now, and seeing how much HATE is dealt to certain female characters, ESPECIALLY Tiglah, just because she's sexually active and flirty and seductive, is outrageous. ESPECIALLY because of the contradictory nature that L'Engle writes into Sandy and Dennys. One moment they're emphasizing how young they are, and the next they're ogling Yalith, our primary love interest, and her--gasp!--EXPOSED BREASTS! So you'll condemn Tiglah for being sexually active and comfortable in her sexual appetite, but you don't judge yourself for wanting to be with Yalith becaaaauuuse...? Oh, right. I forgot. You're the main MALE characters. You get a pass because you're MEN, right?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
One second you're thinking about how Tiglah is nothing like Yalith and then you're thinking, "Yeah I'd be willing to have sex with Yalith though." BECAUSE YALITH ISN'T COMING ON TO YOU? Oh, but I forget, we only like women that DON'T OPENLY SAY THEY WANT SEX. Because they're considered "innocent"? "Pure"? Because that's not rape culture. *Glares*
Tiglah even asks them on multiple occasions, "Don't you like me?" "Didn't you enjoy it?" She tries to reaffirm that she's never doing anything that the twins don't authentically want or like. THAT is good! That is looking for consent with your partner! And when the twins say they don't want to do anything with her, SHE DOESN'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING. That's EXACTLY how consent works! You never do anything that your partner(s) don't want and aren't okay with 100%! It's not even that Sandy and Dennys aren't attracted to Tiglah or think she's ugly, but they go out of their way to OUTRIGHT CALL HER A "SLUT" AND "EASY LAY" because they're so insecure in their own sexual feelings where Tiglah knows what she likes and wants and is willing to pursue it. But the moment a male character encounters a woman that knows what she's doing, they either try to subdue her (the husbands with their silencing of their wives, verbally or physically with "kissing" or "love"-making) or undermine and vilify her (Sandy and Dennys with Tiglah).
...and this is a children's classic? ...this is acceptable for kids and teens and adults to consider normal and okay?
Women are NOT property. They are NOT objects. They are not tools to be USED by Angels, Men, other Women, ANYONE. They are their own individual beings that deserve to live FOR themselves, making their own decisions and having their own passions without being CONDEMNED for it.
There are other things I can talk about, but I've been going on for ages, and I still have one more book in this quintet, and honestly? I just want to be done with this so I can move on to better (hopefully) things. So let's wrap this up.
TL;DR
This book follows Sandy and Dennys, but they don't grow, don't learn anything, and don't change or develop as characters. They, as characters, are entirely interchangeable, because neither of them have a personality to speak of. The side characters are all straight out of the story of Noah and the Flood from the Bible. There are Seraphim (who refuse to "change" things until they are conveniently needed to solve plotholes and then they say, "Okay bruh, we'll change things for you.") and Nephilim (who are your typical bad guys with the un-cuddly animal representations versus the "noble" animals the Seraphim have, and who really could have been cooler characters if L'Engle wasn't so adamant about stereotypical Good vs Evil crap done poorly). We don't even get to EXPERIENCE the flood. Also Sandy and Dennys have the biggest boners for this girl Yalith, but she goes to Heaven cause she's so "Good" and "Pure" so neither of them get the V before they get Unicorn-zapped home. Did I mention everyone in this book is a HUUUUUGE misogynist and hates any woman that isn't a submissive wife/soon-to-be wife? Also, Angels can insta-remove tans, fyi. P.S. Remember kids! Beauty = Goodness and people will love you! Ugly = Badness and you get killed by the incoming God Flood!
Cool. We're done. Next book.
November 5, 2021
N.B.: Rating 3.5 ★ rounded down.
Many Waters is the fourth and penultimate book in the Time Quintet series written by Madeleine L'Engle. The principal characters of the story are Sandy and Dennys Murry, twin brothers who are somewhat out of place in the context of the multifarious and eccentric Murry family. The action of the story follows that of A Wind in the Door but precedes the climactic, apocalyptic event in A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
In the middle of a New England winter, identical twin brothers Alexander "Sandy" and Dennys Murry accidentally disturb an experiment in their parents' laboratory and are teleported to a sandy desert. There, they are acquired by water-prospector named Japheth and guided to an oasis, but Dennys is separated from the others. Sandy remains with Japheth and his elderly grandfather Lamech and there, Sandy is cured of heatstroke by a variety of improbable beings, including seraphim.
Dennys reappears in another tent and is thrown into a refuse heap. He later comes under the care of a friendly family in the center of the oasis, headed by a gruff but kindly patriarch named Noah. It soon becomes apparent that the boys have been interpolated into the story of Noah's Ark, shortly before the Flood. Both Noah and Lamech receive mysterious instructions from God (known as El) concerning the building of the Ark. Knowing that they can't change the past, the twins help with Noah reconnecting with Lamech, his father, and the building of his ark.
Meanwhile, sinister supernatural beings known as the nephilim, distrust the twins and their human wives attempt to gather information about them. Suspense arises when it becomes clear that there is no place on the Ark reserved for Sandy, Dennys, or the girl they both love – Yalith.
Many Waters is written moderately well. L'Engle's narrative largely concerns the teenaged twins' emotional coming of age, which includes elements of fantasy and Christian theology such as the seraphim, a heavenly race of angels and the nephilim, a race of giants that were the result of the mating of mortal women and angels are the main antagonists of the story. The twins' difficulty in believing in things that exist outside their empiricist world is a trait they must overcome in the story, because it is by believing in a unicorn that they can obtain transportation back to their everyday world.
All in all, Many Waters is written moderately well and is a good continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series, which I plan to continue in the very near future.
Many Waters is the fourth and penultimate book in the Time Quintet series written by Madeleine L'Engle. The principal characters of the story are Sandy and Dennys Murry, twin brothers who are somewhat out of place in the context of the multifarious and eccentric Murry family. The action of the story follows that of A Wind in the Door but precedes the climactic, apocalyptic event in A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
In the middle of a New England winter, identical twin brothers Alexander "Sandy" and Dennys Murry accidentally disturb an experiment in their parents' laboratory and are teleported to a sandy desert. There, they are acquired by water-prospector named Japheth and guided to an oasis, but Dennys is separated from the others. Sandy remains with Japheth and his elderly grandfather Lamech and there, Sandy is cured of heatstroke by a variety of improbable beings, including seraphim.
Dennys reappears in another tent and is thrown into a refuse heap. He later comes under the care of a friendly family in the center of the oasis, headed by a gruff but kindly patriarch named Noah. It soon becomes apparent that the boys have been interpolated into the story of Noah's Ark, shortly before the Flood. Both Noah and Lamech receive mysterious instructions from God (known as El) concerning the building of the Ark. Knowing that they can't change the past, the twins help with Noah reconnecting with Lamech, his father, and the building of his ark.
Meanwhile, sinister supernatural beings known as the nephilim, distrust the twins and their human wives attempt to gather information about them. Suspense arises when it becomes clear that there is no place on the Ark reserved for Sandy, Dennys, or the girl they both love – Yalith.
Many Waters is written moderately well. L'Engle's narrative largely concerns the teenaged twins' emotional coming of age, which includes elements of fantasy and Christian theology such as the seraphim, a heavenly race of angels and the nephilim, a race of giants that were the result of the mating of mortal women and angels are the main antagonists of the story. The twins' difficulty in believing in things that exist outside their empiricist world is a trait they must overcome in the story, because it is by believing in a unicorn that they can obtain transportation back to their everyday world.
All in all, Many Waters is written moderately well and is a good continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series, which I plan to continue in the very near future.
April 10, 2010
I started reading this out loud to my boys, but after a chapter I quickly realized that that was not going to work. This book, much to my surprise, was an adult book.
In this book the Murray twins get transported back in time to the days of Noah right before the flood. The daughters of men are cavorting with the nephilum and it is quite descriptive! These "experienced" (they actually say some other words) girls come after our Murray twins and it gets a little racy. Also the people are all 4 feet tall and they only wear loin cloths. Each time the Murray twins get to see these lovely girls they only have bottoms on and the author describes nearly every time that top half for us.
Included in the cast of characters are nephilum, seraphims, manticores, unicorns and pet mammoths the size of small dogs. Also Noah is a jerk for the first half of the book, two of his sons are not that bright, one of his daughter in laws is half nephilum, an amazingly Noah got the ark built in less than 3 moons, and he sent Japheth and his wife to go tell the people one time that the rains were coming. The author referred to the Bible as a chauvinistic account multiple times. I could go on and on about the doctrinal issues that were completely skewed.
I was disappointed in this book because it lacked the great and deep thinking that accompanied the first three "Wrinkle in Time" books. Even though in was an interesting book, I certainly didn't hate it, I still found no value in it and it will not sit on my shelf.
In this book the Murray twins get transported back in time to the days of Noah right before the flood. The daughters of men are cavorting with the nephilum and it is quite descriptive! These "experienced" (they actually say some other words) girls come after our Murray twins and it gets a little racy. Also the people are all 4 feet tall and they only wear loin cloths. Each time the Murray twins get to see these lovely girls they only have bottoms on and the author describes nearly every time that top half for us.
Included in the cast of characters are nephilum, seraphims, manticores, unicorns and pet mammoths the size of small dogs. Also Noah is a jerk for the first half of the book, two of his sons are not that bright, one of his daughter in laws is half nephilum, an amazingly Noah got the ark built in less than 3 moons, and he sent Japheth and his wife to go tell the people one time that the rains were coming. The author referred to the Bible as a chauvinistic account multiple times. I could go on and on about the doctrinal issues that were completely skewed.
I was disappointed in this book because it lacked the great and deep thinking that accompanied the first three "Wrinkle in Time" books. Even though in was an interesting book, I certainly didn't hate it, I still found no value in it and it will not sit on my shelf.
October 15, 2024
Say what you will about Madeleine L'Engle books, they are so dang readable. I flew through this in a matter of hours, and I feel like, of the four Time Quintet books so far, this one has the most linear and straight-forward storyline. I've loved Sandy and Dennys in the past books (though they're side side characters with little to no impact on the plot, I just think they're funny) so seeing them in the spotlight was neat. Interesting morality decisions made, but yeah, I had a good time with this one. 4 stars!
March 20, 2015
Many Waters is the fourth book in Madeleine L’Engle’s TIME quintet. The previous three books, A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet have all focused on Meg Murray and her strange little brother Charles Wallace as they travel through time and space. Many Waters is completely different. In this story, Meg’s twin brothers Sandy and Dennis mess with a computer in their mother’s lab and get blasted back to the time of Noah before he built the ark. From there the story turns into a strange historical fantasy whose source text is Genesis 6.
In this well-known biblical story, God declares that humans are violent and corrupt... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
In this well-known biblical story, God declares that humans are violent and corrupt... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
September 17, 2017
It was such a dissapointment in comparison to the first three books in the series which I enjoyed greatly. Unfortunatly it focused on the two most boring, flat characters in the series and was such a terrible read, it took me 3 years to finally bring myself to finish it. I love the author and her writing, but this particular book was not to my liking and very dissapointing. I feel that it really let the series down.
April 4, 2019
La trama es absorbente, pero solo en su tramo final. Lo demás es más introductorio (a pesar de que se meten en faena literalmente desde la segunda página) y lento y con elecciones argumentativas cuestionables.
Si te interesa ver un viaje en el tiempo en el que se mezclan la Biblia con la ciencia, entonces tienes que leer Un torrente de aguas turbulentas.
Reseña completa en THE BEST READ YET BLOG
Si te interesa ver un viaje en el tiempo en el que se mezclan la Biblia con la ciencia, entonces tienes que leer Un torrente de aguas turbulentas.
Reseña completa en THE BEST READ YET BLOG
August 30, 2010
Many Waters is, in many ways, a retelling of the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark, with a science fiction twist. Following twins Sandy and Dennis in the aftermath of a mishap in their mother’s lab, the twins are sent back in time to world thousands of years before life as they know it. In a world divided between humans, Nephilim and Seraphim, Sandy and Dennis stick out like a sore thumb, and there’s a strong undercurrent of hate towards the twins, both seen as a threat and a useful ally, as they’re much taller than the people of the land they’ve found themselves in. To make matters worse, Noah is building an ark, and they know this story. Can they find their way home in time, and what happens to those left behind?
I have to admit – I really wasn’t a fan of the first few books in the Time series by Madeleine L’Engle. I just couldn’t get into the characters’ heads, and frankly, they bored me a good bit. Then, I found this book, the fourth in the series that isn’t completely chronological because the books stand alone. The premise fascinated me, as I’m very familiar with my Biblical tales (Catholic, party of one.) The prose is simple but sweet, with two twin boys as the MCs. It’s rich with history, embellished with touches of the supernatural and speeds steadily to an outcome I’m sure we all know all too well.
Sandy and Dennis were refreshing main characters. They kept true to a very boy-esque voice, which I find is missing in a lot of male MC books these days. The secondary characters like Adnarel, Yalith and Grandfather Lamech (and all the cute lil mammoths!) were fabulous, too, and I loved the cast of Nephilim and Seraphim, as well. I enjoyed that they shifted shapes into animals/beasts/insects very much like their own personalities. It was definitely the intricacies within Many Waters that drove it towards the climax, and the sweet touch of love that led to a sad, but beautiful climax was well-written and not overdone unlike a lot of YA romance these days. The themes of destiny, belief in things unseen and fate definitely weighed heavily, as well, making Many Waters even stronger.
I read Many Waters a long time ago, but I’ve kept it on my shelf and bough multiple copies as I wear it out through re-reading. I loved it back then, and I still do. I give it a firm 4.5 out of 5, and I’d recommend it to all YA fans, especially those who enjoy a touch of sci-fi and fantasy with religious undertones.
I have to admit – I really wasn’t a fan of the first few books in the Time series by Madeleine L’Engle. I just couldn’t get into the characters’ heads, and frankly, they bored me a good bit. Then, I found this book, the fourth in the series that isn’t completely chronological because the books stand alone. The premise fascinated me, as I’m very familiar with my Biblical tales (Catholic, party of one.) The prose is simple but sweet, with two twin boys as the MCs. It’s rich with history, embellished with touches of the supernatural and speeds steadily to an outcome I’m sure we all know all too well.
Sandy and Dennis were refreshing main characters. They kept true to a very boy-esque voice, which I find is missing in a lot of male MC books these days. The secondary characters like Adnarel, Yalith and Grandfather Lamech (and all the cute lil mammoths!) were fabulous, too, and I loved the cast of Nephilim and Seraphim, as well. I enjoyed that they shifted shapes into animals/beasts/insects very much like their own personalities. It was definitely the intricacies within Many Waters that drove it towards the climax, and the sweet touch of love that led to a sad, but beautiful climax was well-written and not overdone unlike a lot of YA romance these days. The themes of destiny, belief in things unseen and fate definitely weighed heavily, as well, making Many Waters even stronger.
I read Many Waters a long time ago, but I’ve kept it on my shelf and bough multiple copies as I wear it out through re-reading. I loved it back then, and I still do. I give it a firm 4.5 out of 5, and I’d recommend it to all YA fans, especially those who enjoy a touch of sci-fi and fantasy with religious undertones.
April 2, 2018
3.75 stars. This is a strange book in many ways, and yet, I really like it. It's a retelling of the Biblical story of Noah and the Flood, told from the viewpoint of Sandy and Dennys, the Murry twins, who have only been secondary characters in the other books. In this story, they are not quite 16; several times, they mention that they are looking forward to getting their drivers' licenses.
Ms. L'Engle created quite an imaginative and atmospheric setting and characters - some of whom are mentioned in the Biblical account and others who aren't - and like all well-written historical fiction, I enjoyed it very much. In spite of the fact that Sandy & Dennys are males, Ms. L'Engle focuses on the routine, domestic life in Lamech's and Noah's tent. In that respect, it's rather reminiscent of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Sandy & Dennys discuss the fact that the Bible is written from a patriarchal viewpoint and exhibit a mostly feminist attitude toward the ancient society.
This pre-Flood world is inhabited by mythical beasts such as miniature mammoths and griffins and manticores, not to mention seraphim and nephilim. (Nephilim are fallen angels.)
A big part of the story is the sexual awakening of Sandy & Dennys. They both fall in love with Noah's youngest daughter, Yalith; she loves them as well, equally, and cannot choose one over the other. There is another young woman who tries to seduce Sandy (she has an ulterior motive); he has mixed feelings for her. He recognizes that she is beautiful and alluring, but he is also repulsed by her blatant attempts to entice him.
The one thing that bugs me about this book is the WHY? There is no reason for Sandy & Dennys to travel back in time. As far as I can figure, nothing in the Flood narrative changes because of their presence. I'm willing to suspend disbelief - I actually LOVE the time-traveling unicorns! - but I want a logical premise. Therefore I deducted .5 stars.
Ms. L'Engle created quite an imaginative and atmospheric setting and characters - some of whom are mentioned in the Biblical account and others who aren't - and like all well-written historical fiction, I enjoyed it very much. In spite of the fact that Sandy & Dennys are males, Ms. L'Engle focuses on the routine, domestic life in Lamech's and Noah's tent. In that respect, it's rather reminiscent of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Sandy & Dennys discuss the fact that the Bible is written from a patriarchal viewpoint and exhibit a mostly feminist attitude toward the ancient society.
This pre-Flood world is inhabited by mythical beasts such as miniature mammoths and griffins and manticores, not to mention seraphim and nephilim. (Nephilim are fallen angels.)
A big part of the story is the sexual awakening of Sandy & Dennys. They both fall in love with Noah's youngest daughter, Yalith; she loves them as well, equally, and cannot choose one over the other. There is another young woman who tries to seduce Sandy (she has an ulterior motive); he has mixed feelings for her. He recognizes that she is beautiful and alluring, but he is also repulsed by her blatant attempts to entice him.
The one thing that bugs me about this book is the WHY? There is no reason for Sandy & Dennys to travel back in time. As far as I can figure, nothing in the Flood narrative changes because of their presence. I'm willing to suspend disbelief - I actually LOVE the time-traveling unicorns! - but I want a logical premise. Therefore I deducted .5 stars.
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