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Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
A Wrinkle in Time
Somehow, when I signed up for to read this book, I didn't realize that it was written for middle schoolers, nor that it was a sort of classic in its day some 50+ years ago. I'd passed on from middle school by then. I just got overwhelmed by all the buzz regarding the movie that's recently come out and figured I should check out the buzz. I have mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the beginning, and thought I'd have a good time reading it. But as the book progressed, I found it increasingly boring. I'm guessing that the writing was a bit weak, and the descriptions didn't fill in the chinks very well. Then too, I got increasingly pissed off by the idea that people who wear glasses are unattractive. I know it's a common meme in culture, especially culture some 50+ years ago, but I find it tiresome. I have too little imagination to understand why no one "makes passes at girls who wear glasses". Personally, I always thought girls could look adorably cute in glasses, especially red heads.
Anyway, our heroine, Meg Murray, feels like a fish out of water most of the time. She's unattractive (she thinks) and doesn't do particularly well in school, except in math. People make fun of her because her father has gone missing some year or so previously and because her 5-year-old little brother is "weird". He's actually kind of an idiot savant, but people seem to think he's retarded because it took him a while to begin speaking. When he did speak, he had a rather large and colorful vocabulary.
Anyway, little brother, Charles Wallace, has made friends with some "entities" in a haunted house, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Who. They get Charles Wallace to gather up Meg and another boy, Calvin O'Keefe, who is a popular jock at school, but rather a misfit at home. The three of them go off on a quest to fight against the darkness and bring back Meg and Charles Wallace's father. They sort of time/space travel through the medium of something called a "tessering".
I dunno, it didn't do a lot for me. It's better than a 2* book, but not so good as my view of a normal 3* book. So, were it possible, I'd rate it **+, or 2½*s. Whatever, I won't be reading any more of this series any time soon.
