“A Wrinkle in Time” turns 50 years old this year. That would make its heroine, Meg Murry, 63 years old, and her daughter, Polly O’Keefe (heroine of “An Acceptable Time”) probably near 40, since Meg had her first child young (in the style of many fictional heroines, whose romantic fate was often decided in their first book appearance).
Meg Murry, old enough to be my mother? Never.
“A Wrinkle in Time” took place outside of time, in both a literal and a figurative sense. Its characters existed for me as a young reader in all times and at all ages at once. By the time I read it, it was possible to read some 10 volumes about the Murry and, later, the O’Keefe clans and another five about the Austins, whose lives intertwined with families from the other books and offered tempting glimpses of their futures — and by extension, mine. Meg was at once teenaged and awkward, pregnant and ungainly, maternal and graceful.
via New York Times
February 4, 2012
