Editors Reads Verdict
L'Engle's second Murry family novel is darker and more theologically complex than A Wrinkle in Time, exploring the concept of self-sacrifice and the importance of individual identity on a cosmic scale. The concept of 'Naming' as an act of love is one of children's fantasy's most original ideas.
What We Loved
- The concept of 'Naming' — truly seeing and affirming another person's existence — is philosophically original and moving
- The journey inside cellular biology is one of children's fiction's most inventive settings
- Proginoskes is among the most original characters in the series
Minor Drawbacks
- The darker cosmic stakes feel more abstract than the personal drama of A Wrinkle in Time
- The mitochondria/farandolae biology requires more suspension of disbelief than the tesseract concept
Key Takeaways
- → To truly 'Name' someone — to see them as they really are — is an act of profound love
- → Individual identity matters at the cosmic level; the Echthroi seek to X everything by making it nothing
- → Love requires action, not merely feeling, even when that action involves self-sacrifice
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Laurel Leaf |
| Pages | 211 |
| Published | January 1, 1973 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy |
A Wind in the Door Review
A Wind in the Door, published in 1973, continues the Murry family saga that L’Engle began with A Wrinkle in Time. It is in some respects the stranger of the two books — the setting for its central adventure is the interior of Charles Wallace’s cells, where a newly conceived farandolae is refusing to mature — and the theology is more explicit. But it introduces one of L’Engle’s most powerful and original concepts: the act of Naming.
Charles Wallace is ill. His mitochondria are failing because farandolae — creatures within the mitochondria, existing at a scale below conventional biology — are being influenced by the Echthroi, cosmic forces of un-creation whose goal is the X-ing of everything: the reduction of being to nothingness. Meg, Calvin, and the cherubim Proginoskes — a creature of wings and eyes who finds inhabiting a single form deeply uncomfortable — must journey into Charles Wallace’s cellular interior to intervene.
The concept of Naming that drives the novel’s climax is L’Engle’s most sophisticated contribution to the moral vocabulary of children’s fiction. To Name someone is not simply to identify them but to truly see them — to affirm their particular, irreducible existence in full awareness of everything they are, including their failures and limitations. The Echthroi’s power is to X, to un-Name, to dissolve individual identity into an undifferentiated nothing. Against this, the act of truly seeing and affirming another person is the novel’s fundamental act of resistance.
The cellular setting — mitochondria, farandolae, the biological machinery of life — allows L’Engle to extend the cosmic scale of A Wrinkle in Time in the opposite direction. Rather than travelling to distant stars, Meg travels into the microscopic interior of her brother. The argument is that the same forces operate at both scales: darkness and light, X-ing and Naming, indifference and love.
Our rating: 4.0/5
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "A Wind in the Door" about?
Meg Murry must journey inside her brother Charles Wallace's cells to battle a cosmic evil called the Echthroi, accompanied by a Teacher named Blajeny and a strange creature called Proginoskes, in a quest that turns on the power of naming and love.
What are the key takeaways from "A Wind in the Door"?
To truly 'Name' someone — to see them as they really are — is an act of profound love Individual identity matters at the cosmic level; the Echthroi seek to X everything by making it nothing Love requires action, not merely feeling, even when that action involves self-sacrifice
Is "A Wind in the Door" worth reading?
L'Engle's second Murry family novel is darker and more theologically complex than A Wrinkle in Time, exploring the concept of self-sacrifice and the importance of individual identity on a cosmic scale. The concept of 'Naming' as an act of love is one of children's fantasy's most original ideas.
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