Many Waters - Madeleine L'Engle
I finished re-reading Many Waters again last night. It's one of my favourite books; I used to get it out again and again from the public library before I ever found my own copy. It is the 'third in the Time Quartet', which is the sort of chronological ordering that annoys me - it was written in 1986, the others in 1962, 1973, 1978 - they're all very spread out.

This is probably the most Christian of any of her kid's books - but then, it is a retelling of the story of Noah's Ark, when Sandy & Dennys mess with one of their father's tessering experiments and get transported back to Noah's time. I think it was less strange to read that when I was younger, and less pagan, and hadn't been studying geology at uni for two years. I have no difficulty accepting seraphim and nephilim and virtual unicorns.

It's more when one of the seraphim comments that this is a younger sun than what Sandy & Dennys are used to - and whilst strictly that's true, a few thousand years is a negligible timespan in the life of our sun. So the idea that the age of the sun would make a difference irks me.

On the other hand, the nephilim in particular always fascinated me, who are sort of fallen angels. I feel like I've written about them before, but I can't find where. This book is largely to blame for my obsession with Judeo-Christian mythology, and so I know that strictly, the beings L'Engle refers to as the Nephilim aren't - in the mythology, it's their children who are called that, and who are giants and ravage the earth. Whereas L'Engle's Oholibamah, whose father is a nephil, is lovely and good and has healing hands.

But it doesn't surprise me that L'Engle might want to reinterpret that aspect, being as some of the dreadful things the Watchers (her Nephilim) were considered to have taught humans were astronomy - "Barkayal taught the observers of the stars; Akibeel taught signs; Tamiel taught astronomy; And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon" - clearly evil, that astronomy; also the making of jewellery and weapons, knowledge of plants and sorcery, and, oh yeah, writing. This comes from the Book of Enoch. So, there's your estorica for the day...

Back to Many Waters, I was browsing the reviews on Goodreads, and this one struck me in particular. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that this should read as 'less innocent' than the others. The twins are teenagers, and the book actually deals with this. And yes, your children are going to have to deal with sex one day. And Madeleine L'Engle is positive about sex, at the same time she is respectful. I think there are worse ways to decide whether or not to have sex with someone than to consider whether or not they're worth losing your ability to touch a unicorn.

Yes, I am assuming it's the sexuality in the book that bothers her, subtle as it is, rather than the terrorist behavior, or the fact that God's sending a flood to drown most of the population, because it seems to me that in that sense, Many Waters is no harsher than A Swiftly Tilting Planet, in which Charles Wallace has to travel through time to save the world from nuclear destruction. Unless that it is that Many Waters is set in a biblical story, and L'Engle is clearly a questioning Christian, who accepts doubt as part of faith. I suppose I should be saying 'was', now she's dead.

But I certainly feel as if I have benefited from reading this book, important to me as it is. Madeleine L'Engle's books have played a huge part in making me who I am, for which I am grateful.