A Swiftly Tilting Planet is a science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the
third book in the Time Quintet. The book's title is an allusion to the
poem "Morning Song of Senlin" by Conrad Aiken.
Plot summary The book opens on Thanksgiving evening,
10 years after the events of A Wind in the Door. Meg is now married to Calvin
and is expecting their first child. Calvin has become a scientist and is in
Britain at a conference; and Meg's family is joined for Thanksgiving dinner
by Calvin's mother, Branwen Maddox O'Keefe. When they receive the news of
impending nuclear war caused by the dictator "Mad Dog Branzillo", Mrs.
O'Keefe lays a charge on Charles Wallace to prevent the disaster by means of
"Patrick's Rune": a rhyming prayer of protection inherited from her Irish
grandmother. Charles Wallace goes to the
star-watching rock, a family haunt, where his recitation summons a winged
unicorn named Gaudior, who explains to Charles Wallace that he must prevent
nuclear war by traveling through time and telepathically merging with people
who lived in the locale of the star-watching rock at points in the
past. They are threatened along the way by the Echthroi, the antagonists
introduced in A Wind in the Door, who now seek to alter history in their
favor. Gaudior and Charles Wallace's travels bring them to Harcels, a Native
American boy at least 1,000 years in the past; Madoc of Wales, a pre-Columbian
trans-oceanic traveler; Brandon Llawcae, a Welsh settler in puritan times; Mrs.
O'Keefe's brother Chuck Maddox, during their childhood; and Matthew Maddox, a
writer during the American Civil War. Throughout their journey, Meg connects
with Charles Wallace from home through "kything", the telepathic communication
she learned in A Wind in the Door. Gradually, it is revealed that Branzillo
is a descendant of Madoc through all Charles' other alter-egos, and of
Madoc's treacherous brother Gwydir; and ultimately, Charles' manipulation of
Branzillo's various ancestors, results in the re-union of Madoc's line, and the
transformation of the present Branzillo into an advocate of peace, to prevent
the war. = St. Patrick's Rune=
Throughout the story, this poem is invoked by Charles Wallace through the
personalities he inhabits, to ensure the victory of good. The poem features in
several parts of the book, each with slightly different wording or different
punctuation; the poem's definite composition is unsure.
At Tara in this fateful hour, I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath, And the wind with its swiftness along
its path, And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness, And the Earth with its starkness
All these I place By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness
Sources The background story of Madoc and his
brother Gwydir derive from a legend by which Madoc arrived in North America
centuries before Leif Ericson and settled with the people there,
eventually giving rise to a Welsh-speaking native tribe with some
Caucasian features. Although the legend is generally centered on Georgia, along
the Ohio River and elsewhere, L'Engle places Madoc and his genetic line in
Connecticut, and places his descendants among a historical Welsh colony in
Patagonia. The verse given as Patrick's Rune is
L'Engle's adaptation of an authentic medieval prayer, "Saint Patrick's
Breastplate", which in turn is a variation on the Lorica of Saint
Patrick. L'Engle's rune invokes the same natural phenomena as the fourth verse of
the hymn "Saint Patrick's Breastplate", attributed to St. Patrick, translated by
Cecil Frances Alexander, according to the hymnal used by the Episcopal Church,
of which L'Engle was a member. = The Horn of Joy=
Matthew Maddox's second novel, The Horn of Joy, serves as a MacGuffin in A
Swiftly Tilting Planet. Charles Wallace spends a significant portion of the book
trying to remember or discover what Maddox wrote in it, or to reach Maddox
himself. Readers sometimes wonder whether The Horn of Joy ever existed;
but it is a fictional book, created by L'Engle. Polly O'Keefe finds a copy of
The Horn of Joy in her room when she visits her grandparents in An Acceptable
Time. Maddox's equally fictional first novel, Once More United, is said to have
been published in 1865. = Vespugia=
Vespugia is the same fictional country that L'Engle's character Vicky Austin
later visits in Troubling a Star. L'Engle explains in Walking on Water
that Vespugia is "set in the middle of what used to be called Patagonia, a
sizeable area along what are now the boundaries of Chile and Argentina".
L'Engle's husband, Hugh Franklin, is credited with having named Vespugia.
= Series= This is the third book of the Time
Quintet, preceded by, in publication order, A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in
the Door. However, this was not the chronological order. Though Many Waters
was written and published later than A Swiftly Tilting Planet, it takes place
earlier with respect to the characters. The last book in the Quintet, An
Acceptable Time takes place a generation after A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and is
part of the Polly O'Keefe series of books. The larger "Murry-O'Keefe" series
contains three novels between A Swiftly Tilting Planet and An Acceptable Time in
terms of character chronology. These are The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the
Waters, and A House Like a Lotus. Audio adaptation
In January 2012, an audio cd version narrated by actress Jennifer Ehle was
released. Awards and honors
In its first paperback edition, A Swiftly Tilting Planet won a National
Book Award in category Children's Books. Notes
References External links
L'Engle's Official Site A Wrinkle In Time Quintet Excerpts -
Swiftly Tilting Planet