The Bright Thing

I just finished reading a great book, A Wrinkle in Time. This is probably the only science fiction book that I have ever read, or given a chance to, for that matter. Although I hate the genre, this has always been one of my favorites. I remember reading it when I was younger, perhaps in fifth grade, and although I couldn't understand it then, it left a good impression on me. And so, as I was very bored earlier this week due to snow days, I found the book in my room and began reading it.

Although this won't make much sense without reading the entire book, try to bear with me anyway. In the book, the planet earth is covered by what is referred to as, "The Dark Thing." This covers the earth like a black shadow and it's meant to show that earth is a dark, evil place, filled with anger, hate, and violence. Our planet is actually referred to as a, "Dark Planet" throughout the book.

Characters in the story "tesseract," or teleport, in other words, to far away planets that contain odd looking monsters and other foreign objects. One of these places is called Camalotz. On the planet of Camalotz, everyone is uniform. The houses are identical. The children skip rope or bounce balls in perfect rhythm. Father's come home from work at the same time each night. The way that their system works is that there is one central object that takes the pain, suffering, and bad memories from the people of the planet. This object is nothing but an oversized brain, and is referred to as IT.

Although far away places like Camalotz may be more peaceful, orderly, and efficient, they lack individuality, spontaneity, freedom, and love. In fact, IT is eventually defeated through acts of love. I think that this book is acceptable, even though it is science fiction, because good books only use plot as a tool to communicate a stronger point. In this case, the point is that we need our elements of individuality to thrive. In fact, those elements are the very reason that the planet of pure uniform, the opposite of earth, was able to be defeated.