A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeline L'Engle, is one of my absolute favorite books. I've read it more times than I can remember. This is my review / summary / analysis of the book; it does contain spoilers, so if you haven't read the book yet you might want to before continuing further.
The story begins on a rainy Thanksgiving in the Murry household. The children from A Wrinkle In Time have grown into young adults; Meg Murry O'Keefe is pregnant with her husband Calvin's child, the twins Sandy and Dennys are law and medical students respectively, and Charles Wallace is a quiet, precocious 15 year old.
The events of the evening are set in motion by a grim phone call from the President stating that nuclear war is at hand. A mad dictator in South America has issued a serious threat, and the President is at his wit's end as to how to prevent the end of the world. Mr. Murry is a famous physicist who is often consulted by the President on scientific matters, but in this case the President's call seems to be more out of blind desperation than of an actual notion that Mr. Murry might be able to prevent nuclear war.
Charles Wallace is the protagonist of this particular tale, whereas Meg featured prominently as the viewpoint character in the first two books of the trilogy: A Wrinkle In Time and A Wind In The Door. Inspired by the President's phone call and some very interesting behavior on the part of Meg's toothless, caustic mother-in-law Branwen Zillah O'Keefe, Charles gets it into his head that he might be the only hope for the world.
Charles Wallace is not what one might call traditional hero material. He is small for his age and, like his sister Meg, not very adept socially. Since reading A Wrinkle In Time in sixth grade, I identified very strongly with the Murry children, as I'm sure many other "weird" kids have done since these books were published.
Something draws Charles to a landmark that is to become a recurring symbol throughout the novel: the star-watching rock. The rock is described as a "flattish, glacial formation", and is perfect for sunning oneself on languid summer afternoons, or gazing up at the night sky, up into a universe of pinpoint lights.
When Charles arrives at the rock, he calls out the rune that he believes was given to him by Mrs. O'Keefe as a weapon to wield against the darkness. The Universe responds to the rune by sending the unicorn Gaudior, whose name (as explained to Charles) is Latin for "more joyful".
A frightening prospect is presented to Charles as his mission: Charles Wallace must go Within another person and attempt to change a Might-Have-Been in history so that the present-day threat of nuclear war will disappear as if it had never occurred.
Going Within a person, as far as I can tell, means to somehow have your consciousness share the body of another person with that person's consciousness and mind. The "catch" of going Within is that one must remain a passive observer of the awareness and experiences of another, yet influence the person's thoughts and actions when the proper Might-Have-Been comes along.
A Might-Have-Been is a moment of decision, like the original flap of a butterfly's wing that eventually leads to a storm. Might-Have-Beens can be extremely subtle, so the person attempting to change them must be a uniquely sensitive individual.
But who to go Within? In order to find the correct Might-Have-Been (or series of interdependent Might-Have-Beens), Charles is sent on a journey through both time and the inner space of several humans throughout the history of the world.
Harcels
Harcels is a young boy living during Earth's innocence. He knows nothing of evil or despair, and is, in the words of Gaudior, easy to exist Within. Dwelling alongside the consciousness of Harcels, Charles learns how to relax his mind and to quell his own thoughts and desires so that he will not interfere with Harcels' life. The only Might-Have-Been that Charles influences while Within Harcels is that of dissuading Harcels from visiting a neighboring tribe that would perhaps expose Harcels to the idea of men being violent toward other men. Charles preserves Harcels' innocence.
Madoc
Madoc is a young Welsh prince that escaped to the New World during a period of civil unrest in his own country. L'Engle here begins to play with the legend of Welsh sailors visiting the Americas even before the Vikings were said to have done, and intermarrying with Native Americans. Charles Wallace goes Within the seventeen year old Madoc on his wedding day: Madoc is soon to be the husband of Zyll, a member of a tribe called the People of the Wind. It is a time of joy and celebration, but with an ominous shadow symbolized by the echoing drums of The People Across The Lake, a neighboring tribe.
When Madoc escaped from a tumultuous Wales, his brother Gwydyr accompanied him but was lost and given up for dead in the New World. On Madoc's wedding day, however, Gwydyr suddenly appears: Madoc's brother was not dead, but had been adopted by the People Across The Lake.
The contrast between Madoc and Gwydyr becomes apparent here: Madoc is a peace-loving sort who has no desire for power or glory, whereas Gwydyr is the exact opposite. Gwydyr wants to be king, and if he cannot be King of Wales, he wants to be elevated to royal status by the tribes of the New World.
The tension between the two brothers peaks and explodes when Gwydyr attempts to claim Zyll, his brother's fiancee, as his own. Though Madoc hates the idea of fighting, he is even more disturbed by the idea of someone trying to steal Zyll as if she were an object. So Madoc and Gwydyr fight, choosing fire as their weapon.
You must make fire, little brother, says Gwydyr.
The brothers' fight is bizarre, bordering on surreal. Besides hand-to-hand combat and the fire of torches, there is Madoc's spiritual fire, borne of a pile of flowered garlands. Gwydyr is nearly drowned in the lake by a passionate Madoc, and goes back in disgrace to the People Across The Lake.
While Charles is Within Madoc, we encounter for the first time the theme of the two babies: before the fight, a scrying surface formed by a puddle of water shows first a scowling, bad-tempered baby and then after the purifying flame, a laughing, blue-eyed baby with "gold behind the blue" of his eyes. Charles realizes that the Might-Have-Beens he needs to influence will, if he is successful, result in the birth of the second baby, the one who will grow up to become a champion of peace rather than a psychotic dictator.
Brandon Llawcae
Brandon is a sensitive, likeable child of about twelve. He is much like a Charles Wallace of the Pilgrim era. We meet Brandon on a moonlight walk with his brother Ritchie's wife Zylle, a blue-eyed Native American woman who is close to bearing Ritchie's child. Brandon's family has recently been the subject of scrutiny and criticism on the part of the other settlers; Ritchie's wife Zylle is considered by some to be a "heathen" because of her tribe's Native American beliefs. Zylle, however, considers herself a Christian, but a Christian in harmony with nature and with the traditions of her tribe. This is one of the things I really like about Madeline L'Engle; she herself is a Christian, but not a wacky fundamentalist. Indeed, the "Biblical literalists" in Brandon's time are the "bad guys" of this episode of going Within. L'Engle's acceptance of most belief systems as part of one joyful song of humanity is personified in Zylle and in the Llawcae family that accepts her as one of their own.
The Brandon Llawcae episode's Might-Have-Been is for Charles-Within-Brandon to stop Zylle from being burned as a witch. The superstitious townspeople, led by the horrid Pastor Mortmain (the colonial era's Jerry Falwell / Pat Robertson figure, blame Zylle for the deaths of several infants of the "summer sickness" during the hot months. This accusation, of course, is ridiculous, yet when people upset by the deaths of their children are exposed to the rantings of a paranoid charismatic like Pastor Mortmain, reason takes a back seat.
Charles gives Brandon the rune entrusted to him by Mrs. O'Keefe, and Zylle is saved at the last minute from the gallows by a storm. Lightning surges out of the sky and sets the church ablaze, a church "erected more to the glory of Pastor Mortmain than to the glory of God".
Chuck Maddox
Chuck's story is perhaps the saddest of all Charles' episodes of going Within. Like Brandon, Chuck is a sensitive lad of twelve. This episode begins with Chuck, his sister Beezie, and their grandmother wistfully blowing dandelion clocks near the star-watching rock. Like Madoc's episode, Chuck's story begins with a shadowed tranquility.
Chuck has an interesting talent: he can identify the people close to him by the color of their smell -- a form of synaesthesia, perhaps. His grandmother is the green of a faraway Ireland; Beezie is the gold of spring sunshine; his mother is a soft blue; his father, a strong mahogany. As the story progresses, Chuck begins to sense a corruption in his father's smell-color-aura, and indeed, his father dies of a sudden illness. After his father's death, Chuck's mother has difficulty running the family store, and so marries a clod named Duthbert Mortmain (a descendent of the awful Pastor Mortmain).
Chuck and Beezie discover a box in the store's attic: a box containing notebooks, journals and paintings by someone named Zillah Llawcae, all done around the year 1865. In the darkness of spirit following their father's death, Chuck and Beezie take respite in escaping into 1865: the journals tell a compelling love story between Zillah and her fiancee, Bran Maddox. Another Maddox -- Matthew -- is also mentioned in these journals. Matthew was apparently a fairly successful author who died tragically young.
Duthbert, not surprisingly, turns out to be an abusive husband and stepfather. The children refuse to call him "father", and are visibly afraid of him. One night an argument turns violent; Duthbert moves toward Grandmother in order to hit her, and Chuck throws himself between the two. Chuck is knocked down the stairs and ends up with a fractured skull and accompanying brain damage.
After Chuck's accident, he begins to lose his eyesight and suffer from hallucinations. Or are they hallucinations? Chuck somehow feels that he is communicating with Matthew Maddox, urging him to finish his last novel so that Zillah will have the money to go to South America and be with Bran as his wife. Beezie doesn't like to hear Chuck talk of such things; she is afraid her stepfather will have Chuck institutionalized if he finds out Chuck thinks he's mentally traveling in time and communicating telepathically with long-dead authors!
It is unclear exactly what the Might-Have-Been is in this particular episode. Everything becomes shifting and fluid after Chuck's accident. It could be that indeed Chuck was somehow communicating with Matthew.
Matthew Maddox
Going Within Matthew is described as "long and agonizing". This is due to the fact that Matthew is disabled: he is in a wheelchair because of a childhood horseback riding accident. Charles experiences the pain Matthew felt when his back and legs were broken, and indeed, when he is Within Matthew, he is unable to walk. Now we meet the characters in the journals and paintings found by Beezie and Chuck: the twins Matthew and Bran Maddox, and their neighbor Zillah, Bran's sweetheart.
Bran is newly returned from fighting in the Civil War; a leg wound got him sent home, much to the relief of his mother. At seventeen, Bran had lied about his age and joined the Union army. Bran is (for good reason) extremely depressed upon coming home. He has witnessed incredible horror and no longer feels heroic about becoming a soldier.
Bran feels that the only way for him to recover is to move far from home. His doctor suggests a warm climate, so Bran decides to join a group of people from Wales who are setting up a colony in South America. Zillah wants to accompany Bran as his wife, but Zillah's father refuses to let her, thinking that at sixteen she is too young yet to go so far from home and get married. Bran instead goes to South America with his sister Gwen, who was caught kissing a brutish hired hand named Jack O'Keefe; Mr. Maddox basically sends his daughter out of the country because he doesn't like her choice of boyfriend!
It becomes apparent to Charles-Within-Matthew that Zillah needs to go to South America and marry Bran in order for the blue-eyed baby in the vision to be born eventually. Matthew has written one successful novel and is working on another; if he can finish his second book and sell it, he might be able to help Zillah pay for passage to South America without her father's blessing.
Matthew contracts pneumonia but is able to raise the money for Zillah. While in a feverish state, he seems to hear a young boy (Chuck?) urging him to finish his book, letting him know how important it is that Zillah marry Bran.
Pneumonia claims Matthew's life shortly after Zillah leaves, and Charles Wallace is brought back into his own body.
Conclusion
Another phone call from the President startles Meg, who has been listening to the journeys of her younger brother's mind all night. However, this phone call is to announce the establishment of peace initiatives by a benevolent South American leader: not more threats of war from a mad dictator. Charles was apparently successful in changing the Might-Have-Beens that resulted in the birth of the blue-eyed baby that is a symbol of peace.
If you have not read this book I would definitely recommend you do so: I've finished college, and this book still makes me think! There is much more depth and detail to the story than I have outlined here, of course, and you really need to read the entire novel more than once to appreciate everything in it.