The Men of L'Engle #8: Zachary Gray

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that you have to have a much stronger belief than I do in the possibility of Zachary's reform to find him a likable character. Maybe I'm too black-and-white, but I don't see him as a complex character, just a slimy one.

But I do have a lot to say about him. So that's something.¹

I'm almost surprised that L'Engle never made an explicit Holden Caulfield reference in her descriptions of Zachary, because there's a clear resemblance. "Phony" and "crumby" make frequent appearances in Zachary's conversation; he's a rich kid largely ignored by his parents; none of what happens is his fault.

Zachary makes his first appearance in The Moon by Night, just after one of his prep school expulsions. Choate once, Hotchkiss another time -- at least the guy gets thrown out of classy places.² He pursues Vicky as the Austin family travels across the country, then turns up two years later to pursue her again.

After he (not much of a spoiler) makes a complete ass of himself, repeatedly puts Vicky in danger, and abandons her. Then he appears in A House Like a Lotus, where he pursues Polly, makes a complete ass of himself, puts Polly in danger, and abandons her. Anyone want to guess what happens in An Acceptable Time?

And then at the end, he's allegedly hit bottom, seen the error of his ways, and redeemed himself. Which I do not find one bit convincing. Because after abandoning Vicky, he appeared to have seen the error of his ways.

So I don't see Zachary as a flawed but ultimately decent character. He's a bundle of abuser warning signs. Perhaps he'll give someone else a chance to learn the lesson Polly didn't: If a boy thinks that "non-virgin status" = "reason to let him have his way" -- that's when you get up and walk out.

Leading characteristics:

• Spoiled. And knows it. He's well aware of his ability to get anything he wants out of his parents. Or as he puts it: "When I don't get what I want I have hysterics. They're very effective."
• Gorgeous. This is one point Vicky and Polly are both very clear on. The "Hamlet look," as Vicky calls it, works for him.
• Manipulative. And utterly sleazy. (Sorry. Personal sentiment intruding there.) But just look at how he plays with Vicky and Polly's emotions. There is just no reason for a line like "If I had somebody like you around maybe I wouldn't go getting kicked out of schools all the time."

Pull quote(s):

• "money and connections can do wonders"
• "I've been in a filthy mood. Get me out of my mood."
• "I'm a self-protective bastard."
• "Polly, don't you understand? I needed you. I needed you terribly."
• "I don't want to be a lawyer, as you so naively put it, but I intend to be one."

Where's Zachary now? Somewhere expensive, probably. Not a lawyer. And still not worth it.

¹ Also, he's the excuse for Suzy to taunt Vicky with "Love is a little thing shaped like a lizard; it runs up and down and tickles your gizzard." Which is just lovely.^2
2 Basically, he flunks out by choice. Or as Polly puts it, "He didn't do well in school because if he's not interested, he doesn't bother."
³ I mean that in a totally non-sarcastic way. (I know; it's not always easy to tell.)

The Men of L'Engle #6: Calvin O'Keefe

Ah, Calvin. No doubt part of your popularity is the number of Meg-like girls who wanted to imagine they could end up happily married to the first boy they ever talked to.

We first meet Calvin when he's a gawky 14-year-old, two years ahead in school and far more than two inches too tall for his clothes. He's an outsider in his own (huge) family, but the minute he walks into the Murry house, he knows he's found a home.

And while I'd normally be all up in arms about controlling tendencies at a passage like this:

"Well, you know what, you've got dreamboat eyes," Calvin said. "Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have."

-- the fact that it's Calvin (okay, and the fact that I totally understand how Meg felt, having done the glasses-and-braces thing myself) makes it acceptable.

Leading characteristics:

• Family man. He cares about his family when they don't care about him, and once he and Meg marry, they end up with a family big enough for a baseball team. And when we see him from Polly's perspective, in A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, he appears to be a pretty awesome father.
• Brilliant. To put it mildly. A Wrinkle in Time suggests that there's some sort of biological difference, although this never comes up again. But we do get to see him as a researcher widely acknowledged as top in his field, getting special government assent to his work. And this despite the fact that his future wife had to help him with his math homework.
• Fond of islands. As an adult, Calvin chooses to make his home on various marginally populated coastal islands where he can work out of a home laboratory. (Don't you wish you had one?)
• Rather normal. I mean, despite the fact that he's been inside his brother-in-law's mitochondria, not to mention several other planets.

Pull quotes:

• "There hasn't been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn't me."
• "We came to the island... because it was, at the time, one of the few places left in the world where I could bring up my family and work undisturbed."
• "I've stumbled onto something. Something that is unusual, desirable to many people, and important."

And where's Calvin now? Based on my acquaintance with Georgia's coastal islands, I'm pretty sure Benne Seed has gotten far too built up for the Murry-O'Keefe comfort level. And the senior Murrys are getting on in years, so I wouldn't be surprised to find Meg and Calvin heading back to New England. But beyond that? He's researching, as ever.

The Men of L'Engle #4: Sandy and Dennys

Sandy and Dennys Murry (side note: am I the only one who grew up wanting to pronounce that like Denny's?) are twins, and that's one of their defining traits. They didn't grow up dressing alike or making up their own language or anything like that, but they've got a bond. And besides that, they're the normal ones in the family. No outcast status, no special powers, no Nobel Prizes -- well, there was the one time they ended up helping Noah build the ark, but that was an accident. Most of the time the twins are secondary characters, but in Many Waters they get the stage to themselves.

Leading characteristics:

• Sensible. Sandy and Dennys are the more-or-less normal members of the Murry family. They put a premium on conforming, and it's what makes them happy.
• Green-thumbed. Someone should count the mentions of the twins' vegetable garden in the L'Engle oeuvre.
• Socially conscious: Particularly in A House Like a Lotus. They may not be tessering in their adult lives, but they're still totally going to change the world. In a good way.

Pull quote(s):

• Sandy: "If Dad were a plumber or an electrician, and if Mother were somebody's secretary, it would be a lot easier for us."
• Dennys: "We've never had willing suspensions of disbelief. We're the pragmatists of the family."
• Sandy: "We were stupid, mucking around with an experiment-in-progress."

We get to see the twins grow up in L'Engle's books, so we know that Sandy becomes a lawyer and Dennys is a doctor. And where are they now? I could imagine either one as an Obama appointee, or affiliated with a university. No doubt they're on their Android phones at all hours, since we know that saving the world is not a 9-to-5 job.