Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle Book Review

 Many Waters 

(Time Quintet #4, Kairos #4)

By Madeline L'Engle 

Published Year: 1986

Page Count: 300 pages 

Medium Used: ipad Air 

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology, Mythical Creatures, Historical Fiction, Noah and the Ark, Classics, Childrens Fiction, 2026-read. 

Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀

Wow. What a book. What world development - very evocative, immersive and totally, totally legit. I have never read a book that took me back to the ancient times before the Noah and Ark setting. It is a beautiful concoction by the author - clubbing together the mythical creatures like dwarf mammoths, manticores, unicorns, griffins. She has also thrown into the mix angels who have volunteered to help humans in the form of Seraphims and those angels who have been tossed out of the heaven in the form of Nephilims. Even in those very early times of human evolution, there was fight between good and evil. Even with God sending the flood and Noah making the Ark and transporting only his kith and kin to safety, the world hasn't improved much. Makes me question if really the teachings of God and his plans work as he intends them to! Even if I would be a misfit in this world where stars whisper portentously, animals act as hosts to angels, air is super pure and there are no diseases, I just want to take a chance and live there. Atleast for a short while! 

Unlike the previous books in the series, the family members running around on an adventure are not Charles Wallace or Meg Murry but their twin brothers Sandy and Dennys. One winter day they enter their parents' lab without reading a note warning against interference. They see their father's work station and on a whim type that they be taken to a warm,less populated place. They are immediately transported into the middle of a hot, burning desert with no one around in sight. They wonder into which universe and planet they got sent to. Wondering and fretting how they would make it back home, they start navigating the new world. They meet dwarf people, barely over four feet tall and their pet mammoths. Sandy gets taken on an unicorn to Grandfather Lemech's tent to be treated for fever from sun exposure. Dennys makes a detour to the tent of Grandfather's son, Noah's tent. Enroute he meets some people who are very hostile to him because he looks like a giant and like one of the Nephilims/Seraphims. So both the brothers are cared for and tended in the tents of father and son who are not talking to each other and are too stubborn to first break the ice. As the story progresses, we see the brothers bringing about a truce between Grandfather Lemech and Noah. They put two and two together with Noah's name and figure there whereabouts. 

The Nephilims and other hostile people are unsure of the nature of the arrival of the twins and their interference in their lives. To get more information, they send a seductress and most beautiful girl Tiglah. She fails to extract any information that is not already known. So they kidnap Sandy and try to get it out of him. With the help of Jahpeth, son of Noah and other seraphims, he escapes his ordeal. We also see how cruel these Nephilims can be. Ugiel, a cobra nephil, marries Noah's daughter Mahlah but when she is struggling in labor, vanishes as if he cannot be bothered. And they mistreat their friends and associates.

 Both Sandy and Dennis fall in love with Noah's youngest daughter, Yahlith. She also loves them. Because they know the lore of Noah and Ark which doesn't call for his daughters to be saved,they worry for her. After the Ark is built and the issue with Yahlith is taken care of, the twins return to their time and place. How they return is quite a surprise. It is a pleasant idea that involves the seraphim and the twins. 

Must read. Can be read as a standalone. I would have liked to know what happened to Mahlah, Tiglah and the nephilim after the twins return. I feel the narrative incomplete without more information. Still loved this one .. enough to not take off any points from the over all rating.