Anyone looking for L'Engle's views on politics and "security" should be looking in the many passages she _did_ publish. They might start with "A Swiftly Tiltin

Anyone looking for L'Engle's views on politics and "security" should be looking in the many passages she _did_ publish. They might start with "A Swiftly Tilting Planet", set on the brink of a nuclear war. This passage was well cut. The dialogue is clunky and Mr. Murry's views are overblown and poorly thought out. Worse, Meg's stated desire for "security" is completely out of step with her nonconformist character. She gets into fights to protect her brother, she refuses to do math as her teacher prefers because her way is better. She hates that she doesn't fit in, but she never tries to be "girly" or take up the interests of the other kids. This isn't a person with any sympathy for an overwhelming desire for security. L'Engle may have been experimenting with this passage, maybe looking to balance the book against the possibility that it might be read as an anti-Soviet parable. Whatever the thought behind this passage, the book never needed such balance. It's firstly a wonderful story, with a theme of the dangers of conformities of all kinds.