The other side of the sun

I love the aunts in this book, and the literary games they play. I wonder how much of my literary character, if you will, was formed by early and frequent exposure to L'Engle. Though if that were true, I'd probably be a Christian as well, or at the very least a theist.

This is a strange book, dark and full of allusions, mysterious and circular and disorienting. Like the protagonist, Stella, one is plunged into a complex and layered Southern family with a generous helping of racial tension and conflict. On balance though, this, like all the other L'Engle books, is about the redemptive power of love. This one's darker than most, and the shocking denouement is precisely that- shocking no matter how many times one reads it.

One central quote show more never fails to make me weep.

"Only on love's terrible other side is found the place where lion and lamb abide.” show less

A classic Southern Gothic story brimming with racial tension and family intrigue. It has the same good vs evil theme that worked so well in A Wrinkle in Time but here it falls flat. This may have been innovative and bold back in the ‘70s when it was written but, to me, reading it today, it comes across as a tired melodrama that reinforces the bigotry it tries to condemn. I expected better.

In 1910 the newly-wed British wife of an American away on secret intelligence work is sent to his family home in South Carolina. While there she reads her husband's recently deceased grandmother's journals written before, during, and after the American Civil War/the War Between the States in an attempt to grapple with the family's history and understand the familial and racial tensions she has to navigate.

Beyond the fact that I wanted to read one of L'Engle's works for adults I have no idea how this ended up on my TBR list and going in I wasn't at all sure what it was about. At one point, Stella mentions her husband showed her a family tree before he left, and I found myself quite often wishing this had been included in the book as I show more tried to keep straight in my mind all the different characters and who was what relation to who.

Having said that, I found it fascinating both as a story and as a picture of a time and place I knew very little about. show less

As for many people, L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books growing up. I didn't even know she'd written adult novels, so when I ran across this in the library, I decided to give it a try. I had no idea what to expect.

I enjoyed it, but probably wouldn't have read it if not for the childhood connection.

As I started reading this, I realized one of the reasons I generally prefer genre books (thrillers, mystery, scifi) to general lit -- genre tends to be more plot-driven. Things happen in genre books. You usually have a pretty clear idea of what sort of shape the story is going to take by page 10 or 20.

In this book, by page 100, Our Heroine, Stella, had gone to live with her relatives while her husband was away doing secret show more government work. She'd met her cousins and the old aunties and the servants. She'd gone for a couple of walks on the beach, and had several ominous and cryptic conversations with various people. Yeah, okay, I'm supposed to be drawn in by the rich descriptions of the old South and the vibrant characters and so on, and it wasn't as if I were bored senseless -- I did keep picking up the book and reading until the end -- but I really would have preferred a story with more shape and less color.

The final third of the book, in which the plot finally started to heat up, was more engrossing. Race relations in the post-Civil War south is, frankly, not something I'm terribly interested in, but I can't say the story wasn't powerful.

It was an interesting read, and I'm glad I checked it out. I might check out more of her novels if I run across them. show less

This is one of L'Engle's less-popular YA novels, but I'm not sure why, since it's a great story and the same solid writing and vivid characters we are used to from her. No sci-fi in this one, and maybe that's the reason for its obscurity?

This book was a nice surprise, because I thought I had heard of, though not read, every Madeleine L'Engle book. Stella, the main character, is a typical L'Engle protagonist: smart, emotionally strong, and like-able. What is different about Stella though, is that she was raised an athiest, unlike most of L'Engle's main characters. By the end of the book, her mind has opened a bit, and she's thinking more about the possibility of a Supreme Being.

South after war / Klan / Black Riders mixed births — Reneir curse + love — good

L'Engle at her best, this novel features Stella, who marries into the aristocratic Renier family and discovers a frightening world of intrigue, greed, prejudice, and superstition. Soon drawn into a raging battle between good and evil, Stella must fight her way through to find the other side of the sun.