The Other Side of the Sun

by Madeleine L'Engle

Stella Renier visits her husband's family estate and becomes involved in family and racial conflicts which lead toward inevitable tragedy

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Mystery, Fantasy, Southern, Literary Fiction

344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big Madeleine L'Engle fan as a kid, though I favored the time-travel ones over the ordinary-time ones as a rule - I read this book once sometime in junior high or high school, but never re-read it as I did with most of my favorite L'Engles, so revisiting it now, I found I had forgotten all but the most general details.

Stella, a British girl of 19, falls in love with and marries an American southerner while he was stationed in England. His job almost immediately sent him onward to a secret international destination, so Stella went alone to his family home to wait for him, and suddenly finds herself thrust into a world very different from anything she'd known before - the South of the early 1900s, still quietly reeling from the after-effects of the Civil War. Her husband's family estate is occupied by two elderly great-aunts, an aunt and uncle, and the elderly black couple who keep the estate running, and Stella quickly meets other relatives and colorful neighbors living in the immediate area as well.

I enjoyed the story, the gradually revealed family intrigue, the flavor of almost magical realism, but I felt like too many of the characters were painful stereotypes, from the housekeeper who was actually an African princess with magical powers, to the unbearably precious idiot-savant twins who speak in rhyme. The final battle between good and evil felt particularly cliched and singlehandedly brought this from a four-star to a three-star novel. The final dramatic scene, though, is surprising and unsettling, and L'Engle is most definitely an excellent storyteller. I wouldn't place The Other Side of the Sun terribly high in the L'Engle canon, but there's still an enjoyable story here.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I awarded 5 stars because, although this book was picked at total random (I was with my 5 year old niece at the library and she pulled it off the shelf and announced I should read that one), I found it hard to put down. The narrator for most of it is a young English woman, newly married and having to live with her husband's family in the South right after the civil war. She isn't racist and doesn't understand why treating blacks as equals will cause problems. Oh, and everyone's crazy and there's strange pasts that aren't seen and...
Her perspective won me over as well as sucked me into the shaky situation the South was in at that time. I feel like I better understand the era.
One reason I love L'Engle's writings is that she always brings up both God and science, well studied on both accounts, into her books. Remarkable.

[Beth Kutchma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite L'Engle books. It has a mystic quality to it that is in the oddest of settings, the south after the civil war. Hard to find, but so worth the time.

[Linda Eilertsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want

- magical negroes (look it up)
- former slaves/descendants practicing some sort of hoodoo in increasingly threatening and stereotypical ways, up to and including rumours of child sacrifices
- freed slaves happily staying on with former owners on a plantation/commune where everyone's "equal."
- freed slaves insisting on waiting on the white people they're living with, even though they're supposedly friends/family, because what would people say and it's good to serve
- black characters being sacrificed/cut short by the narrative in order to fulfill/enrich the white characters' life/journey/spiritual awakening/whatever The way Ron is used as a stand-in for Terry throughout the book only to be killed off so that Terry can return without anything becoming awkward is cruel. I realised quite soon that he had to die, but I kept on reading thinking I would give the author a chance and persist just in case she chose another solution. He was hanging on for so long that I actually thought he was going to make it. And then a white character nobly gave up her peace of mind to give him the ultimate gift of a swift death. Unfortunately, by then, there wasn't much left of the book for me to make a statement of by not finishing it.

oh, and preaching

...then this might be the book for you!

[Jennifer Avila · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a conundrum to me. Having grown up on L'Engle's books I suppose I expected something different. I still got some good writing and intricate descriptions of a post-civil war south. But the titular metaphor was belaboured, the family tree tricky to follow and I found the 'anti-racism' message got caught up in an accidentally ironic amount of primitivist racism. Meh.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal book about faith and southern American history. L'Engle pulls out all the stops in this masterpiece, though I'd never heard of it before I bought it on sale at Amazon. It is extremely well plotted and almost unbearably suspenseful. Here's the gist of it: Stella, a nineteen year old newlywed from England, comes alone to her husband's family estate somewhere near the ocean in the post-Civil War south. Her husband is overseas doing secret diplomatic work in a world hotspot. She is immediately plunged into a confusing network of extended family and is soon confronted by the two worlds of the south: the white-run city and country life and "the scrub," where former slaves live in extreme poverty and where some still worship the old gods.

It's terribly complex and gothic in nature. L'Engle never shies away from exploring evil, but here the evil takes quite a while to fully reveal itself. It's based on race hatred, mistrust, and resentment. There was a lynching in the past, there are family members who want to use Stella, there are other family members who try to protect Stella, and it's very hard for her--and the reader--to sort out.

Though I sighed when I realized that the religious practices of the scrub equated evil doing, L'Engle still didn't disappoint me, because she includes a wise woman, Honoria, a former slave adept in healing skills and acknowledged as spiritually powerful. There's more to Honoria--she is actually the owner of the home where the family lives--but racism twists the relationships among the family and in effect, Honoria is seen as the housekeeper. L'Engle also doesn't hesitate to show how Christians can fall into evil. I found the denouement to be unputdownable. There were tears in my eyes at the end of the book--unusual for an old cynic like me.

I was frustrated by the Kindle edition. Every time I returned to the earliest chapters I lost my place and with a story this complicated and with such a tangled family tree I was in need of frequent back and forth. Is it because I'm still using a second generation model? Kindle seems to allow only for unrelieved forward motion in reading and that's not how I read.

I don't know how appealing this book would be for general readers. I'm a L'Engle fan and always curious about how she weaves faith into each of her novels. In this case, it's done in a compelling, but I thought believable way. What I love about this book--in addition to the poetry of her prose-- is that she maintains a level of mystery to faith. And she has never belittled science, in fact, in other books, she finds that science is a revelation from God. I miss her voice in cultural debates, and am glad that I found this book in a $1.99 Kindle special.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit that about half-way through, I started skimming. There were so many characters, many with the same names, that I stopped caring who they were.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 never fails to make me weep.

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

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my favorite book. i love it when i read it as a young teenager and i still love it now. it is about a young woman who marries a man but he must leave her with his family in the deep american south while he goes off to his secretive job. he leaves her with his old aunties and the housekeeper, honoria, honoria's husband, clive and another aunt and uncle. and of course, no one is as they seem. and there are darker characters in the shadows vying for the naive woman's attentions. i loved it and have read it at least 4 times.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved ML'E as a kid (Wrinkle in Time et al) but this one just did not do it for me. Way too histrionic and cheesy and just too much. A disappointment.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. 3.5ish stars, for the time being.

To me, this book was very reminiscent of one of the Polly O'Keefe books (maybe Dragon in The Waters?) with more mature themes/mature themes that are more explicitly stated. I liked this one more than the other, and maybe that's because it felt more adult and as if the stakes were higher. That said, Stella falls into my least favorite pitfall for L'Engle characters--she has few faults, and even less personality. Some of her characters are so lively and wonderful, and then her protagonists seem to be devoid of any humor or darkness, themselves. I miss Meg (at least in a Wrinkle in Time, before she fell into the same problems) who had a bad temper and a chip on her shoulder, and who had faults that made her human.

The other characters and their names and stories are too convoluted for such a short book. If this one was the same length as Gone With The Wind the story might have been able to be told more elegantly, but since it's not, the generations of characters sharing the same names just felt confusing and less real.

The plot was shaky, but, to be honest, most of L'Engle's books that I've read didn't have very intricate plots. I'm fine with that. The problem with this one is that the plot tried so hard to be action packed, but still felt stilted and strange.

All of that said, I did enjoy this book. I was still thinking about it hours after I finished it. It's just not one of my favorites.

[Kricket · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is my second attempt at reading this- i tried many years ago and gave up. now i am remembering why: it is a weird, vaguely uncomfortable beginning to a story. we'll see how it goes.

post-read: not really sure what to make of this one. it's intense, sometimes twee, and very very dramatic. but i had a hard time putting it down.

i liked:
-the setting. very rich: sprawling mansion on the ocean in...south carolina? i think? around 1910? i also think? my memory is great. after the civil war, people are riding horses and such.
-stella reminded me a lot of l'engle's character vicky austin. i like vicky austin.
-some of the things l'engle says about race in the US rang very true for me today in 2018

i didn't like:
-the portrayal of the zenumins. curious about what research went into that
-the aunties constantly quoting shakespeare at each other: zzzz
-too many therrons; had to keep flipping to the family tree and wishing it was on a title page instead of randomly stuck in one of the early chapters. maybe the little ditty was supposed to help me remember, speaking of twee.
-the fact that stella stays at illyria with all these bananas strangers- in-laws or no- instead of getting on the first boat back to england once all this weird shit starts happening.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite different from the other L'Engle books I have read and it doesn't seem to have received a great deal of attention over the years, perhaps because it does not fit in with much of her output. It is a story of the American South in the period following the Civil War and is not a children's book at all. There are still some familiar common elements, such as the emphasis on education and the display of knowledge as entertainment, seen here in the recurring use of a literary quotation game. Although she was born in New York and often set her stories in New England, L'Engle is not writing without first-hand knowledge of the area. She attended boarding school in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1930s. As might be expected, this book addresses race, politics, religion, and history, all in the context of several generations of intertwined families. The astute reader will appreciate the numerous allusions that L'Engle makes in the naming of people, places, and other aspects. Her work rewards deeper consideration.

[Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. The same feeling and emphases that characterize all her books are here (importance of love, trust that good will triumph even in the darkest times, good vs. evil battle that stretches beyond humans). Naivete seems to be both an element in the story and part of the storytelling. At points, I feel like L'Engle sometimes treats the issue of racism with too much naivete (particularly in the idea of Nyssa--a plantation run by a white family, still worked largely by its freed slaves), but she describes lynchings with unflinching realism and a decision related to lynching is made with full understanding. I do feel like many characters are stereotypes. Still, I like the book and I like that L'Engle was wrestling with the issues that make up the story.

[Luke Zwanziger · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hated this book. It was slow, mundane, with characters that I couldn't care less about. A whiny pregnant woman stuck in the south away from her husband with weird/horrible people in the South, this book when it wasn't boring me to death with a billion pages of mundane actions annoyed me with the woman whining to herself about feeling alone and lost. Oh and voodoo people attack her pregnant belly at the end of the book too.

While I respect L'Engle and love the Time series, this book was a struggle to finish, which I merely did because I didn't want to give up on a book.

Age may give me a better perspective on the book, but I'm not willing to even give it a chance. Not a book worth bothering with.

[Wanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 bold and innovative 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. 2 1/2 stars

[Cynthia Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

THis book is unlike most of her other works. It is dark and unsettling and amazing all at the same time.

I really enjoyed getting to know the characters. It was a time and place that I can't really understand- the South after tha Civil War.

I wishe dthat I could have changed the ending. But it would have been wrong to have it end any other way.

[Shawna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so unlike L’Engle’s other books, though there are still mystical elements incorporated through a mostly historical fiction novel. The story is heartbreaking, especially because you know while reading it that these things really did/do happen to people. I felt the characters’ powerlessness acutely. I think this story and its characters will stay with me for a long time. I would also like to read it again now that I know the plot. I read it quickly because it was so suspenseful (though I did guess who the bad guy was before it was revealed in the book).

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of L'Engle's usual preoccupations are in evidence here: reconciling science and religion, large and complicated families, guardian animals. The ever-present struggle between good and evil. The further I read, the more familiar it felt -- like a longer, deeper, more adult exploration of the Civil War-era section of A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

The pacing is very much a slow burn -- she asks you to follow everywhere Stella's eyes fall during her earliest days at Illyria, easing you into the history and personalities of the Renier family. Most of the book feels meandering and plotless, until suddenly it isn't. Everything in the last quarter of the book is well set up in advance, even if I question some of the storytelling decisions. After all the meandering, the ending felt rushed, but when L'Engle chooses to stretch out and be atmospheric and poetic, she's a master.

L'Engle's handling of race (as in Planet) is perhaps best classified as She Tried. In the end, the bad black characters are cartoonish (though they don't start that way), and the good black characters are magical and holy; there's no real in between (though there is for white characters).

Overall: imperfect, odd, but with moments of beauty.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stella, a young British bride, arrives in South Carolina in 1910 to live with her husband's family while he (Terry) is on a secret assignment. The Renier family has lived in a big rambling house at the beach for many generations. There is a long history of family secrets and animosities, and Stella does not understand the threat of danger that seems to be lurking. 1910 is not too far removed from the Civil War and there is a great deal of racial discord in the area. The family also has some ties to a large black family, the Zenumins, who live away from the beach in a scrubby, marshy area. The title of the book is taken from a journal entry written by Terry's grandmother, Mado: "Only on love's terrible other side is found the place where lion and lamb abide." This a complex and sometimes horrifying story, quite different from anything else I have read by Madeleine L'Engle. It cast a weird spell over me; I was glad when I finished it, but that doesn't mean that I didn't like it as I read it.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprising but lovely southern gothic from Madeleine L'Engle. She gets the atmosphere and feeling of the south just right - complex family relationships, family secrets, eccentric characters from a time gone past. It's also got L'Engle's quietly introspective character, questing after meaning and truth. I did not know what to expect going into this, and I would not have expected L'Engle to write this kind of book so well, but I'm so pleased I read it.

It starts a little slow, but it takes time to build the sense of the ominous, and the climax is very satisfying.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Madeline L'Engle is such a talented writer, and this book is more evidence. It's told mostly as a looking back by an elderly widow on events in the post-Civil War south. She'd come from England, her husband was travelling on business and she had no idea of the cultural norms she'd moved into. The characters are beautifully drawn, the story slowly and captivating as it unfolds, and the setting lends a strong ambiance.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mysteries abound within this story about the USofA deep South after the Civil War. As expected for the story setting combined with Madeleine L'Engle's style, good/evil, religion, and racism dominate the tale.

[Mirage McCloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Exquisitely written. Layers of meaning and mystery. She writes about humanity with a tenderness, but still realistic to the sometimes awful truth of what we are capable of.

[Dawn Todhunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what I think of this book. It feels as if someone threw "A Wrinkle in Time" and "The Sound and the Fury" in a blender, pulsed it a few times, and this was the result. There are parts that are brilliant. Very thought provoking. Then it shifts into a poorly executed caricature of the old South. Then she writes something so profound that I can't get it out of my head. I'm exhausted. Think I'll go read Winnie the Pooh.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story, wonderful imagery, interesting take on difficult themes. Having read mostly newer books this year, I was particularly interested in this past perspective on life, family roles, Civil War themes, and witchcraft. Glad I found this on Hoopla; decided to read because I'm such a fan of Wrinkle In Time.

[Erica Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quality lanuage and an intriguing read.

[Jonathan Tokay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing especially from Madeline l’engle. Plot is too slow and I can see why it’s not a classic.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some lovely passages in this, particularly the exchange between Honoria and Olivia about dying in baptism, but the ending...ugh! Ugh, ugh, ugh!!! If only Scripture had been, for Madeleine, more than fodder for a literary quotation identification game. If only she'd believed it with the sort of belief that obeys. But she didn't, and this mess is the result.

The narrator had a nearly impossible task: the first-person voice of a young Englishwoman + a whole cast of American Sountherners, both white and black, plus some French. And she really did a decent job for the most part, except she incongruously gave Honoria a Caribbean accent. She was clearly confusing the way blacks in Britain sound with the way blacks in America sound.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022 review: I love revisiting Illyria, for all its juxtaposition of faith, doubt; good, evil; homeyness, foreignness. On this go-around, I was struck with how overwhelming life must have been for Stella as she is plunged neck-deep in conflict that she cannot comprehend, resting just beneath the veneer of Southern gentility.

First of all, the family tree is ridiculously complex. I kept flipping back to the diagram that Terry had provided for Stella. However, this need reflected Stella's need to keep things straight amongst everything else she was experiencing, rather than being some sort of clarity flaw on the part of the author. I figured that if I needed a refresher, how must have Stella felt, being expected to have all of the significance of the family tree mastered?

Second, the culture shock. Poor Stella crosses the ocean to enter her husband's world, vastly different than the tidy world of Oxford which she has known. I always got that as I read, but this time, it really sank in just how emotionally exhausting this experience would have been. Even if all Stella had to deal with was adjusting from England to post-Civil War America, that would have been enough. But the politics within Illyria and its surroundings create a microcosm full of darkness. I tracked the passing of time in the novel on this read-through, and the first two-thirds of the book cover just over a week's time. Stella undergoes so many experiences--from bathing in the sea; to drinking sulfur water; to her interactions with Belle, the Granddam, and the other Zenumins; to getting to know the Aunties, Irene, Uncle Hoadley, and Uncle James--and her ability to process these marks her out as a remarkable character. And this is aside from her excellent capacity to love. Her instincts of trust were always true, even where the opinions of "the veneer" differ from her own.

Lastly, I wondered why Stella was so quick to doubt her experiences when she had sunstroke. Uncle Hoadley makes one comment the day she awakens with the ailment, and she is thrown into a spiral of doubt. But perhaps this is just the result of all the emotional strain she has undergone the previous week.

The spiritual level of this story is always compelling. The very real Powers of both evil and of love, interacting in the world through humans who take one side or the other form a backdrop to the story that creates unity, drama, and delightful philosophical conversations (especially when they involve Aunt Olivia).

*******************
2017 review: Since I read this book over four years ago, I have been haunted by its mystical reality. A rare book that I want to simultaneously devour and savor as I read.

The impact one person can have in a community is underscored when Stella arrives in Illyria (I love all the names in this novel!) to find tensions existing in a delicate balance, which she unwittingly upset. Clashes of cultures, powers, faiths, plans, and personalities rivet the reader to the characters and dramatic events.

While the theology is heavy in mysticism, many spiritual realities play out over the course of the story. If you enjoy Charles Williams, you will enjoy the emphasis on bearing the pain of another, as well as on the very real darkness that actively tries to squelch the light. Painful mercy and love truly triumph over all!