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piburnjones 's review for:
The Other Side of the Sun
by Madeleine L'Engle
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.
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.