Customer Reviews

This Side of Glory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the few Bristow books that I did not have growing up. I'd read the first two in the trilogy many times before I finally found this in a library. Wow! I love it. There is so much in this book about marriage and class structure, and, of course, World War I. I'd love to go through and put several quotes that really touched me from it, but I think you should just read the book! And while you are at it, try to read all the Bristow books -- she's wonderful!

I read this book when I was a teenager as the first segment of "Plantation Trilogy". I loved the well developed characters and the era depictions of the trilogy and they really must be read together. I purchased and re-read the three with my own teenage daughter and she too enjoyed the great stories. I've often thought in recent years that I've "read myself out" because it's so hard to find contemporary novels that can hold my attention. Many are so predictable, stylistically weird, full of smut and flat characters, or just plain boring! This series of books are very entertaining and present a slightly different view of slavery that make for great discussions. Highly recommended.

I recently found This Side of Glory in a used book store. I had read it about 25 years ago. I'm finding out that as I've gotten older, I enjoy reading a good story again. Why, because you see the characters in a different way. Now, instead of identifying with the younger characters, you see yourself as the mother or aunt in the stories you read. Your whole perspective changes!

This Side of Glory was published in 1940. It's the story of Eleanor Upjohn and Kester Larne. Kester is the heir to Ardeith Plantation. He's led a very privileged life with wealth and servants. His family is well known in the high society of Louisiana, and go back for several generations. Eleanor's father is a self made man who raised himself up from his childhood of poverty through hard work. He's has no respect for the idle wealthy and that includes the Larne family.

The story begins in 1912 when Eleanor and Kester first meet. Her father is in charge of building a levee. The levees keep the rivers from flooding the river banks. She is her father's secretary and a very capable person. This particular levee is near Ardeith Plantation. The couple first meet when Kester, who is the heir to Ardeith, stops by to see when the levee will be completed. Eleanor and Kester are immediately attracted to each other and over a brief courting period they marry against the wishes of both their families.

As time goes on, the young couple learn just how different they are. Eleanor is thrifty and unsentimental. Kester is generous, easy going and takes being wealthy for granted. The couple clash in many ways and finally realize that they have totally different values. It's a terrific story and the reader is taken back to another place in our American history.

This book is actually the third in a trilogy of stories. The first is Deep Summer and the second is Handsome Road. I'm hoping to find copies of both of them to read again!

In the first book in what is known as her Plantation Trilogy, Deep Summer, Bristow began the story of Phillip Larne as he brings his new bride to carve a new life out of the steaming jungles of Louisiana. Handsome Road carries the Larne and Sheramy families through the Civil War and emphasizes the struggles of the upper class and their struggles to hold onto their way of life through the carpet bagger era. Which brings us to the last book in this trilogy -

This Side of Glory begins in 1912, as Eleanor Upjohn works as secretary for her father Fred, who despite a poorer birth has made a successful career as a builder of river levees. She meets plantation owner Kester Larne and its love at first site - but can they overcome the huge gaps in their two social classes and build a successful marriage? Eleanor is shocked at the run down condition of the Larne family plantation as well as the huge debts Kester's neglect has incurred. Eleanor cracks the whip and begins to put things to right, until a shot rings out in Sarajevo and as war breaks out it brings the price of cotton drops down to dangerous levels and threatens to destroy them all.....

And that is all I'm going to tell you. This is not one of those action-packed page-turning novels, but more one based on Kester and Eleanor's relationship as they try to grow and adapt to the death of one society and emergence of the new. Despite a bit too trite of an ending, I enjoyed this a lot and I can't remember the last time I stopped so many times to note a page I wanted to go back to and quote for the review. So without further ado,

"She began to understand what people might be like when they had lived for generations in this quiet grandeur, their instincts curbed by the standards of their culture till they had no uncertainties, their characters polished by their knowledge in all circumstances of what was expected of them."

Kester's definition of `white trash', "people who have no fineness, no delicacy, no knowledge that some things are Caesar's and some things are God's."

"We fell in love because we were so different. Then all we did was twist and pull at each other, trying to make changes that couldn't be made."

"They had rushed into a marriage across a barrier that intolerant generations had been building for a hundred and fifty years; they had laughed when warned of its existence and then blamed each other when they had found that laughter did not blow it down."

Don't let those used prices scare you on some of those editions in the Trilogy - they can be found in libraries in the US and if yours participates in the ILL program you should be able to get them. Four stars.

This book is the best of the trilogy (including Deep Summer and The Handsome Road). It follows the marriage of Kester Larne and Eleanor Upjohn, two very different people who have to strike a compromise in a difficult time. It's very realistic in its treatment of marriage, and the problems that can arise when people who are attracted to each other's differences have to adjust to the very things they first loved. Neither of the two main characters is a saint, and both are very real and believable. And I learned things about the First World War that I never knew. I recommend this book highly.