～ば良い方だった meaning in this sentence from IAIJ


I'm stuck with this sentence (from _An Integrated Approach To Intermediate
Japanese_ ):

> その頃、私は金がなく、 **昼の中華料理で、三十セントと三十五セントの定食のうち** 、せいぜい月に一度か二度、
> **高いのにありつければ良い方だった。**

My attempted (literal) translation is the following:

> At that time I didn't have money (and), **at the chinese food lunch, between
> a 30 cents or 35 cents fixed price lunch** , at most once or twice a month,
> it would have been the right choice if I managed to eat expensive things.

I translated the _のうち_ as equivalent to _の中_ (I think it is correct in this
case). What I'm struggling with is the _高いのにありつければ良い方だった_ part. My current
understanding of that portion is that " _～にありつく_ " means " _to get/eat with
difficulty_ " so " _高いのにありつければ_ " means something like "If I manage to eat
something expensive..." since I'm treating "高いの" as "高いこと" and ありつければ is the
conditional form of the potential form of ありつく. Finally I translated "良い方だった"
as "It was the right way/thing to do".

I think I'm missing something since the translation I provided is not very
cohesive. Could you please help me getting a better understanding of these
sentence?




の in 高いの indeed is a pronoun, but in this case it's not 高いこと "that is
expensive; expensiveness" but 高いもの "what is expensive; expensive one". More
specifically, 「～のうち（の） [adj.] の」 means " **the** more [adj.] one (of two
things)", which is what you see here. Thus 高いのにありつく should be understood
"manage to eat the more expensive one (= 35 cent lunch)".

Now, 良い方だ is a kind of idiom that is not comparing anything inside the
sentence. It is often used to describe how the situation is wretched, by
saying a bad example is still "less bad" than the rest, or an unsatisfactory
one all you can wish.

> 彼らはとても兵士と言えたものではなかった。訓練を受けてくれるのはまだ **良い方で**
> 、腹が減ったからと勝手に家に帰る者もいた。弓を取らせても、十回に一回的に当たれば **良い方だった** 。  
>  _You could by no means call them soldiers. Who willingly went through your
> training were much praiseworthy when some did go back home without leave
> because they felt hungry. When you let them shoot arrows, you could at most
> expect one hit on target every ten._

Thus, I'd translate せいぜい月に一度か二度、高いのにありつければ良い方だった as:

> I considered myself lucky if I could (manage to) have the expensive one once
> or twice in a month...




の in 高いの indeed is a pronoun, but in this case it's not 高いこと "that is
expensive; expensiveness" but 高いもの "what is expensive; expensive one". More
specifically, 「～のうち（の） [adj.] の」 means " **the** more [adj.] one (of two
things)", which is what you see here. Thus 高いのにありつく should be understood
"manage to eat the more expensive one (= 35 cent lunch)".

Now, 良い方だ is a kind of idiom that is not comparing anything inside the
sentence. It is often used to describe how the situation is wretched, by
saying a bad example is still "less bad" than the rest, or an unsatisfactory
one all you can wish.

> 彼らはとても兵士と言えたものではなかった。訓練を受けてくれるのはまだ **良い方で**
> 、腹が減ったからと勝手に家に帰る者もいた。弓を取らせても、十回に一回的に当たれば **良い方だった** 。  
>  _You could by no means call them soldiers. Who willingly went through your
> training were much praiseworthy when some did go back home without leave
> because they felt hungry. When you let them shoot arrows, you could at most
> expect one hit on target every ten._

Thus, I'd translate せいぜい月に一度か二度、高いのにありつければ良い方だった as:

> I considered myself lucky if I could (manage to) have the expensive one once
> or twice in a month...

