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jon288's review against another edition
3.0
Serbia. I don't know if it was the translation, but I found it quite dense. Some really nasty scenes, but as time went on things became more civilised. A good concept for a book, and it made the town come to life, but maybe too dry for me
virtualmima's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
deadea's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
spicyy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
4.5
larryerick's review against another edition
2.0
This was a difficult book to access properly. It clearly has much literary weight. Yet, at other times -- much of the time -- its approach to presenting its subject starts to wear the reader down for its reserve and its redundancy. To be more specific, the early part of the narrative felt much like an elaborate fairy tale, with the many new situations just begging for "once upon the time" introductions. The book is more like a series of stories connected by a common location. Nevertheless, this is the best part of the book, though the reader soon notes the narrative going into the setting and then flying out, like a deity looking down on its subjects, over and over again. We never quite feel what the characters are feeling. It's more like people-watching where one merely speculates what the people are feeling by their actions. The connection to key characters is weakened in the process. As the story of the people around this significant bridge in the Balkans progresses, there is a strange lapse of excessive philosophizing, and then the narrative goes back again to key characters, in and out, but with a very wearing sameness. Perhaps the author intends to show futility, but the futility doesn't appear to come from some obvious enduring conflicts, but from a malaise and depression from life never quite being what people want it to be.
julicke95's review against another edition
5.0
After getting recommendations from multiple Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian friends for this book (which they all interestingly attributed to their respective cultural heritages), I immediately purchased it when I found it in a little shop in Sarajevo. My high expectations were not disappointed. Watching the history of a typical Bosnian town unfold with the centrally located bridge in constant focus and acting as the de facto protagonist of the book was fascinating. From the moment of its construction the bridge became not only a focal point for social life in the small town of Visegrad, which was interesting in itself, but it also represented the way in which the initially closed-off and insignificant town unwillingly became embroiled in wider historical developments. As time goes on and multiple characters continually enter and exit the stage, the bridge always remains as a symbol of perseverance. This book definitely deserves to be counted among the great works of European literature.
jessby's review against another edition
5.0
The Bridge over the Drina is exceptionally and beautifully written, and by contrast effectively highlights the ugliness of mankind. Set in Bosnia, it reads almost as a series of short stories spanning a period of several hundred years from when the bridge is built, and culminates at the beginning of WWI. Religious and military tensions play out while the Bridge itself is a silent and enduring observer of the very worst of humanity; a symbol of beauty and power amongst cruelty and violence. Yet there is always hope: "Anything might happen. But one thing could not happen.... that the love of God was extinguished and had disappeared from the world. That could not be."
aorth's review against another edition
4.0
Terse, but absolutely oozing with detail about the life and times of the people in Višegrad over the course of several centuries—joy, suffering, and everything in between. It's as if the author was sitting on a cloud for four or five hundred years observing everything that went on in and around the town and of course the bridge. A fantastic introduction to the history of Southeast Europe.