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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
I'm not sure why I never read this before -- it's a quick read, and a classic in the sense that despite a setting displaced in time and space from my own world, the characters felt real and fully capable of being embodied in my contemporaries.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, written by Thornton Wilder in 1927, is a philosophical novel that explores fate, love, and the meaning of life and mortality through the lens of a tragedy: the collapse of a Peruvian rope bridge. It is a beautiful, contemplative novel that offers a unique and poetic meditation on life, love, and fate. It excels in its philosophical depth and well-crafted prose, but it’s a slow, introspective read that may not appeal to everyone.
slow-paced
A series of beautiful interconnected portraits - short and sweet. You can slam this puppy.
Addresses the age old question of why did this tragedy happen to these particular people? Is it god? Fate? Something that they did or didn't do? Chance? A classic, to be sure.
I feel like I am giving this book 3 stars because I don't want to ruin the rating for a classic. Maybe I am just not cut out for this material, or I just simply missed the meaning.
When five people are set to cross a bridge that collapses beneath their feet, a nearby priest (I think that's what he was, or monk?) witnesses the collapse and sets out on a quest to find out more about these individuals and why their time had come to an end. Spanning six years the story takes you through the victims and their stories, though nothing really stuck out for me in regard to a uniqueness about them. Maybe that's the point, but also, he (the monk/priest) was trying to find some sort of connection spiritually as to why it's time for some people to die and others (like himself) are spared in moments of tragedy.
It's a fast read/listen, so maybe it will connect to others.
When five people are set to cross a bridge that collapses beneath their feet, a nearby priest (I think that's what he was, or monk?) witnesses the collapse and sets out on a quest to find out more about these individuals and why their time had come to an end. Spanning six years the story takes you through the victims and their stories, though nothing really stuck out for me in regard to a uniqueness about them. Maybe that's the point, but also, he (the monk/priest) was trying to find some sort of connection spiritually as to why it's time for some people to die and others (like himself) are spared in moments of tragedy.
It's a fast read/listen, so maybe it will connect to others.
A really gorgeous little novella. Five people cross the ancient Bridge of San Luis Rey and plummet to their deaths. A monk named Brother Juniper witnesses the tragedy and sets out on a quest to figure out whether these five individuals died for some divine purpose or whether it was mere chance at work.
As is the way with these kind of inquiries, the question that Juniper manages to answer before his own death is not quite the same one that he asked in the first place. All five characters who plunged to their deaths experienced pain, abandonment, misery and despair. The people they leave behind are their only bridge to life, and it seems that love was only renewed because of their untimely deaths and the work of Brother Juniper.
But is what WHY they died? No. Nor does is answer the more basic question of whether divine intervention or indifference is at play in this situation. He seems to imply that it was enough just to have loved, even if death stands between us and the object of our love.
This is a novel that is bandied about a lot after moments of great tragedy when people are apt to question divine justice. And just like those moments of tragedies, it's really something of a blank canvas, on which you can project your own views on the great unanswerable questions.
I'm comfortable with where I stand on these questions now, but I'll put this in my back pocket for when I might not be anymore.
As is the way with these kind of inquiries, the question that Juniper manages to answer before his own death is not quite the same one that he asked in the first place. All five characters who plunged to their deaths experienced pain, abandonment, misery and despair. The people they leave behind are their only bridge to life, and it seems that love was only renewed because of their untimely deaths and the work of Brother Juniper.
“Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
But is what WHY they died? No. Nor does is answer the more basic question of whether divine intervention or indifference is at play in this situation. He seems to imply that it was enough just to have loved, even if death stands between us and the object of our love.
This is a novel that is bandied about a lot after moments of great tragedy when people are apt to question divine justice. And just like those moments of tragedies, it's really something of a blank canvas, on which you can project your own views on the great unanswerable questions.
I'm comfortable with where I stand on these questions now, but I'll put this in my back pocket for when I might not be anymore.
"He divided the inhabitants of this world into two groups, into those who had loved and those who had not. It was a horrible aristocracy, apparently, for those who had no capacity for love (or rather for suffering in love) could not be said to be alive and certainly would not live again after their death...He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass in their late youth and from which they emerge, pale and wrung, but ready for the business of living."
I feel like I should be gushing about this classic since it is so beautifully written. But I'm not. I liked it, but it didn't blow me away. It is a short read about finding meaning in life and death, and the power of love.