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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Book 88 on Mustich’s list for me.
This is such a unique book. I really enjoyed it the pace of it and the depth of character examinations it provided.
It was a slow, thoughtful journey.
I never would have picked it up save for my 1,000 books list so I guess this is a worthwhile endeavor!
This is such a unique book. I really enjoyed it the pace of it and the depth of character examinations it provided.
It was a slow, thoughtful journey.
I never would have picked it up save for my 1,000 books list so I guess this is a worthwhile endeavor!
A solid read, but not one I would eagerly pick up again. The language is appropriately stilted, but does not make for easy reading. The characters are vivid, but more mythic than realistic - again, appropriate for this moral fable.
Memorable quotes:
Memorable quotes:
[Captain Alvarado] was the awkwardest speaker in the world apart from the lore of the sea, but there are times when it requires a high courage to speak the banal. "We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. It isn't for long, you know. Time keeps going by. You'll be surprised at the way time passes."
But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. 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.
I “get” that this is a parable-like tale and it is probably really profound but I wasn’t in the right head space to absorb it. It’s not Wilder, it’s me (probably).
this is one of those books that I think I missed because we kept moving when I was in high school. But I’m so glad I didn’t read it until now. There is so much that is resonant about this book, even so many years after its publication.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am glad to have read this small book. I had never read Wilder, and have not seen any of his plays. I had a perception of him (which I now realise is almost certainly incorrect) that he was sort of the Norman Rockwell of American letters - a nostalgist for an idealised form of Americana. So I was really happily surprised by the complexity of the portraits here, particularly of the Marquesa and Esteban. I appreciated that no one in this book was wholly good or wholly bad, and that several were able to undergo a moral change.
This makes me want to know more of his work. I am curious to know what his other works have to say about the Divine plan vs. the redemptive power of love and human connection.
This makes me want to know more of his work. I am curious to know what his other works have to say about the Divine plan vs. the redemptive power of love and human connection.
We had to read this at school many years ago. A small gem of a classic that I'll never forget
I decided to borrow The Bridge of San Luis Rey after Rebecca Makkai, in an interview with the New York Times, mentioned this as the best book she had ever received as a gift. Her father had got it for her after she had witnessed a tragic death in college and the book had "healed her".
In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, five people die when the bridge they are on - one that is on the high road between Lima and Cuzco and woven of osier by the Incas more than a century before - broke. A priest, Brother Juniper, witnesses the five plunging to their death and is determined to examine their lives, in order to make sense of how their death could be a manifestation of God's will. And so we learn about the Marquesa de Montemayor, a wealthy woman who longs for nothing more than the love of her daughter who despises her and who, inspired by her servant girl Pepita the night before, has resolved to live and love bravely henceforth. Pepita also perishes in the accident, Pepita whom the Abbess Madre Maria del Pilar was secretly grooming to be her successor. There is Esteban, whose life is shattered when he twin brother Manuel dies but has agreed to try to push on and is about to set sail from Lima with Captain Alvarado. There is Uncle Pio and Don Jaime, the son of Camila Perichole. Uncle Pio was Camila's "singing-master, her coiffeur, her masseur, her reader, her errand-boy, her banker". When Camila withdraws from the world after getting smallpox, Uncle Pio begs her to let him take her son for a year to teach him and look after him.
How might one make sense of these deaths? Was it because these 5 were more flawed in some ways and their deaths were a form of punishment? Or were they saints that God wanted to welcome to Heaven sooner? Wilder concludes:
"But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. 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."
In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, five people die when the bridge they are on - one that is on the high road between Lima and Cuzco and woven of osier by the Incas more than a century before - broke. A priest, Brother Juniper, witnesses the five plunging to their death and is determined to examine their lives, in order to make sense of how their death could be a manifestation of God's will. And so we learn about the Marquesa de Montemayor, a wealthy woman who longs for nothing more than the love of her daughter who despises her and who, inspired by her servant girl Pepita the night before, has resolved to live and love bravely henceforth. Pepita also perishes in the accident, Pepita whom the Abbess Madre Maria del Pilar was secretly grooming to be her successor. There is Esteban, whose life is shattered when he twin brother Manuel dies but has agreed to try to push on and is about to set sail from Lima with Captain Alvarado. There is Uncle Pio and Don Jaime, the son of Camila Perichole. Uncle Pio was Camila's "singing-master, her coiffeur, her masseur, her reader, her errand-boy, her banker". When Camila withdraws from the world after getting smallpox, Uncle Pio begs her to let him take her son for a year to teach him and look after him.
How might one make sense of these deaths? Was it because these 5 were more flawed in some ways and their deaths were a form of punishment? Or were they saints that God wanted to welcome to Heaven sooner? Wilder concludes:
"But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. 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."
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes