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leic01 's review for:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder
“Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.”
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a Pulitzer Prize winning short novel tackling the big religious and philosophical questions. The story follows the lives of five victims of the bridge collapse. The crash is witnessed by a monk, brother Jupiter, who in his own fear in the proximity of tragic fate that could easily befall him as well, embarks a civilization-old question; “Why did the tragedy occur to exactly this group of people?”. In searching for answers Jupiter wants to find the thread that connects victims' lives to the tragedy and explain this divine intervention. This is an ancient quest to find the meaning of suffering. Because the greatest pain is not the tragedy, but our incapability to find the meaning in it. Facing the absurd is more excruciating than facing the pain itself. In that sense, this novel made me reminiscent of [a:Camus's|957894|Albert Camus|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1606568448p2/957894.jpg] [b:The Plague|11989|The Plague|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503362434l/11989._SY75_.jpg|2058116]. The character of monk Jupiter is similar to father Paneloux in trying to use an external religious system of belief to impose forced meaning to the senselessness of tragic fate, rejecting the absurd element of life and randomness by which suffering is imposed on young, as well as on old, on good, as well as on bad.
“If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan. And on that instant Brother Juniper made the resolve to inquire into the secret lives of those five persons, that moment falling through the air, and to surprise the reason of their taking off.“
Monk Jupiter is determined to subject the mystery of life and death to reason. For him, there are two options, there is a logically detectable system of explanation that is reachable through empirical observation, or there is no explanation at all, no meaning or greater plan of for life.
“It seemed to Brother Juniper that it was high time for theology to take its place among the exact sciences, and he had long intended putting it there. What he had lacked hitherto was a laboratory.”
Jupiter's quest unravels the stories of morally gray characters, full of flaws, but also full of imperfect and utterly human love and passion, complex real people that cannot be subjected to pure demise and punishment of sinners nor heavenly glory of saints. Both generous and selfish, cruel and merciful, innocent and sinful, the five characters are an archetypical representation of all of humanity; The Great Mother, The Orphan Girl, The Brother, The Teacher and The Beloved Son. Father Jupiter finds no answer at all, only unfinished life stories carried by flawed and somewhat self-serving love.
“The discrepancy between faith and the facts is greater than is generally assumed.“
Life and death, as well as the complete meaning of suffering, will be not ever subjected and reached by human reason, and that is the quest that only leads to the death of characters that pursuit it, as we can see in brother Jupiter, father Paneloux ([b:The Plague|11989|The Plague|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503362434l/11989._SY75_.jpg|2058116]) even Captain Ahab ([b:Moby-Dick or, the Whale|153747|Moby-Dick or, the Whale|Herman Melville|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327940656l/153747._SY75_.jpg|2409320]). Meaning, fate, love and hope cannot be empirically investigated, proven nor explained. One must be open to the indefinite mysteriousness of the world, and one cannot fool gods with his intellect and find a definite meaning of destiny.
In the famous finishing sentence Wilder detects love as the bridge of life and death and the only meaning, but at the same time throughout the novel shows that in this world, human love is always defective, never the same, and uniquely individual, just as our lives.
"Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well."
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a Pulitzer Prize winning short novel tackling the big religious and philosophical questions. The story follows the lives of five victims of the bridge collapse. The crash is witnessed by a monk, brother Jupiter, who in his own fear in the proximity of tragic fate that could easily befall him as well, embarks a civilization-old question; “Why did the tragedy occur to exactly this group of people?”. In searching for answers Jupiter wants to find the thread that connects victims' lives to the tragedy and explain this divine intervention. This is an ancient quest to find the meaning of suffering. Because the greatest pain is not the tragedy, but our incapability to find the meaning in it. Facing the absurd is more excruciating than facing the pain itself. In that sense, this novel made me reminiscent of [a:Camus's|957894|Albert Camus|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1606568448p2/957894.jpg] [b:The Plague|11989|The Plague|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503362434l/11989._SY75_.jpg|2058116]. The character of monk Jupiter is similar to father Paneloux in trying to use an external religious system of belief to impose forced meaning to the senselessness of tragic fate, rejecting the absurd element of life and randomness by which suffering is imposed on young, as well as on old, on good, as well as on bad.
“If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan. And on that instant Brother Juniper made the resolve to inquire into the secret lives of those five persons, that moment falling through the air, and to surprise the reason of their taking off.“
Monk Jupiter is determined to subject the mystery of life and death to reason. For him, there are two options, there is a logically detectable system of explanation that is reachable through empirical observation, or there is no explanation at all, no meaning or greater plan of for life.
“It seemed to Brother Juniper that it was high time for theology to take its place among the exact sciences, and he had long intended putting it there. What he had lacked hitherto was a laboratory.”
Jupiter's quest unravels the stories of morally gray characters, full of flaws, but also full of imperfect and utterly human love and passion, complex real people that cannot be subjected to pure demise and punishment of sinners nor heavenly glory of saints. Both generous and selfish, cruel and merciful, innocent and sinful, the five characters are an archetypical representation of all of humanity; The Great Mother, The Orphan Girl, The Brother, The Teacher and The Beloved Son. Father Jupiter finds no answer at all, only unfinished life stories carried by flawed and somewhat self-serving love.
“The discrepancy between faith and the facts is greater than is generally assumed.“
Life and death, as well as the complete meaning of suffering, will be not ever subjected and reached by human reason, and that is the quest that only leads to the death of characters that pursuit it, as we can see in brother Jupiter, father Paneloux ([b:The Plague|11989|The Plague|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503362434l/11989._SY75_.jpg|2058116]) even Captain Ahab ([b:Moby-Dick or, the Whale|153747|Moby-Dick or, the Whale|Herman Melville|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327940656l/153747._SY75_.jpg|2409320]). Meaning, fate, love and hope cannot be empirically investigated, proven nor explained. One must be open to the indefinite mysteriousness of the world, and one cannot fool gods with his intellect and find a definite meaning of destiny.
In the famous finishing sentence Wilder detects love as the bridge of life and death and the only meaning, but at the same time throughout the novel shows that in this world, human love is always defective, never the same, and uniquely individual, just as our lives.
"Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well."