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bearofsand 's review for:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
From the very first sentence, this book had me engrossed in its story. The narrator in Wilder's novella makes these characters seem both real and yet somehow distant from the audience, almost like strangers we read about in the news. And maybe that is how Wilder intended it, that these random acts of disaster can happen to anyone walking along the street.
Wilder is not the first author to write about existentialism and a higher purpose, but I find it difficult to believe anyone could wrote it any better. This book's main theme is about the philosophy of existentialism. As one character puts it, "Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan." While Wilder never really gives us a definitive answer, he does wrap up this short read quite nicely with his final chapter. "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." We will come onto this Earth and die on this Earth. Some will miss us but eventually we'll all be forgotten remnants of the past. While some may say this is a depressing thought, Wilder says that the love that we share on this planet makes it all worth it, regardless of whether it's all random or not.
None of this clicked for me until those final few pages. All these characters are connected by the different types of love we can feel for our fellow humans: maternal, fraternal, romantic, etc. It's these relationships that make it all worth it. Ironically, it's the bridge of love for the dead that keep these characters in the survivors' thoughts and hearts. A very poetic thought.
Wilder is not the first author to write about existentialism and a higher purpose, but I find it difficult to believe anyone could wrote it any better. This book's main theme is about the philosophy of existentialism. As one character puts it, "Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan." While Wilder never really gives us a definitive answer, he does wrap up this short read quite nicely with his final chapter. "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." We will come onto this Earth and die on this Earth. Some will miss us but eventually we'll all be forgotten remnants of the past. While some may say this is a depressing thought, Wilder says that the love that we share on this planet makes it all worth it, regardless of whether it's all random or not.
None of this clicked for me until those final few pages. All these characters are connected by the different types of love we can feel for our fellow humans: maternal, fraternal, romantic, etc. It's these relationships that make it all worth it. Ironically, it's the bridge of love for the dead that keep these characters in the survivors' thoughts and hearts. A very poetic thought.