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exurbanis 's review for:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder
This classic, dug out of basement storage in our central library at my request, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1928. The copy I read was actually printed then, so was quite fragile.
The setting of this book is Lima Peru 250 years ago. One fateful day a bridge made of willows which for ages has spanned a deep gorge near the city, breaks, and five people plunge to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a monk, witnesses the accident and determines to trace the life stories of the five to prove his belief that each of them in some way deserved this fate, and that such a catastrophe was God’s will.
Thankfully, I found that Brother Juniper’s purpose in researching the characters paled to the characters themselves and their intersecting lives. Not only a study of Peruvian society of the 18th century, but also an unmasking of societal attitudes of the 1920s.
As an aside: A new biography, Thornton Wilder: A Life by Penelope Niven was released October 30th, 2012.
Read this if: you love to see how lives intersect & the part circumstance plays in one’s destiny; or if you’re looking for a fairly short & not difficult-to-read classic to complete a reading challenge. 3½ stars
The setting of this book is Lima Peru 250 years ago. One fateful day a bridge made of willows which for ages has spanned a deep gorge near the city, breaks, and five people plunge to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a monk, witnesses the accident and determines to trace the life stories of the five to prove his belief that each of them in some way deserved this fate, and that such a catastrophe was God’s will.
Thankfully, I found that Brother Juniper’s purpose in researching the characters paled to the characters themselves and their intersecting lives. Not only a study of Peruvian society of the 18th century, but also an unmasking of societal attitudes of the 1920s.
As an aside: A new biography, Thornton Wilder: A Life by Penelope Niven was released October 30th, 2012.
Read this if: you love to see how lives intersect & the part circumstance plays in one’s destiny; or if you’re looking for a fairly short & not difficult-to-read classic to complete a reading challenge. 3½ stars