From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Thornton Wilder,

Russell Banks (Foreword)

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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What Members Thought

Aug 01, 2020 Chrissie rated it did not like it

Shelves: audible-us, 2020-read, returned, religion, classics, philo-psychol, disliked, peru, relationships, love

On Friday, July 20, 1714, an ancient Inca rope bridge on the road between Lima and Cuzco, Peru, collapsed. Five fell to their death. The novel is about these five. Their lives and the people they knew intertwine. The story told is fictional.

The incomprehensibility of fate and the redemptive power of love are the book’s twin themes.

After a horrible calamity, it is often this book that is proffered. Tony Blair cited it after 9/11.

At the book’s close, the abbess at the Convent of Santa María Rosa On Friday, July 20, 1714, an ancient Inca rope bridge on the road between Lima and Cuzco, Peru, collapsed. Five fell to their death. The novel is about these five. Their lives and the people they knew intertwine. The story told is fictional.

The incomprehensibility of fate and the redemptive power of love are the book’s twin themes.

After a horrible calamity, it is often this book that is proffered. Tony Blair cited it after 9/11.

At the book’s close, the abbess at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas leaves readers with these words: "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 agree that this is a pretty sentence, an eloquent line of prose, but I would be annoyed if these words were thrown at me at the death of a loved one. At such a time one needs a show of compassion and feeling, not a lecture, not pretty words. Furthermore, the message relayed through these pretty words is not made evident by events in the story.

With the exception of this one sentence, the writing is neither pretty nor eloquent. Often events are expressed in a disjointed manner. There are sentences hard to make sense of.
“It was full of dogs that could add and multiply.”
and
“He bore his shame like an animal.”
are two examples. The prose in this book does nothing for me.

Nor do I feel anything for the characters. There are twins. They have an ability to read each other’s thoughts. I wish more had been done with this theme.

The audiobook is narrated by Thom Rivera. It’s fine; it’s OK; I could hear the words. The Spanish names are long and complicated, but this is not his fault! I have given the narration two stars.

As usual, I separate my rating of the book and the audio narration. I have not enjoyed the book, but the narration is OK. One star to the book and two to the audio narration.

I was annoyed by two more things. There is a long introduction that practically tells the whole story. At the end there is a long afterword. Here we are told a few biographical tidbits, but for the most part, it is a promotional sales gimmick telling us how popular the book has been. In other words, if you don’t like it, you’re really weird. I guess I’m weird. ...more

25 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2018 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, read-the-world-2018-2020, pulitzer, read-the-world

After a bridge in Peru collapses, killing 5, a local monk named Brother Juniper goes about learning their stories and trying to determine why they died. The results are interesting because there are no answers. The book actually inserts contradictions, and leaves Brother Juniper (and the reader) in a place where he must determine for himself the whys. I liked this aspect of the book as death is like that. We find ourselves looking back at the lives of our friends and seeking from God the answers ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Jan 08, 2023 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-fiction, proofreading, read-2023, e-books, free-literature, fiction-20th-century, gutenberg, hf-latinamerica, peru

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2011 Melissa (ladybug) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4stars, yearly-challenge, all-time-100-novels, modern-library-100-best-novels, pulitzer

The Bridge of San Luis Rey was such a touching book. The book starts out with this "rope" bridge breaking and 5 people dropping to their deaths. This was witnessed by a priest named Br. Juniper.

Br. Juniper wanted to scientifically prove that nothing just happens. That it is all G-d's will. I do believe this, but I don't believe that Wilder's Juniper really proved it in the book. I loved the stories though. All the characters stories, though never interacting, had a theme running and bringing the ...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: american-fiction, fiction-20th-century, audio-books, read-2018, pulitzer-prize

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
"Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan."

The finest bridge in all Peru collapses and five people plunge to their deaths. An eyewitness sets himself the task of explaining why it was the fate of those five to die...

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel dramatised by Judith Adams.

Stars Annette Badland as Madre Maria del Pilar, Michael Feast as Uncle Pio, Frederick Forge as Jaime, Robert Glenister as Brother Juniper, Tom Go ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 24, 2010 Janice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-worth-a-reread

I just finished reading The Bridge for the second time. Definitely a book worth returning to every decade or so.

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 06, 2022 Jenna Scribbles rated it really liked it

I’m crossing titles off my Classic TBR list.

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 03, 2010 Becca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction

This is one of the best and most beautiful books I have ever read. Some of the images that Wilder paints are in the most beautiful that I've read, and they remain imprinted on my memory years later.

"Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day, and some say, to the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God."

I still cry when I read this. ...more

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