The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel
by Thornton Wilder
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Book Reviews of The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel
Book Review: No epiphany here....A book about the obvious
Summary: 2 Stars
I read this book to the point in the story where the bridge collapses and Father Juniper decides to investigate the lives of the victims to see what they had in common, thereby discovering the logic behind God's will. At this point I completely lost interest. Why proceed? Anyone with any life experience already knows what he'll find. NOTHING! No logic,no hidden meaning, no consistant thread! Why did the bridge collapse when they were on it? BECAUSE S--T HAPPENS, THAT'S WHY! No other reason! Who didn't already know this? Why wade through the rest of the book to read a conclusion you can easily predict?
Nevertheless, wade through I did. What was revealed was that each person was a typical human being who loved, was loved, had flaws, etc. But didn't we already know this would be the case? His final conclusions about the connections between people and "love being the only survival, the only meaning" are basically the same inadequate, ultimately unsatisfying conclusions I've heard repeated before in casual discussions. Implied is that nothing is permanent, there is no forever, no certainty of any existence beyond this one. We live, die, are briefly remembered by our loved ones who eventually die themselves, and then it's as if we never existed. Can anyone sing "Dust in the Wind"?
Everyone I've ever talked to who had given much thought to the purpose of life, unless they had strong religious convictions, essentially reached this same conclusion. I doubt most of them had read Mr. Wilder's book.
Wilder has written a book in an attempt to illustrate the obvious. Perhaps he was too young, and too inexperienced in life, to realize at the time how obvious it was.
Book Review: Plan or accident?
Summary: 5 Stars
This short, brilliant novel attempts to answer the question "Do we live by accident and die by accident, or live by plan and die by plan." A well-traveled, primitive bridge in Peru collapses one day in the early 1700s, sending five people to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a Spanish friar, is sent to investigate; he reveals to us the life stories of the five victims. The five people represent a mixture of the proud, the contrite, the sick at heart. Brother Juniper is convinced their deaths are a just act of God, for which he is condemned by the Church and burned at the stake. Countering Brother Juniper's view is Wilder, who believes that the answer to the question is not decidedly accident or plan, but an ambiguous combination of the two. Above all, he claims, is the love that was involved in each person's life: this love "will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. There is a land of living and a land of dead and the bridge is love."
Wilder develops his theme and characters superbly; the characters whose lives are lost at the bridge are beautifully fleshed out. In fact, "beautiful" might be the best word to use to describe the book - it's almost poetic, especially in its concerns with love. Wilder won a Pulitzer for this, his second novel. It's a memorable work by a master craftsman and wordsmith.
Book Review: Interesting look at Ordained Fate or Bad Luck
Summary: 4 Stars
Thornton Wilder won the 1928 Nobel Prize with this concise novel about the tragic collapse of a bridge in Spanish Colonial Peru in 1714. A Catholic Friar named Brother Juniper witnesses the tragedy as he was about to cross the 100-year old bridge when it collapsed, killing all that were aboard. Brother Juniper then sets out to learn all he can about the lives of the five victims. He also seeks to determine whether their tragic end derived from luck, fate, or devine ordination. Together with Brother Juniper we come to know and care about the five victims (Dona Maria & Pepita, Estaban, Uncle Pio & Jaime). Clearly there are parallels in these pages to the tragic hand of fate that sometimes strikes people we know, leading so many of us to ask why? Ironically, Brother Juniper's six-year quest about the tragic causation leads to his own demise as a heretic.
We read this book as high school freshman and liked it's easy-reading style. I remember enjoying the book's presentation of life in Colonial South America, but as a teen not entirely understanding its examination of those dark questions about fate, luck and tragedy. Some readers praise this novel as masterful; others find it more worthy than outstanding. Whatever your view, the author never quite answers the central question with iron-clad certainly. But then, what human ever has?
Book Review: A timeless moral fable
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a short, exquisite meditation on life and the meaning of our existence. This winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize centers on the collapse of a bridge in 18th-century Peru that takes the lives of five people. A priest who witnesses the event wonders about the five who die. Why were they chosen? Was there a master plan or did the event occur simply at the whim of God. Being a religious man with a desire to place theology amongst the sciences, he sets out to empirically prove why the event happened by learning about the lives of those who perished.
Wilder's prose is a wonder to read, near perfect in its pace and pitch. But this is a moral fable, with the conclusion that love is the meaning of it all. And with the novel consisting of almost exclusively characterization, this novel has almost no chance of finding appreciation among the masses today, who need a fast-paced plot and don't liked to be preached to. This probably explains why Wilder, a courageous writer who pushed the boundaries of literature, is under-appreciated these days. That's a shame; we could all learn something from his books. And if nothing else, if we're insistent upon learning nothing from our literature, we could sit back and enjoy the beautiful writing.
Book Review: Extremely overrated
Summary: 1 Stars
Just about every review I've read on 'San Luis Rey' mentions that the book won Wilder a Pulitzer Prize. Why it did is beyond me. I thought the stories in the book were extremely tedious, especially the Spanish woman's and her daughter. The amount of detail is overwhelming and for what? What's the point of all that rambling about their relationship? It might have been useful to the reader if there was a tie in with the ultimate fate (i.e. the death) of this or any other character in the book. But there isn't! Wilder fails to connect anything in any kind of meaningful way, which leaves the reader with a terribly hollow feeling about the long slog he has made with the author. The concept is a good one: do we live and die by accident or by plan? That's the 64 dollar question that Wilder asks. But neither he nor Brother Juniper is in any kind of a position to deal with it. The book only ends with some tiresome platitudes about love and so forth. The year this novel was published must have been a very lean year indeed to warrant a Pulitzer Prize for this tedious, tiresome and very overrated piece of literature.