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    The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey
    Audiobook3 hours

    The Bridge of San Luis Rey

    Written by Richard Ferrone and Thornton Wilder

    Narrated by Sam Waterston

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    About this audiobook

    The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder's second novel, won him the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes. The novel opens in the aftermath of an inexplicable tragedy-a tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five travelers hurtle to their deaths. Most townspeople think to themselves with secret joy, quot;Within 10 minutes myself...." But for Brother Juniper, a humble Franciscan friar who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is inescapable: Why those five? Suddenly, Brother Juniper is committed to discover what manner of lives these five disparate people led-and whether it was divine intervention that took their lives, or a capricious fate. Wilder maintained in his works that true meaning and beauty are found in ordinary experience. This is especially true of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. From the very beginning to the stunning conclusion, the listener is absorbed into the individual stories of the five victims, and how their destinies intertwine.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJan 13, 2004
    ISBN9781598873009

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    Reviews for The Bridge of San Luis Rey

    4/5

    108 ratings71 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Rating: A+Perhaps on of the best novels I've ever read. Brilliantly told. Wonderful character development. Many anticipated, but unexpected turns. Story will stay with me a long while.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Not sure i got this one......Pulitzer Prize???? Really???? I even had the special Reader's Enrichment Series editionand read the quasi-Cliff's Notes in the back, and i still did not get it. Modestly interesting at best..sort of a several degrees of separation story in reverse stepping back to follow the lives of several different people as they head towards a tragic event that ended all of their lives. Lots of troubled souls wading through the socially stratified Lima, Peru of the early 1700's. Lots of references to the relationship between Peru and Spain, lots of references to 17th Century Spanish literature and Catholic beliefs that i had no connection with whatsoever, and therefore felt somewhat left behind. Maybe 1927 was a weak year in Literature.....or maybe I just am a little too simple.....Basically, I would not recommend this to any other than rabid bookies that need to read all the prize-winners, just because.....sorry.
    • 4/5
      Simple yet divine.
    • 4/5
      I adored Wilder’s Our Town the first time I saw it performed. It’s a simple story, but it reaches something deep within the reader because its poignant message is one we can all relate to. The core moments of the show are about the inevitable joys and sorrows of life. This slim Pulitzer-Prize winner is similar in the fact that it looks at what gives each life meaning.Once again Wilder allows us into the lives of the characters, although this time we are in Lima, Peru. A bridge collapses in 1714 and five people are killed. A priest, Brother Juniper, tries to find some meaning in the accident by researching the lives of the people who were killed. We see each individual who is killed and learn about the people they were close to, including twin brothers, a stage performer, and a spurned mother. Each new life the priest explores is complex and beautiful. There is no black and white in a person’s life. They are not all good or evil; it’s never as simple as that.BOTTOM LINE: A beautiful story about trying to find meaning in tragedy. Our Town remains my favorite piece by Wilder, but I will read more of his work as soon as I can."There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
    • 5/5
      A beautiful short novel of love and its many facets. This isn't a story of romantic love, but of the different kinds of love that family and friends share. Love of the heart for people that encompasses the good and bad.
    • 3/5
      Weird. Some cool writing, kind of reminded me of the text to some Edward Gorey books (but not as silly or macabre). But I totally didn't get the point of the book. I'm going to have to look it up and have someone explain it to me.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful, elegiac discourse on the nature of love and life. Rarely do I read such moving literature. The prose boarders on poetic. I would highly recommend this. It's a quick read, but deserves carful contemplation.
    • 3/5
      3.5***
      The novel begins at noon on July 20, 1714, when the “finest bridge in all Peru” suddenly collapses, sending five people plummeting to their deaths. A Franciscan missionary, Brother Juniper, witnesses the calamity and asks, “Why those five?” He feels this Act of God must have specifically targeted those people, and none of the other thousands of citizens who might have been on the bridge instead. So he investigates the lives of the five victims in an attempt to understand what happened.

      This is a moral fable in which Wilder tries to answer the question, “Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual’s own will?” He explores the characters’ motivations in life, their triumphs and disappointments. Its universal appeal is that Wilder is writing about human nature – conflicted, noble, contradictory, loving, and exasperating. He holds a mirror up to the reader’s own soul, asking the reader to examine his or her own actions and reactions.

      Then Prime Minister Tony Blair read the closing sentences of this work at the memorial service for British victims of the Sept 11 attack on the World Trade Center: “Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
    • 4/5
      Thornton Wilder's short novel ends with the following sentence: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." This conclusion to his story of the death of five innocents as the title bridge collapses is a clue to some of the meaning that one may glean from this well-written novel.Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, this novel certainly qualifies as a classic. In my recent, long overdue, reading I found the style fitting for a tale of Peru with the prose evocative of the setting; however, the individual parts were uneven and only with the the story of Uncle Pio did I find the theme of love emerging in a meaningful way for me. Perhaps the opening story of the Marquesa and her daughter, with its layers of Catholicism, was too foreign for me to appreciate. The doppleganger existence of the twins, Esteban and Manuel, was also a strange interlude. Holding the story together like a thread of beautiful silk was the young Camila Perichole (based on a real person as was the Marquesa). Whatever the reason, the novel unfolded for me slowly and became a better read as I neared the ending with its famous sentence. The question of innocence and guilt and who deserves to die remains in my mind long after I laid the novel down. It is certainly one of the very best first novels that I have read and I will likely return to it.
    • 3/5
      The Bridge of San Luis Rey is an interesting novella. It's underscored by a quiet kind of urgency, if that makes sense. Wilder's opening question pulses through each chapter, and yet the conclusion brings no change. The urgency - never mind the question - is wholly unresolved and unlessened. I'm usually a fan of novels that contain more off the page than on, negativist kind of books like this, but I couldn't help wanting more. Wilder gave me a a few frames, but I wanted the rest of the reel.A bridge outside of Peru collapses, killing five people, and brother Juniper is determined to investigate the five, seemingly random, deaths. He is convinced that the lives of these five will reveal the hand of God; the role of providence in their fates.Does it? Well, that's a question Wilder leaves very much to the reader. His mellifluous, allusive prose certainly contains enough for a dozen postulations, each as valid as the last. This makes the novella somewhat of a Gordian knot; essentially unsolveable. There are other compensations, however. In a hundred pages, Wilder summons up a wonderful cast of characters. Each of the victims is built up swiftly, passionately, and efficiently. The characterisation ranges from children to old people, and it is comprehensive and solidly believable. Wilder's empathy with - and accuracy in portraying - such a varied cast is really exemplary.Even beyond its five victims, The Bridge of San Luis Rey is peppered with intriguing people. A few meagre paragraphs is enough to conjure forth someone deserving of their own novel: The grief-stricken captain; the virtuous but corpulent priest; the urbane and rebellious daughter. Married to Wilder's asynchronous prose - an-almost Romantic, heady and unmitigated style, yet not flowery for it - the novella is certainly an easy read. The supplementary materials included in this edition also provide much insight into his thoughts in writing it (though, I implore you to avoid the "foreword" unless you want the entire book outlined to you in five pages. I have no idea why anybody thought that was a good idea to include at start of the book).Ultimately, because of the strengths of Wilder's writing, I found it impossible _not_ to think on this story, turning it over and around like a Rubik's Cube. And yet, the longer I did this, the more frustrated I became. The Bridge of San Luis Rey is not intended to be solved; it simply is. This zen-like quality may sit very well with some - and it's certainly thoughtful and worthy of thought. But for those of us used to a more conventional narrative it may frustrate somewhat. Nonetheless, an interesting novella and worth the attention it takes to get through the hundred-odd pages.
    • 4/5
      The ending of this book is so resonant.
    • 4/5
      A bridge in Peru collapses, sending five people plummeting to their deaths. Brother Juniper is determined to show that this is no random chance, and sets out to write the definitive book proving that this is all part of a plan. The unnamed narrator of this book lays out the facts as well, giving us interlocking stories of the people who were on the bridge that fateful day.Was it fate or was it chance? Who were these five people on the bridge, and what brought them to that place on that day in 1714 when the bridge collapsed? Though it's a short book, it manages to pack in quite a lot about these characters and their connections, and leave you with much food for thought. I was much more familiar with Thornton Wilder as a playwright and author of Our Town, but one of my co-workers happened to be reading this for her book club this month. I was in the mood for something a little more challenging that what I'd been reading lately, so I picked it up. I'm glad I did.
    • 2/5
      Didn't know what to expect of this book - quite a good reflection on why people die when they do
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. I waffled for a few minutes about whether it deserves 4 or 5 stars, and I finally settled on 5 stars. The only reason why I hesitated was that some of the characters had some inconsistencies that were jarring at times, but I think that was intentional on the authors part. The essence of the book was the complexities of man that makes it difficult to judge their worth and salvation, and these sudden inconsistencies portray this complexity.For those unfamiliar with the book, Wilder has invented a character, Brother Juniper, who wants to prove the existence of God scientifically. His method is to study the lives of five characters who plunged to their deaths when the Bridge of San Luis Rey (fictional) collapsed in Lima, Peru in the late eighteenth century. He hopes that through studying these five characters, he will be able to ascertain why their lives were suddenly ended by God, whether it be due to punishment for their sins or salvation due to their piety.What follows is a brilliant study of the complexities of man and what makes us who we are as well as the difficulties of determining the existence of God and, if he exists, his nature. Wilder does a wonderful job of presenting the important questions about the meaning of our existence and the worth of individual lives without ever answering his questions. The end result is that book stays with the reader for hours after reading it as you try an unravel some of these philosophical questions on your own. I found it to be a thought-provoking book for the modern reader, just as I'm sure it was when it was first published in the 1920s, and I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Five people are killed when a small bridge breaks in Peru. A priest investigates the lives of the five people to try to understand why these five were killed.
    • 5/5
      Three intermingled stories of various Peruvians living in Lima during the Spanish colonial era, and dying by an act of God while crossing the famous Incan bridge. The story as a whole is an exercise in answering the question "Why? Why them?" Thornton Wilder's answer was simple, and well-loved (he got the Pulitzer, the book was a smash and unprecedented success and the proceeds from this one short book, written in his twenties, set him up for the rest of his life).By the way, the Foreword by Russell Banks is bad and I would advise avoiding it, but the Afterword by the author's granddaughter is very good, going into his letters, interviews and original drafts.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book and the reader. I will listen to it again to share it with my husband. The language is beautiful, but simple and clearly expressive. The stories of the individuals and the conclusions of the priest are extremely moving.
    • 5/5
      I really, really liked this book. I am glad that the religious theme did not stop me. Despite its brevity, the novel really succeed in bringing all the characters to life for me. He manages to find just the right words to describe the difficult relationship between the old woman and her daughter, balanced on the precarious border between love and selfishness, touching me deeply. The ending was also surprisingly strong with one of the few "purpose of life" ideas that actually makes sense. Great book!

      Ironically enough, the afterword, which complains about the first edition of the book going all out to make it appear longer to justify the price, does exactly that. I found it quite boring with excessive reprinting of advanced praise of the first edition and the like. It felt like the publishers crammed it with whatever relevant/ irrelevant info they could find to make it longer.
    • 4/5
      This novel, perhaps more than any other in the history of American literature, asks "Can bad things really happen to good people?" On one day in 1714, the Bridge of San Luis Rey collapses, sending five people falling to their deaths. Brother Juniper, one of the witnesses to the tragedy, seeks to explain how and why this could have happened. The bulk of the novel, a concerted effort on the part of Juniper to justify the ways of God to man, is a carefully woven portrait of their interconnecting and overlapping lives, loves, successes and failures leading up to the day of the bridge collapsing.The Marquesa de Montemayor, whose daughter treats her with supreme indifference, has just seen her move away to marry her husband, a Spanish Viceroy. She copes mainly by writing beautiful, elaborate letters to her daughter and son-in-law. The Marquesa becomes reclusive and introspective, and asks the local Abbess and proprietress of an orphanage for the company of one of her girls. Pepita comes to live with her and provide much-needed companionship. On learning that her daughter is pregnant, the Marquesa makes a visit to the shrine at Santa Maria de Cluxambuqua. On her return to Lima, accompanied by Pepita, we learn that they are killed on the bridge. We later learn through Brother Juniper that the letters she wrote are gems of the Spanish language and are canonized and anthologized for schoolchildren to learn ages and ages hence.Another story revolves around two twins named Manuel and Esteban (Wilder himself was a twin whose brother died in childbirth) who, also under the protection of the same local Abbess, grow up to become scribes. Soon Manuel is taken in to compose letters for the extraordinarily talented stage talent who goes by only "the Perichole," who is in romantic cahoots with both the Spanish Viceroy and a local bullfighter (see Offenbach's eponymous opera, as well as the short story by Prosper Merimee). After Manuel dies of an infection, Esteban is enlisted to assist one Captain Alvarado on a long voyage, partially in order to pay for a present for the Abbess. On the way to buy the present, Esteban crosses the Bridge of San Luis Rey and his fate befalls him.Uncle Pio, the Perichole's assistant, maid, and general counselor, has an interesting life of his own. Growing up as a diplomat, theater impresario, and Catholic shill during the Inquisition, he finds Micaela Villegas (see the historical personage of the same name, whom Wilder has only slightly fictionalized here), whom he trains and refashions in his own image, turning her into the best-known Peruvian actress of her time. After having become thoroughly disillusioned with the theatre and her success, she wishes to enter into proper society and wishes to never talk to Uncle Pio again. After some hesitation, the Perichole allows Pio to take her son and give the curious boy the proper education that he deserves. Leaving the next morning, they are the last two victims of the bridge.Looking for one common thread to tie all of these disparate lives together, the reader is drawn over and over again to fact that they all see confounded by their personal searches for love and meaning. As much money or success they attain, we see lives beguiled by angst and beset by circumstance. By no means, and Brother Juniper would certainly have noted this in his book, do we find people who "deserved" to die.But the Bridge of San Luis Rey has a sixth victim, one who didn't fall hundreds of feet into the ravine below: Brother Juniper himself. Having written his book full of the most diligent and ingenuous research in an attempt to find out why God would let this happen (was it punishment for evil? Or was God just indifferent to human suffering?), the Catholic Church finds his book heresy and they burn him for it. What was so heretical? Perhaps that he would be so presumptuous as to explain God's plan for the world.As far as the form and structure of the novel are concerned, the first and last chapters, the only places where Wilder allows himself philosophical divulgence, are a little too cordoned-off for my taste, rendering the deeply resounding questions of theology and meaning merely peripheral. I feel that interlarding them into the lives of the five characters would probably have better achieved what was most likely one of his goals in the first place - to meditate on questions of fate, free will, chance, and mortality. Finally, while to pen, at the age of thirty, a novel this succinct and full of impact is an accomplishment in itself, I feel that tripling or even quadrupling the size of the book would have made the characters more realistic. But if that were the case, of course, it would not have the wonderful quality of being told to you as a griot would tell it, as the scintillating moral fable it is.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It is a set of short stories linked together by a framing narrative- a bridge collapses and several people are killed, and each story tells the story of one of the people who died in that event. The writing is lovely, and some of the imagery is hauntingly memorable.
    • 3/5
      It was a good short read, about relationships. A book that was a morality tale sort of. Not sure why it was on the list for the 200 best books from the Modern Library. But at least it was short, and to the point, and did not meander through the valley.
    • 3/5
      A classic novella following the philosophical investigations of a priest into the stories of five people killed when a bridge collapses in Peru. As a collection of short stories it works well. I particularly liked the story of the twins which was quite Borgesian. As a novel less so I feel because we needed a greater overall picture of the life of Brother Juniper.
    • 4/5
      The bridge of San louis Rey collapses causing the deaths of five people. A fransician monk who escaped the accident delves into the lives of the victims.I read this book in fits and starts and did it a disservice. The writing was subtle and intuitive but I kept losing the thread of the story.Worth a reread - next time in a sitting.
    • 4/5
      The premise for The Bridge of San Luis Rey is fascinating. In a nutshell an Italian monk by the name of Brother Juniper was not only witness to a terrible tragedy, he was mere moments away from sharing the same horrific fate. An ancient bridge in Lima, Peru collapses just as five travelers have set out across it. Instead of suffering a kind of survivors guilt, Brother Juniper is instead encouraged to pursue his study of theology, using the tragedy to demonstrate scientific reason as to why his life was spared. Being a man of the cloth he wants to prove it was divine intervention that caused him to avoid such an unfortunate demise. More importantly, he can finally prove the five victims who weren't so lucky shared a common fault and their deaths were part of a larger plan. The other option, less likely in the eyes of Brother Juniper, was it was a simple, random accident. Brother Juniper devotes his life to researching the private lives and documenting the secrets of the five victims, in a search for commonality. All in the hopes of proving the collapse was considered an act of god, a shared destiny. This would be something Brother Juniper could finally attach his scientific study of theology to.
    • 4/5
      I saw the movie as a child, then as a young adult read the book. The theme of individuals with no ties to each other suddenly coming together at the end of life (how many bridges fall around the world, over time) has an irrestible appeal. The South American setting for me at this early age added another dimension. It is also a fairly short book. About time for a movie remake I would say to see the book's popularity go up.
    • 5/5
      One would think that a story about several people who die falling from a rope bridge that snaps would be depressing. The story is about a gentle old friar who attempts to look into the peoples' lives to see if they were "innocent", or if the tragedy was indeed a judgment on them. The beautiful conclusion of this little book is that love is a bridge that never breaks...
    • 5/5
      strangely moving. a masterclass in characterisation, summary, and an interesting structure that breeds pathos and bittersweet irony
    • 5/5
      This was a fantastic book. I love books that pose big questions, and the question posed in this book is one of the biggest. Having lost friends to accidents and to suicide, it's a question that has gone through my mind repeatedly - why them? What does it mean? While Wilder does not exactly answer the question (he leaves it for the reader to decide), he poses it brilliantly and beautifully. This is a book that really gets you thinking, which is how all great books should be.
    • 3/5
      "The finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below"By sally tarbox on 26 February 2018Format: Kindle EditionIn 1714 Peru, a bridge gives way, killing the five random individuals on it; an old noblewoman, ugly, derided by many, and abandoned by her lovely but cold-hearted daughter; the orphan girl attending her; a depressed young man who has lost his twin brother; an elderly man who 'manages' a celebrated actress; and the young son of said lady, whom he's taking to educate.After the event, a local priest tries to investigate the lives of the victims in a bid to prove a logic to this 'act of God'. While the abbess who knew the dead sees the effect of the tragedy on those left behind and their resultant actions, commenting "there is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."This is a well-written work as Wilder delineates the complex characters of the protagonists. I didn't find it massively engaging as a read, but recognise the literary merit and philosophical debate.
    • 5/5
      "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is a perfect little book, and also a perfect, little book. No wonder it's been read and reread for so long, and filmed so many times. Actually, I saw the film first, the one with Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel, and now that I can compare the two, I can say that the film is one of the finest adaptations of anything in a long, long time.The story, such as it is, concerns the study by a man of the cloth of the tragedy of the fall of the eponymous bridge. He asks, could this have been God's plan?, and he spends years interviewing subjects to find out all about those who perished. It's a terribly sad story, full of meaning and truths half-forgotten, and written with such panache that it's hard to give this anything but full marks.