book data
1233 ratings, 3.76 average rating, 181 reviews
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published
1971
(first published 1927)
by Pocket Books
binding
Mass Market Paperback, 186 pages
literary awards
Pulitzer Prize for Novel (1928)
isbn
0671756826
(isbn13: 9780671756826)
description
1928. Wilder's second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize. The book begins with the collapse of the finest bridge in all Per...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1653)
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5 stars (304)
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3 stars (364)
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2 stars (103)
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1 star (28)
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avg 3.76
My ex fiance recently contacted me, interrupting my yearlong effort to convince myself I'd never hear from her again, to tell me her dad had died. It was solemn news, for I adored the man and had, once upon a time, been within a hairbreadth of being a part of his family. I searched for the proper way to respond. I went to Hyvee and looked at the sympathy cards but, seriously, they have 2 types of sympathy cards - both lame - and 4,567,987 types of cards making fun of people turning 40 (and 3% of...more
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Read in September, 2008
I have to admit this book perplexed me a little bit. I found a good deal of it haunting. It is also somewhat aloof and detached. Much is made of the fact that Brother Juniper is trying to discover God's Plan in his misapplied scientific investigation of the sudden deaths of the handful of Peruvians plunged to their death by a collapsing bridge in the 1700s, but Juniper's story just kind of peters out at the end. The story of the Esteban brothers is the most interesting one, a great short story ...more
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8 comments
Read in August, 2006
BREATHTAKING. Beautiful prose, fascinating tale about the collapse of a bridge and the lives of the people who died there. The premise of the story is that there was a monk who was convinced that each of these people had died for a reason, and who wrote a book trying to prove the existence of God based on the life stories of the five people who died - but the narrator of the story goes on to fill in all the things the monk didn't know or misunderstood, giving this short novel layers upon layers ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to April by:
Pulitzer Literature grouprecommends it for: those readers that focus on words and technique more than entertainment
This is a fast read, and actually better than three stars, but I felt that I must rate it based on how well I personally enjoyed this book.
Pulitzer prize winning author Thornton Wilder writes about: Brother Juniper, who witnesses the deaths of five people in the 1700s when I bridge in Peru suddenly collapses. He sets out to find out all that he can about each of these people in the hopes of developing a scientific hypothesis about why God chooses to take people when he does.
It was well...more
Pulitzer prize winning author Thornton Wilder writes about: Brother Juniper, who witnesses the deaths of five people in the 1700s when I bridge in Peru suddenly collapses. He sets out to find out all that he can about each of these people in the hopes of developing a scientific hypothesis about why God chooses to take people when he does.
It was well...more
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Read in December, 2007
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a relatively short story about a Peruvian bridge that collapses in the 18th Century sending five people to their deaths. One of the witnesses, a monk called Brother Juniper, decides to trace the background of the five in a bid to understand the seemingly wanton and tragic event as an act of God.
The story then focusses on each of the victims one at a time, telling their unique and lively life stories with humour and panache. The back-stories are bril...more
The story then focusses on each of the victims one at a time, telling their unique and lively life stories with humour and panache. The back-stories are bril...more
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Read in November, 2007
A bridge in Peru breaks, and five travelers pass away in the incident. Through exploring the lives of these five people, we recognize their value of their existence. They are loved more than ever once they are gone, and this love truly sets questions for us as we try to figure out the meaning of love and the "human condition." There is always a purpose for the deaths of all people, whether it is for the good of themselves or those in their lives, it seems. Thornton Wilder tells us that...more
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5 comments
Read in January, 2008
recommended to Deborah by:
Pulitzer Prize Reading Group 2008recommends it for: everyone
I was completely taken in by this 1929 Pulitzer Prize winning book by Thornton Wilder. It's the study of 5 people from a variety of backgrounds who fall to their deaths on the Bridge of San Luis Rey. A monk during Spanish Inquisition days in Peru, investigates each of their lives to try to discover "scientifically" why God may have (if He did)chosen the specific 5 to die. Wilder writes the classic novel attempting to answer the universal question of all mankind...why do we exist and is...more
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This book was interesting, but I was expecting something way different. The book tells three separate stories of the events leading up those individuals' deaths. It is rather episodic in that it tells a story, and then starts again telling a different story, but the stories all seem to converge and end in the same place (each of the individuals died when a bridge collapsed). However, if you read the book as a moral fable rather than an interesting story, it is quite thought-provoking. It makes y...more
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Read in November, 2008
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 ...more
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, this novel certainly qualifies as a classic. In my recent, long overdue, reading I found the style ...more
Read in July, 2006
I can't really explain why, but this has to be tied for my favorite book of all time ("Breakfast of Champions" is the other). There isn't really a plot as much as the most amazing character studies I've ever read. The Marquesa will always be most heartbreaking character I've ever encountered. The last paragraph is still one of the most absolutely perfect endings. And, it's all the more remarkable that Wilder was only 3 years older than I am now when he wrote this. It's astonishing all
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in December, 2008
recommended to Zigforas by:
The Reader's Corner - Raleigh, NC (10-cents)
Truly beautiful. A story of the bridge of San Luis Rey, the five who fall with it to the valley below on a fateful Friday in July 1714, and the ardent, meticulous inquiry of a Franciscan who seeks to understand why.
....He saw the bridge divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below... Anyone else would have said to himself with secret joy: "Within ten minutes myself...!" But it was another thought that visited Brother Juniper: "Why did this happen to t...more
....He saw the bridge divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below... Anyone else would have said to himself with secret joy: "Within ten minutes myself...!" But it was another thought that visited Brother Juniper: "Why did this happen to t...more
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Read in June, 2008
Wow, I'm sorry I didn't read this book earlier! A beautifully written novel about the complexity and simplicity of being human.
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Read in October, 2008
recommends it for:
those interested in "classics" plus big questions
A Pulitzer Prize winning classic (1928), so what can my piddly "review" add...
The most interesting thing about this book is that it's set in Lima, Peru in 1714 - this by the American who wrote "Our Town." However, the Afterward of this particular edition sets this in context, so if you read the book, I recommend hunting down this particular Perennial Classics edition.
It's an interesting book that explores the themes of fate and divine punishment (or not). The writin...more
The most interesting thing about this book is that it's set in Lima, Peru in 1714 - this by the American who wrote "Our Town." However, the Afterward of this particular edition sets this in context, so if you read the book, I recommend hunting down this particular Perennial Classics edition.
It's an interesting book that explores the themes of fate and divine punishment (or not). The writin...more
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Read in September, 2008
This book has been one of my favorites since I first read it about ten years ago. I loved it just as much this time. I love the story, and the lives weaving through each other, and I love the narrators voice. And there are so many wonderful "golden lines" to think about and remember: the last paragraph, the "we live by and die by , or else we live by plan and die by plan", and all of the other wonderful things. I just love the regrets of those left behind...more
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Read in September, 2008
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder was the 1928 Pulitzer Prize winner. Set in Peru this historical fiction explores the ways in which the actions of individuals might play together in some great cosmic whole. The novel traces the lives of three of five victims of an Incan rope bridge and the friar who decides to use the tragedy to finally prove God's existence.
The first and final chapters focus on the bridge and friar while the middle three trace the lives of three of the dead: th...more
The first and final chapters focus on the bridge and friar while the middle three trace the lives of three of the dead: th...more
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Read in May, 2008
Favorite Lines:
Why did this happen to those five? If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriosly, latent in those lives cut-off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.
Some say that we will never know and that to the Gods we are like the flies t at the boys kill on a summer day, and some say on the contrary that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that h...more
Why did this happen to those five? If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriosly, latent in those lives cut-off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.
Some say that we will never know and that to the Gods we are like the flies t at the boys kill on a summer day, and some say on the contrary that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that h...more
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Read in June, 2008
I would have preferred more information on Brother Juniper, and how his lengthy intellectual search affected him, personally. I think his experiment to discover if the bridge victims somehow brought the tragedy upon themselves was a fascinating moral inquiry.
In the movie version I saw on tv many years ago (with Gabriel Byrne as Brother Juniper), there was strong condemnation of Brother Juniper by the Inquisition, and the story was told as a series of flashbacks during the trial of Brother Ju...more
In the movie version I saw on tv many years ago (with Gabriel Byrne as Brother Juniper), there was strong condemnation of Brother Juniper by the Inquisition, and the story was told as a series of flashbacks during the trial of Brother Ju...more
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Read in April, 2008
My first inclination was to give this one less star than I have given this, purely for the fact that the book failed to keep me engaged throughout the whole thing. I like the brevity of the tale; the very short length makes up for its not engaging me. The small number of chapters is also nice, were it not for the fact that each chapter seemed so long, with so few breaks.
I think what truly distanced me from the the story was the detached tone. I know that it was intentional and that it is ver...more
I think what truly distanced me from the the story was the detached tone. I know that it was intentional and that it is ver...more
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recommended to Angela by:
Marcie
I had to pull out my Post-It flags for this one -- I kept finding beautiful, thought-provoking passages to bookmark. I especially enjoyed Wilder's thoughtful observations on human nature & his interesting perspective on love. Here are a few of my favorite passages:
"[Dona Maria:] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their clo...more
"[Dona Maria:] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their clo...more
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Read in December, 2008
This is quite simply one of the most beautiful and inspiring books I have ever read. This ringing endorsement may be cliche but the fact is that, by the end of the first chapter, I had both laughed and cried.
What makes it so great?
I think the genius of Wilder's work is that he describes his characters so vividly and sympathetically in very economically chosen language. Without taking pages and pages to explain the simple, he is able to make us envious of his characters' lives when thin...more
What makes it so great?
I think the genius of Wilder's work is that he describes his characters so vividly and sympathetically in very economically chosen language. Without taking pages and pages to explain the simple, he is able to make us envious of his characters' lives when thin...more
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