The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Penguin Modern Classics)

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 10,664 ratings · 766 reviews

Featuring a beautiful new cover and author biography, this novel, which brought Wilder his first Pulitzer Prize, tells the story of a monk's quest to find meaning behind the deaths of five people killed in the collapse of a Peruvian bridge.

Paperback, Penguin Modern Classics, 128 pages

Published 2000 by Penguin Classic (first published 1927)

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Feb 28, 2013 Emily May rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2013

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

You might think a book so focused on God and faith would fail to have the desired effect on an atheist like me. But, actually, I think the religious factor of this novel is just a small part of something which affects all of us: our need to question why things happen. When tragedy falls upon our loved ones, or perhaps not even that, perhaps a news story captures our attention of young children involved in a fatal accident, completely in the wrong place at the wrong time - when life presents us with such situations as these, it seems it is a common element of human nature to ask that question which has plagued philosophers, priests, historians and scientists for millennia. Why.

This book begins with the collapse of the San Luis Rey bridge in Peru. Brother Juniper witnesses the disaster and watches as five people plummet to their deaths in the gorge below. He finds himself wondering why those people at that exact point were chosen to die, what it was about their lives that shaped such a destiny for them. We are taken on an emotional journey into the lives of the deceased, exploring questions about life, death, religion, faith and chance. Did these five people die because of some grave sin that doomed their souls? Or was it something far more complicated than that?

"Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well."

This beautifully written novel captures numerous emotions in a very small amount of pages and also gives the reader an interesting view of the ruling classes in Spanish South America at this time (18th century). The book can be viewed as several gradually entwining short stories which feature very different lives that end in the same unfortunate way. It is quite a painful read, especially when looking at the relationship between Dona Maria and her daughter, the former longing for the latter's love but unsure how to obtain it. Knowing the outcome of each tale adds a looming cloud of despair to the stories and makes the characters' situations that much more tragic.

What many see as this book's major weakness and I found to be its greatest strength was the lack of answers to the questions first pondered by Brother Juniper when he witnessed the collapse of the bridge. Wilder purposely leaves the ending open for interpretation as to whether these people were the victims of chance or deliberately targeted as part of God's greater plan. The only certainty is that, in one way or another, love brought each of those people to that bridge at that exact point. And I believe the ambiguity makes it all the more powerful.

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."(less)

30 likes · like · see review

Jul 27, 2012 Stephen M rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Riku!!!

Recommended to Stephen M by: David Mitchell

Shelves: time-100, mentions-mitchell, lifes-too-short-for-novels

Perhaps a Review

A book about the connections that we forge between us, Thorton Wilder’s 1928, Pulitzer winning novel is a Great Gatsby-Heart of Darkness scale of a book, with the same type of compact brevity that the other two are famous for. The book also represents some of the ideas that were swirling around at the time in the modernist canon, all those ideas that were the precursor of the meta-fictive pomo literature that was to come some 40-50 years later. It’s often nice to explore this ter...more

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May 10, 2013 Henry Avila rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On the 20th of July 1714,in Peru,five people descended to eternity,when they fell into an abyss.Ironically,while the birds sung sweetly, in a beautiful scene of snowy mountains, far away, and green vegetation and the pretty trees below. The noon collapse of the bridge at San Luis Rey, not only killed the poor unfortunates but maybe more important, showed us the world, how precious life is. An uncommon novel because it tells the reader at the very beginning, the ending.Brother Juniper,a Francisca...more On the 20th of July 1714,in Peru,five people descended to eternity,when they fell into an abyss.Ironically,while the birds sung sweetly, in a beautiful scene of snowy mountains, far away, and green vegetation and the pretty trees below. The noon collapse of the bridge at San Luis Rey, not only killed the poor unfortunates but maybe more important, showed us the world, how precious life is. An uncommon novel because it tells the reader at the very beginning, the ending.Brother Juniper,a Franciscan monk, had stopped to rest. Saw the catastrophe,from the road, the distant, tiny hurling bodies, doomed,no possible rescue...But unlike others, didn't think how lucky he was(he survived)!His thoughts were, why these beings ? At the mountain, Juniper decides to devote himself to finding out all he can about the deceased. Knocking on every door in Lima.Filling many notebooks. Writing a long book after six years of investigating them.But can anyone really know another person? The locals were shocked.The land where frequent earthquakes bring sudden death, tidal waves, that destroy coastal cities, rampant disease, which decimates the population,occurs too often. Did they think the century old ,Inca made bridge of vines and twigs, was going to last forever? Or maybe that much used artificial structure, linking the towns of Lima and Cuzco.Would always be safe...But an "Act of God," as the lawyers say, changed everyone's perspective.A royal old lady,an orphan girl,a surviving twin boy,the uncle of a famous actress,and her sickly son. All perished on the bridge.A Requiem Mass at the Cathedral, in Lima for the poor victims.The Archbishop presiding,the Viceroy in attendance,as are all the important people of the city ."There is the land of the living and a land of the dead" said this book "and the bridge is love".....Poignant story that is sad at heart,no happy endings, but asks the question, is life worth living? You only, can answer that...... A new bridge made of stone has been built, where the former legendary one was...Symbol of hope and the spirit of mankind, can prevail over adversity... (less)

11 likes · like · see review

Nov 27, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Judith

Shelves: pulitzer, time-100

Christmastime 2010. You just got home from attending a Christmas party. Your bedroom clock says that it is 12:01. You change your clothes and about to sleep so you turn off the light. Then your cellphone rings. It is one of your friends who just came from the same party. There is a terrible news. Five of your friends, the ones that you saw in the same party who boarded together in the same car had a fatal road accident. They are now all dead.

You put down the phone. You cannot sleep anymore. So...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 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 those cards feature Chippendale-type men on them...because it's funny?).

So I went to the bookshelf and pulled down Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Though I tend to annotate my books, I seldom read anything twice. There are too many books and not enough life. This is a rare exception. I've read this book four times, usually after some great heartbreak - the loss of a loved one, the loss of love itself. It is a simple, yet surpassingly elegant disquisition on the nature of love.

The book starts with the collapse of a bridge outside Lima, Peru. Five people were on the bridge and fell to their deaths in a gorge. A monk named Brother Juniper uses the collapse for an investigation into the will of God. The bridge, you see, has stood for many years and safely allowed many thousands to cross the gorge. Brother Juniper wondered why, out of all the moments on earth, the bridge chose this particular time to fall, and how it came to be that these five specific people were on it at that fateful time. Brother Juniper believed that by tracing the path of each person to the bridge, he could see - to use Melville's phrase - "God's foot upon the treadle of the loom."

The book, thus, starts as an exploration of the divine plan. God is a given, but God's nature is not: "Some say that we shall never know, and to the Gods we are like the flies that boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God."

Brother Juniper seeks to find out why these five were chosen to die. In successive chapters, his discoveries about each person is revealed. There is Esteban, and orphan learning hard lessons after the death of his brother; Uncle Pio, an old man rumored to be the father of a famous actress; Dona Maria, who devoted her life to her daughter; Pepita, another orphan, who was groomed to be an abbess; and Jaime, the son of the famous actress, who travels in the company of Uncle Pio.

Brother Juniper does not solve the mystery of the cosmos. His discovery is much more prosaic, how love brought each person to the bridge, a finding beautifully stated in the famous final lines of the book, the ones I often look to for comfort (and which has been oft quoted, by Tony Blair after 9/11, and after the 35W bridge collapse).

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." (less)

45 likes · like · see review

Sep 09, 2011 Evan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer-prize, modern-library-top-100-list, __in-my-collection, philosophy, religion, latin-america

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 i...more

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May 16, 2007 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Jan 31, 2013 Les Aucoin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

How did I manage for all these years to ignore this Pulitzer winning classic? Thornton Wilder's story is a deeply moving exploration of the nature of love and mortality (and of free will and chance versus the concept of a world of guided purpose). The author's last sentence is one of the most exquisite in American literature. Prime Minister Tony Blair quoted it at the memorial service for British victims of 9/11:

"But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we...more

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 12, 2008 Angela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Angela by: Marcie

Shelves: fiction

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 closest frien...more

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Jan 05, 2008 Wicked Incognito Now rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those readers that focus on words and technique more than entertainment

Recommended to Wicked Incognito Now by: Pulitzer Literature group

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-written a...more

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Jan 01, 2008 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 brilliantly structur...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

By chance, a monk witnesses the collapse of a bridge. In an effort to make some sense of the tragedy, he seeks to learn as much as he can about those who died. The book is divided into sections, each one giving a brief but poignant glimpse into a life, lost.

I'm not a "brief glimpse" kinda girl. I'm a "stare intently" kinda girl. But I agree with those who say that this book has a chiming, almost biblical cadence.

Just lovely.

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Dec 01, 2007 Grace rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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 although...more

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Jun 25, 2008 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Mar 18, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Few novels identify their basic plotline as succinctly and forthrightly as the opening line of Thornton Wilder’s 1927 novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey: “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.” The novel’s conceit is this: a certain Brother Juniper was himself about to step out onto the bridge when it broke and subsequently witnessed the plunge of five people into the abyss below. Brother Juniper wonder

...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Jessica Barkl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"But even while she was talking other thoughts were passing in the back of her mind. "Even now," she thought, "almost no one remembers Esteban and Pepita, but myself. Camila alone remembers her Uncle Pio and her son; this woman, her mother. But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necess...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Wynne Kontos rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My dad sent me this for my birthday, indicating it was for my "writer soul."
Wilder's play "Our Town" is something my father and I have shared since I was a child. Back when I was younger, and he'd tell me stories, I can remember him reinventing the scene where Emily is dead and has chosen to go back to her birthday party. When I finally read it when I was older I was blown away...

I'm not sure that this was the right time for "The Bridge." I've said it before in previous reviews, that books know...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Gale rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-classics

“Coincidence or Divine Mandate?”

Perhaps better known as a playwright than a novelist author
Thornton Wilder has endowed a fast-paced world with this stately novella, calmly proceeding at his own philosophical tempo--oblivious of modern demands for mindless action and soulless dialogue. Considered a classic and required reading back in the 60's, Bridge of San Luis Rey (Saint Louis, King) still exerts ingenuous literary charm upon thoughtful readers. Our disposable society scorns to take the time...more “Coincidence or Divine Mandate?”

Perhaps better known as a playwright than a novelist author
Thornton Wilder has endowed a fast-paced world with this stately novella, calmly proceeding at his own philosophical tempo--oblivious of modern demands for mindless action and soulless dialogue. Considered a classic and required reading back in the 60's, Bridge of San Luis Rey (Saint Louis, King) still exerts ingenuous literary charm upon thoughtful readers. Our disposable society scorns to take the time necessary to consider the deeper questions of life. The Why of existence--or mass disaster--proves mentally stressful for our cultivated impatience.

Conscientious Brother Juniper undertakes an exhaustive examination of the lives of five people who died simultaneously while crossing an ancient rope bridge over a Peruvian gorge in 1714. He is determined to prove to himself--if not to inevitable skeptics--that a divine hand masterminded (or at least permitted) those five mountain travelers to perish suddenly: together in death yet seemingly separate in thier lives. So the question remains: were these particular individuals singled out from their human fellows and if so, were they being punished for rewarded for the way they chose to live? Or is fate supremely indifferent; was the catastrophe but a regretful coincidence in the grand scheme of things?

Wilder's literary expertise appears in several sections of his novella for true Scenes and Acts may be discerned. In fact he permits his primary characters increasingly more dialogue with successive chapters. Plus he pens admirable supporting roles to display their foibles and goals. Is this weakened bridge meant to be merely mankind's frail efforts or does it represent some intangible which spans the chasm of Life (or Ignorance or Human Emotions)? When it parts without warning, hurling innocent victims into eternity, abruptly shredding the tapestry of their lives, which two landmarks of mortal existence cease to be connected? Then too, is the rest of society affected in some way by their absence? Or does the selfish world proceed unaware of these trivial holes? Critics may debate this work's status as a classic, but the novella encourages to reflect upon the fragility of Life.

(Apil 1, 2011. I welcome dialgoue with teachers.)
(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-one-night-reads, paperbacks

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Very timely read, especially for this quote on p. 34:

"She did not suspect that the Abbess was even there hovering about the house, herself estimating the stresses and watching for the moment when a burden harms and not strengthens."

I find it interesting and maybe a little disturbing that, while drawing his conclusion at the end that love is what makes all this life business worthwhile and not meaningless, he relates this love metaphorically to a bridge; he's just spent a whole book wondering why...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY won the Pulitzer Prize in the late 20s and has been honored in many other ways since. Many consider it Wilder's masterwork and it is on most lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

The story is simple. On July 20, 1714, a rope-fiber suspension bridge near Lima, Peru, collapsed and five people plunged to their deaths. A Franciscan monk witnessed the event and spent the next six years investigating the five victims to understand why they happened to be on the b...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, pulitzer-prize-winning-author

This book is a 1928 Pulitzer Prize winning novel that may have been a breakthrough for its time. As I read it I could not help but wonder how this content would have fared in the hands of "Boom" writers such as Octavio Paz or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Had I read this before I read the South American Boom writers I might have had more appreciation for it.

I checked Wilder's bio and could not find any time spent in Peru or South America prior to (or after) writing the book unless it was during his Co...more

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Nov 03, 2012 Debbie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 b...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Toria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I did not expect to like this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. The story begins with the collapse of the [fictional] bridge of San Luis Rey and the decision of a missionary friar to investigate the lives of the people killed in the collapse in order to discover why God willed their deaths. It goes on to tell the individual stories of the victims, always culminating in a life-changing experience or decision and how it led to the person's being on the bridge at the time of its collapse. It wa...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Renee Braverman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

by Thornton Wilder

A foot bridge collapses in Peru in 1714 and five people plummet to their deaths. A monk is witness to the disaster and wonders why. He spends the next six years collecting information about the victims to try and conclude why, why these five people. He believes the facts will show the omnipotence of God.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a very short novel. In it we meet the five victims through their stories as uncovered by Brother Juniper. We lear...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Erik rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book to follow along with one of my favorite blogs http://101books.net/. I look forward to participating in the discussion of the book on the blog.

It was fast, deep and sad. I think I missed a lot because I was reading for plot, not beauty or philosophy. Frankly, sometimes you couldn't miss those things.

I did like the last line.

I'm not sure if I would recommend it.

Interesting how the writer just threw us into these peoples' lives without much introduction and immersed us in their pa...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Book Concierge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.

Thi...more

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May 28, 2012 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book starts with an incident: A reliable bridge over a chasm gives way, dashing pedestrians of varied moral hues to their death.

If you ask the wrong question--how can God send the good and bad people on the bridge to the same sudden, unenlightening death?--you get the wrong answers, or at least answers you don't like. Exploring those questions in an analytical way--philosophy or theology--always seems to me an exercise by people who simply don't want to accept the basic mechanics of the uni...more

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May 14, 2012 Smcleish rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in August 1999.

In 1714, a bridge collapsed in Peru, and five people were killed. This may seem fairly trivial on the scale of human tragedy, but Thornton Wilder uses it as the peg around which his best known work is hung. He explores the lives of these five people up to the point where they came to this sudden stop; the small scale of the disaster means it can be given a human dimension rather than being reduced to statistics.

Thus each part, except for the in...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Liza rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, dpl-book-clubs

After the obligatory reading of Our Town in high school I pretty much never wanted to read Wilder again. That didn't change, but when The Bridge popped up as a title in our library's book club (in which I am the staff rep) I had to give it another go. And, I am actually grateful I did.

Almost a half-dozen people die in the first sentence, which definitely works as a method of hooking the reader. What follows is a fascinating character study of the people who have died along with a cultural examin...more

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Dec 07, 2011 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great art -- whether written, performed, painted, etc – stirs your soul and makes you reflect on your life and on the world around you. This book is great art. In just 108 pages, Wilder creates a beautiful story, complete with interesting, complex characters, and a premise that is as timeless and relevant now as when it was written (and when it takes place). On an ordinary day in Peru in the 1700s, a legendary bridge collapses, and five people fall to their death. A Catholic priest decides to lo...more

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About Thornton Wilder

Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...

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Three Plays: Our Town/The Skin of Our Teeth/The Matchmaker

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“The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.” — 72 people liked it

“Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but theremay never be two that love one another equally well.” — 36 people liked it

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