The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić

[Jen]

4.5* - This is a book to savour, it covers three centuries and slowly builds the rich fabric of a community through glimpses into various characters and episodes over time. The bridge is the obvious vehicle for holding this story together, and it features beautifully as a personality in its own right. Some parts lulled for me, but overall this is gorgeous writing and the author provides deep insight into a people a history I knew little about.

[Diane]

Rating: 4 stars

A beautifully written book about the history of the town of Visegrad, Bosnia. The town possesses an imposing bridge that has spanned the river for centuries. In this book, the bridge is almost a character, having witnessed many events in the town's history. The bridge's violent history continued long after the book was published, with thousands of people dying on and around it during the Bosnian War.

[[deleted user]]

Rating 5 stars

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a history of the bridge’s construction and usage up until 1914. The book also provides background information about what is going on in Bosnia & Serbia throughout the bridge’s history. It shows the different religions and cultures surrounding the bridge and how they interconnect and collide with the bridge as a central focal point.

Told in (almost) linear vignettes the reader is taken on a journey from the point when the bridge is first imagined to the shelling it suffered at the outbreak of WW1. My favourite vignettes are the ones that deal with superstitions surrounding events on the bridge which are also shown in a non-superstitious light allowing the reader to decide for themselves what the truth is.

One warning – there is an intense scene of torture near the beginning of the book concerned with sabotage to the bridge. I have to say this is not for the faint-hearted.

Overall a fascinating look at a place and culture I know little about

[Pip]

The Bridge on the Drina covers three and a half centuries, from its construction in 1567-71, under the direction of Grand Vizier Sokolovic, who was born nearby, until Austria declared war on Serbia in the summer of 1914. Andric weaves myths about the bridge believed through the years by local children, with stories of the townspeople of Visograd, Turks and Christians, Jews and Gypsies. He writes beautifully. An example: Starina Novak was a highwayman, who gave this advice to his successor: " When you are sitting in ambush look well at the traveller who comes. If you see that he rides proudly and that he wears a red corselet and silver bosses and white gaiters, then he is from Foca. Strike at once for he has wealth both on him and in his saddlebags. If you see a poorly dressed traveller, with bowed head, hunched on his horse as if he was going out to beg, then strike freely, for he is a man of Rogatica. They are all alike, misers and tight-fisted but as full of money as a pomegranate. But if you see some mad fellow, with legs crossed over the saddlebow, beating on a drum and singing at the top of his voice, don't strike and do not soil your hands for nothing. Let the rascal go his way. He is from Visograd and he has nothing, for money does not stick to such men". Andric was a student of Bosnian history and a keen observer of people. He tells his story in a series of vignettes which reveal his deep love of the place and its people. A five star read.

[Gail]

I also thought this was a five star read. The way that Ivo Andrić was able to animate the lives of the inhabitants of the town of Višegrad over the course of 100's of years and still keep me reading with care was unique. The beautiful bridge across the Drina at one time united the East with the West as it was on the main road from Istanbul to Rome. Later it stands as a border or close to a border between the Austria-Hungarian Empire and Independent Serbia. The stories of individuals and their ways of life also reflected the pace of change, the nature of change in which individuals have little control, and how even this bridge which was viewed as a most solid gift from God can be destroyed by the vanity of men.

[Amanda]

4 stars for me. Loved this book and the sense of the meandering and passing of time and history that mirrors the flowing of the river under the bridge. Also love the idea of the bridge being a main character that represents the area in a sense, and we get to see everything that happens on and around it.

[Patrick]

Pre-2016 review:

*** 1/2

This novel is rather a chronicle about the Mehmed Pasha Sokolovica bridge over the Drina in Vishegrad, Bosnia, since its construction in the 16th century until its partial destruction during World War I. The bridge, as main character on the book, becomes a witness of the evolution and history of this part of the world, while in the Ottoman Empire and during the Austro-Hungarian occupation. Through folk stories and the partial examination of the many characters from various backgrounds (Turks/Muslims, Serbs, Jews, etc.), we get a better understanding of the complexity inherent to the Balkans and its many, varied peoples. Had Andric lived beyond his centenary, he could have written a few more chapters to his chronicle, covering the second partial destruction of the bridge during WWII, the brutal Vishegrad massacre by the Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War in 1992 and, finally, the listing of the bridge on the UNESCO list in 2007 in more peaceful times. A bit long at times, but yet quite interesting.