The Bridge Over the River Kwai

I willingly gave up sleep to read this book. Admittedly, that might not mean much from an insomniac who regularly trades counting sheep for turning pages.

And having loved the movie version of this tale, I was initially disappointed to learn that this book is almost a carbon copy of it.

But a day later...

Everything that I loved about the movie version is a direct derivation from the words of Pierre Boulle. Every thought, word and deed of every character is right here. Every dream for mankind and every unforgivable sin of hubris. All here.

And the feelings of the medical officer, Clipton...how could I have watched the movie version with such attentiveness and not realized that so much of the tale was being told from his POV? Was I too young to properly hear his mixture of respect and despair for Colonel Nicholson?

*sigh* Well, in my defense, back when I watched this movie, I did not know about any of the wars that my own ancestors had fought in. Back then, I didn't know more than a couple branches of my own genealogical tree. (Heh. Know better now. Surely does explain why I am such an ornery cuss...it's in me genes.) ( )

POWs forced to build a bridge in Burma - which is a strategic point that also needs to be destroyed for the Allies.

http://freesf.strandedinoz.com/wordpress/2012/05/the-bridge-over-the-river-kwai-... ( )

The movie is better, but this is quite good. I understand the character of Colonel Nicholson better now, having read the book - he's just as British as they come. The racism is pretty jarring, but when you consider the subject and the age of the book, it's understandable. ( )

ok novel, better movie. ( )

Bridge Over the River Kwai (1952) is a short genre WWII adventure tale loosely based on real events. Its literary virtues, self-conscious and formulaic, can be attributed to Joseph Conrad's influence (Boulle's favorite author), in particular the novel Lord Jim (1900), about Victorian moral certitudes within a crumbling colonial empire, the ridged view of the system being more important than the individual - old ground for the the modernists by the 1950s. Boulle was French, and the character Colonel Nicholson was based on two actual French officers Boulle had known while in the military - but Nicholson was an old stereotype, more appropriate in World War One, by World War Two he was an anachronism and would never risen to the rank of officer in the British army, at least not without being killed by his own troops.

Boulle is best known as author of Planet of the Apes (1963) and Bridge oddly foreshadows it with a quote about the Japanese: "Monkeys dressed up as men! The way they drag their feet and slouch around, you'd never take them for anything human." He would transfer the relationship between Japanese soldier and Allied prisoner into the future exploring issues of morality between master and slave, man and animal. In the end Boulle is Conrad-light, a generation or two late, with a talent for ironic racism. Excellent movie adaptation as a sheer thriller but looses the depth, what there is.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )