The Bridge of San Luis Rey

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

Tony Blair used these final three sentences of Wilder's novel in a speech at a memorial service for those who died as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Appropriate enough for the victims but not appropriate that they should be used by Tony Blair (who in my opinion should be appearing at the International Criminal Court accused of war crimes). The word show more love appears six times in these three sentences underlining the central tenet of Wilder's splendid novel. Weighing in at a mere 104 pages the book looks like a novella, but the writing is so economical it feels like a novel. It can be read in an afternoon, but I would recommend you start in the morning because it begs to be re-read almost immediately and you can do that in the afternoon.

The novel begins with the collapse of the bridge on the royal road between Lima and Cuzco in Peru in 1714. Five people crossing the bridge at the time are plunged to their deaths. The event is witnessed by brother Juniper a monk, who cannot stop himself from asking the question; why were "those" five people on the bridge when it collapsed, was it by divine intervention or was it by chance? He has to know more and undertakes a detailed research of the lives of the five victims to ascertain if there was a reason for them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He thinks:

"If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those five lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan"

Brother Juniper's investigations result in a large book and Wilder uses this as source material for his novel, which is divided into five parts. Part 1 briefly tells of the collapse of the bridge witnessed by brother Juniper. Part 2: "The Marquesa de Montemayor" tells of the Marquesa's overwheening love for her daughter Clara, a love that drives Clara away. Pepita the maid to the Marquesa is on the bridge with her mistress when it collapses. Part 3: "Esteban" another of the victims is one of identical twins, who has recently attempted suicide after the death of his brother. Part 5: "Uncle Pio" tells the story of his love for his protegee; the actress Camila Perichole. Uncle Pio and the actresse's daughter are the two remaining victims on the bridge. Part 5:"Perhaps an Intention"sketches in the results of brother Juniper's research, which results in him being burnt as a heretic. This part concludes with the coming together of the loved ones left behind after the tragedy.

It became clear as I read through the novel that the stories were interconnected. The lives of the victims had revolved around the city of Lima and many of them knew or were acquainted with each other. Characters who had minor roles in one of the stories became major players in another. The interlocking of people and places is handled masterfully by the author, so much so that an instant re-reading is called for so that the whole pattern of the novel can be grasped.

Brother Juniper does not find evidence of a master plan, but there are similarities of themes within the lives of the five victims that give plenty of scope for speculation. Wilder says of brother Juniper:

"He thought he saw in the same accident the wicked visited by destruction and the good called early to Heaven. He thought he saw pride and wealth confounded as an object lesson to the world, and he thought he saw humility crowned and rewarded for the edification of the city. But brother Juniper was not satisfied with his reasons."

Like brother Juniper the reader is tempted to search for a meaning for the deaths of the five.

Thornton Wilder was a noted playwright winning the Pulitzer prize for two of his plays and the beauty of this novel is his ability to say so much within such a short space. His prose is both elegant and economical as he picks away at the human condition. Originally published in 1927 this novel still has much to say to the modern reader. A very fine novel and a five star read. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, from its memorable opening line to its closing memorable line, and all its vividness in between. It was enjoyable to be not only so skillfully entertained but to be asked, without layers of subterfuge, the deepest philosophical question a person will ever ask at some point in their life. And I love the answer that I felt Wilder lead me to find within.

(Spoilers below.)

It's interesting that the church (who is supposed to lead us to those answers) finds Brother Juniper's work heretical. Here it is, the basic theological question, "Do we matter to God?" and the good monk is convinced the answer is Yes. But even after years of probing all the smallest pieces of evidence in the lives of the five, he feels he show more has never gained a firm understanding of the mind of God. The church judges, corrupt and barely tolerant of the question, certainly couldn't stand an unfinished answer and so condemns him in notorious Spanish Inquisition fashion. Consumed by his fiery fate, the monk never doubts God, only himself. He is the epitome of faith, believing while having no answers.

It is an interesting contrast, too, that while the pious monk's work is burned (and the other copy forgotten on a dusty shelf) the Marquesa's letters go on to great fame. The words of the drunk, the awkward, the laughable, the sincere-but-misguided Marquesa lives and inspires for centuries, an example of the fickle unpredictability of what matters and what doesn't in mere human annals.

Ultimately it's the nun, Madre Maria, who is affected in the most profound way by the collapse of the bridge and it's her thoughts on life's divine meaning that ends the novel so beautifully. She comes to believe that no, her life's work doesn't matter and that not even being remembered fondly by loved ones matters because those that remember will die soon, too. She concludes it is the love itself that matters to God. It is our love -- love by human beings destined to be unremembered and often unrewarded -- that matters by returning to "the love that made them." It's not God's love for us, or our love for God, but our love for one another is the real divine exchange, that which has its source from and that which returns to God. It is the only meaning, the only bridge between man and God. show less

"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 show more 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." show less

Thornton Wilder successfully fictionalized some ages-old core existential questions that have haunted humanity since its inception in his short novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Why do bad things happen to good people indiscriminately, while bad people prosper? Is there a plan or purpose behind the bad happenings? A reason? Are seemingly senseless accidents such as the one depicted in the novel -- the collapse of a bridge, a "ladder of thin slats swung out over a gorge, with handrails of dried vine" -- or other bad happenings such as natural disasters, poverty or war, "acts of God" or acts of fate? Or neither or something else? Are they meaningful or meaningless? If those who fell to their deaths in Wilder's novel died because God show more willed them to die, as Brother Juniper's order believes, is it then a capital offense to seek proof to that effect through non-Catholic means? Complicated, convoluted questions, even for skeptics, raised by this slim, but intense, and beautifully written novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

Wilder, of course, doesn't explicitly answer these universal questions, though by novel's end, our narrator, Brother Juniper, eyewitness to the collapse: "He saw the bridge divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below..." certainly, in part, has answered some of them. In some socks-you-in-the-gut, brutal irony, Brother Juniper, after he's dared ask why -- why did these people die?, why did the bridge collapse for them instead of others? -- and then travelled by foot great distances to probe the lives and personal histories of those who fell for possible clues to answer these deeper questions that are only natural for an inquisitive mind's pursuit, ultimately becomes the sixth and final victim of the bridge of San Luis Rey's collapse.

Brother Juniper lacked the foresight in recognizing how dangerous his questions were in a culture whose pious insularity accepted nothing less than rote avowals of faith in God's sovereign will. Moreover, and to the practical point, Brother Juniper was stealing time from his ascetic duties to solitude and prayer in order to play detective. In the least he was egregiously undisciplined; at worst, a heretic. But his fellow monks had it wrong. Brother Juniper wasn't looking to discredit God, but rather sought in his investigations a way to prove God's sovereignty, to affirm his faith in God not just by faith but facts.

Brother Juniper's decision to mix his intellect with his faith, instead of abiding strictly by faith alone; which he denied the second he began his investigation into why those five unfortunate travelers may have perished when, where, and how they perished, was not surprisingly condemned on the spot as insubordination and blatant blasphemy, an unforgivable rejection of faith in God and the most holy and sacred tenets of Catholicism. How dare a middling monk not take God automatically on faith! Who did this insignificant little man, Brother Juniper, think he was, embarrassing the Church like that with his foolish questions? And so for the supposed unpardonable sin of suggesting God's will -- God's very mind -- could be accessed through an investigation, through the woefully finite human insight of what amounted to empiricism, Brother Juniper, a devout Catholic, became essentially a martyr for science.

If there are any answers in this indifferent universe that can even partially explain how Evil and Human Suffering can comfortably coexist alongside a purported All-good and Omnipotent God, an All-wise Deity to be trusted and praised by His adherents even when disasters on a scale more monstrous than the collapse of a flimsy, make-believe bridge in Peru occur ... say the collapse of the Twin Towers, the collapse of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or the unending collapse that has been Genocide throughout the ages, continuing still today in Syria ... then it's clear to me that Brother Juniper (one of my favorite catholics real or fictitious ever!) was at least partly successful in his heroic -- and in my opinion faithful -- quest for truth. show less

”On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.” So begins Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a timeless parable, properly lauded as one of the great novels in American literature. Brother Juniper, a monk who happens to witness the tragedy, seeks to prove that some divine intervention rather than chance led to the deaths of those particular five victims. Wilder’s seemingly simple narrative belies the deep underlying complexities of emotions that weave through the story: love and respect, fear and jealousy, pain and insecurity; and the nuances that give deeper insight into the human condition. As I can attest, it is not uncommon to show more completely miss the message and the meaning after an initial reading of the book. This is a rich, powerful, and profound novel whose beauty, clarity, and poignancy comes ever clearer with successive readings. show less

Summary: A friar witnesses the collapse of a woven rope bridge with five people falling to their deaths and tries to discern some reason why, in God’s providence, each of them died.

It’s the unanswerable question we struggle with in every untimely death. We try to find some reason to explain why the death or deaths occurred, often some version of “it was God’s time,” or “they were too good for earth,” or that there was some sinful reason why they died. In the end we are left with uncertainty–none of these rationalizations satisfy or comfort and most explanations seem cruel or trite.

That is the premise of this Thornton Wilder story, which launched his literary career, winning him a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, and creating show more the opportunity for him to live a life of teaching and writing. Brother Juniper has just come into view of the woven rope bridge over a river gorge between Lima and Cuzco when the bridge collapses, sending five people on the bridge to their death. As a theologically oriented religious man, he sets himself the task to find evidence in their lives that would demonstrate that this was God’s plan for each person.

After the opening chapter, which lays out the premise of the story, the next three represent the account of six years of research on the part of Brother Juniper, talking to everyone who knew those who fell. The first concerns Dona Maria, the Marquesa de Montemayor, a difficult woman estranged from her daughter, who lives in Spain, and her companion Pepita, a young girl being groomed by Madre Maria de Pilar, to succeed her in the work of abbess of the orphanage where Pepita grew up. The two go on pilgrimage to a shrine so that Dona Maria can pray for her pregnant daughter. While she is praying, Pepita writes a letter to Madre Maria that Dona Maria sees, of how difficult life is with her. Pepita destroys the letter before Dona Maria confronts her, deciding it was not brave. They reconcile, Dona Maria writes a “brave” letter to her daughter, and it is on their return that they die in the collapse.

The next character is Esteban, twin brother of Manuel. The two grew up in the orphanage and became scribes, writing for, among others, Camilla Perichole, a famous and rather vain actress. Manuel dies of an infection, and Esteban, grief stricken despairs of life, attempting suicide, prevented by the captain who wants to take him to sea to restore him. Esteban wants to make a present of the pay advanced to him to Madre Maria de Pilar and dies on the bridge enroute to the orphanage.

The final two are Uncle Pio, who had mentored Camilla Perichole, helping her to achieve fame, and Perichole’s son Jaime. When small pox disfigures her, her career is ended. Uncle Pio sees her one night and she refuses to see him again but agrees to let him mentor her son. Uncle Pio and Jaime are on the way to Lima when the bridge collapses.

The final chapter describes the completion of Brother Juniper’s book in which he even tries formulas that he applies to each life, to no avail. This all ends badly for Juniper who is declared a heretic, punishable by death.

The account of their lives, in very formal language, brings no conclusion, just facts of people with their loves, longings, loneliness, petty, and noble acts. It’s simply, this is the story of their lives…and then they died on the bridge. The closest Wilder gets in the novel to making sense of it all is at the funeral in the famous, oft-quoted closing line spoken by Abbess Madre Maria de Pilar: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

I cannot decide whether this is a beautiful or a trite thought. I suspect some find comfort in keeping their dead alive in loving memory which connects them to the loved ones they’ve lost. I have those memories, particularly of father and mother and dear friends who have died, but also the apprehension of the yawning void that separates us that love may bridge in thought but not reality. I’m not sure we ever find “meaning” in the death of anyone, even if they die in some cause. I wonder instead, and this reflects my Christian convictions, if what we may talk about is hope, the belief that they, and we, will “rise in glory” after resting in peace. It doesn’t offer a “meaning” to death, which may faith tells me is the “last enemy” but it consoles in loss and grief. show less

I read this book several years ago and this reread confirmed what I knew back then, Wilder can write!
Five people in Peru are crossing a bridge when in an instant they all are plunging to their deaths in the valley below.
Certainly poetic in style this little novella invites the reader to think about fate, destiny and happenstance. Every reader will walk away with a different interpretation of the events related here and too the aftermath inflicted upon those who were left behind.
A classic that will never grow old.