<p>sylvan8798, I’m glad you loved the book! And please don’t get me wrong: I am very glad that I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey. In fact, I think I get more satisfaction from finishing a classic work—sort of like earning double reward points on my intellectual credit card. :)</p>
<p>Can you elaborate on what you enjoyed most about The Bridge? </p>
<p>Good point about the lack of focus on irony in the discussion questions. It’s odd because as I’ve browsed through Wilder bios online, many remark on his ironic tone. </p>
<p>I am quickly learning to appreciate the book more as I do a little outside reading. I found an interesting interview online with literary critic J.D. McClatchy. I can’t get it to link (it’s a pdf), but just google “The Library of America interviews J.D. McClatchy about Thornton Wilder.” At one point, McClatchy says, “What makes The Bridge the enduring novel it is has everything to do with the questions it poses about our purpose on Earth. It starts out as a book about the truth, and ends up as a book about love. Both of those can be ‘disasters,’ yet we have nothing else to live by.”</p>
<p>I think one of the reasons for Bridge of San Luis Rey’s popularity is that it offers vivid and eloquent insights about the kind of pain and unhappiness that sometimes underlie creative output.</p>
<p>Both the Marquesa and Camila were based on real people who were almost certainly not dysfunctional in the manner of the characters in the book. It is very interesting that Wilder chose to portray them the way he did.</p>
<p>sylvan8798: I liked the book too. Most books I read tend to be fairly straightforward: here I felt the straightforward “removed” voice hid deeper truths … ones just beyond my grasp. So I read it again. </p>
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<p>I think the sadness of love experienced by the main characters keeps the label “optimist” at bay. And yet … in addition to the hope/redemption mentioned above, the end of the story strongly hints at hope/possible redemption for others: Madre Maria … whose life work may continue on through Camilla (the actress) … and, I believe, Clara (daughter). I can’t help but think that the Marquesa, Pio, Pepita would have been pleased. </p>
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<p>Again, I agree. Pepita shows a more selfless love, in my opinion, than either the Marquesa or Pio since she asks so little in return. I feel that Esteban dies along with Manuel - his neither a selfless or selfish love. Esteban lives only as Manuel/Esteban; Manuel/Estaban dies along with Manuel. Jaime seems a cipher yet he chooses to leave with Pio so perhaps he too experiences hope/redemption before death.</p>
<p>Should I admit this? I never attached to Brother Juniper. He never seems to feel the horror of a moment he witnesses but rather views it as an opportunity to divine the mind of the Divine. I mean really … people plunged to death … not “five gesticulating ants”. Brother Juniper’s death seems likely from the moment he undertakes to prove the deaths as preordained. The Inquisition lurks around the edges here. Brother Juniper tries to objectify God’s will in a time that strongly opposes doing so. Were his intentions good? Sure. Could they easily be regarded as heresy … yes. What was he thinking? Hubris, much … as in dictionary.com definition: <a href=“in%20Greek%20tragedy”>i</a> an excess of ambition, pride, etc, ultimately causing the transgressor’s ruin?*</p>
<p>I also saw Brother Juniper’s death as the result of hubris – punishment for daring to believe that he could know the mind of God. Yet despite the grave consequences, up until the end he continues with this “sin”: “He sat in his cell that last night trying to seek in his own life the pattern that escaped him in five others” (p. 101). He was probably busy number-ranking his own life according to “goodness,” “piety,” and “usefulness”! </p>
<p>Did it strike anyone as peculiar that Brother Juniper greets death—a truly horrendous death—so calmly, and that being burned alive is described in such benign terms? He is given to “the congenial flames” and “leaning upon a flame he smiled and died” (p. 102). It is a strange contradiction: an alleged heretic who welcomes death with the deep and unquestioning faith of a saint.</p>
<p>I very much liked this book. My heart ached for the Marquessa and her love for her daughter-her constant worry and obsession. I would be very interested to read the author she is based on.
Also loved the story of the other charactors-the twins, the actress and her manager,the abbess. Loved the language and the description of the landscape.
Loved how the charactors were so longing for something they couldn’t quite grasp.</p>
<p>PATheaterMom just said everything that I was thinking. I thought the way the words were used in this book were very poetic at times. Not the kind of book I ordinarily read but I am glad I read it.</p>
<p>I saw (or perhaps read into) this book two additional interlocking themes. The first: how difficult it is for a parent or parent figure to love in a way that promotes the growth and love of the child. This is apparent in the relationship of the Marquesa to Dona Clara and in the relationship of Uncle Pio to the Perichole. The older figures initially come across almost as buffoons, but as one reads further, the development of the characters changes that. There is an interesting contrast with the relationship of the Abbess to Pepita, which does seem to promote Pepita’s growth and elicits her love in return, and yet there is a shadow of the idea that the Abbess weighted Pepita with responsibility too soon. I think that following the approaching and receding of the characters from each other (geographically as well as emotionally) would be interesting–along with emotional bridges, as opposed to The Bridge.</p>
<p>The other interlocked theme is the idea that in any loving relation, one person loves more at any given time. I suppose that this must be true, yet I am not sure that I buy it.</p>
<p>When I read this many years ago, I was devastated by the Perichole’s contracting smallpox, but I had forgotten that in the interim. This time, it had relatively little effect on me, actually. Perhaps I did recall it subconsciously before I read it, so that it was less striking, or perhaps all that has happened in the interim has changed my view of what constitutes tragedy.</p>
<p>Comments by ignatius and Mary13 about Brother Juniper’s “heresy” were helpful to me, since I didn’t know enough about the Inquisition to place it in much context myself. Also, the name “Brother Juniper” kept reminding me of the “Junipero Serra” freeway just south of San Francisco, and that interfered with my reading of his character. While I realize that the freeway was named for a friar who established a chain of missions, and that the freeway didn’t exist when Wilder wrote the book, nevertheless I had a really hard time shaking the connection. </p>
<p>I noticed in the commentary in the edition of the book I had that Dame Judith Anderson appeared in the original movie of the book–but I didn’t see what character she played. I wonder if she might have been the Abbess. I found the Abbess to be an extremely interesting character–what was your reaction to her nomination of possible beneficiaries of gifts from Dona Clara?</p>
<p>I share Mary13’s opinion that Our Town is better.</p>
<p>On a superficial note, I, like QuantMech, was distracted by certain name choices in the book. The made-up name Cluxambuqua struck me as ridiculous. I know quite a bit of Spanish (I was grateful to be able to read the interesting Spanish language Wikipedia article about the opera singer whom the character “La Perichole” was based on), and I have never seen a Latin American place name similar to “Cluxambuqua.”</p>
<p>Pio’s name bothered me too. “Pio” means “pious” in Spanish, and the Pio in the book was not a pious man. Another distracting thing is that in Spanish, the name “Uncle Pio” would be "T</p>
<p>I think the relationship between the Perichole and her son Jaime also fits nicely into this theme. Perhaps Jaime’s sickly constitution is a symbolic reflection of the lack of a fully loving, fully devoted parent. Camila is not a bad mother, but she cannot give Jaime what he needs – “she was never cross to Don Jaime and she was never demonstrative” (p. 85). Jaime has what today’s medical world might call “failure to thrive.”</p>
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[quote=NJTheatreMOM]
Pio’s name bothered me too. “Pio” means “pious” in Spanish, and the Pio in the book was not a pious man. Another distracting thing is that in Spanish, the name “Uncle Pio” would be "T</p>
<p>Yes, Mary13, you may be right about the irony of the name Pio. </p>
<p>Since Cluxambuqua was supposed to be in Peru, the name would have been Incan, not Mayan. Mayan and Aztec names tend to be commonly transliterated with the letter “x”…Incan names not so much.</p>
<p>Even among Mayan and Aztec names, I really don’t believe the syllable “clux” would ever be found. I think they might also have thought that it sounded like a chicken.</p>
I like the writing style, very straightforward and direct, with a bit of dry humor. Despite being short, Wilder really brings these people to life. I think it takes a lot of skill to put in just enough detail and just the right details to give insight into characters without getting to verbose. </p>
<p>I do have a question about the timeline which confuses me. Manuel is in love with Camila while she is still an actress at the theatre. Then he gets an infection and dies, and Esteban wanders around for what seems to be a period of months. He tells the Captain that he is 22. But in the story about Camila, we are told that she left the stage at about age 30, and takes 5 years to “achieve her place in society”. After that she gets smallpox and becomes a recluse, so some additional time passes. But both Esteban and Uncle Pio are on the bridge at the same time.</p>
<p>On a personal note, I tend to worry too much about my adult children so I could relate to the Marquessa’s worry and obsession over the welfare of her daughter. (My kids are very loving however!) It’s a shame that the others around her could not recognize her kind heart or that she could not appreciate Pepita’s devotion.
I didn’t understand why Brother Juniper was executed. Was it just meant to be a recognition that the Inquisition would execute anybody for anything?</p>
<p>Yes … exactly … again. (Though I laughed at the Marquesa’s letter scolding her daughter for taking her cold lightly: a helicopter mom prior to the advent of helicopters. Can’t you just see the reactions here on CC to the poor Marquesa’s concerns? :))</p>
<p>Brother Juniper burned as a heretic. In the eyes of the judges who sentenced Brother Juniper, the Franciscan moved beyond accepting that act of God into trying to quantify God’s actions, into explaining God’s actions from man’s point of view - heresy. The accepted answer would fall along the lines of “ours is not to question the ways of God.” The bridge broke and the people plunged to death through an act of God, end of story - at least, in the judge’s eyes.</p>
<p>^^^ Re Brother Juniper - yes - with his chart rating souls. (Ouch!) Certainly he lacks compassion at the time five people plunge to death. Literally, from the moment the reader meets him, he seems to be missing somewhat you’d want in a godly friar. </p>
<p>In my copy of the book, in the Afterword by Russell Banks discusses early critical acclaim or lack of:</p>