The Bridge of San Luis Rey
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| The Bridge of San Luis Rey | |
|---|---|
 First edition cover |
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| Author | Thornton Wilder |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Albert & Charles Boni |
| Publication date | 1927 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 138 |
| ISBN | NA |
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge.[1] A friar who has witnessed the tragic accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928.
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[edit] Themes and sources
Philosophically, Thornton Wilder said that he was posing a question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?"[2] Describing the sources of his novel, Wilder explained that the plot was inspired
"in its external action by a one-act play [La Carrosse du Saint-Sacrament] by [the French playwright] Prosper Mérimée, which takes place in Latin America and one of whose characters is a courtesan. However, the central idea of the work, the justification for a number of human lives that comes up as a result of the sudden collapse of a bridge, stems from friendly arguments with my father, a strict Calvinist. Strict Puritans imagine God all too easily as a petty schoolmaster who minutely weights guilt against merit, and they overlook God's 'Caritas' which is more all-encompassing and powerful. God's love has to transcend his just retribution. But in my novel I have left this question unanswered. As I said earlier, we can only pose the question correctly and clearly, and have faith one will ask the question in the right way."[2]
When asked if his characters were historical or imagined, Wilder replied, "The Perichole and the Viceroy are real people, under the names they had in history [a street singer named Micaela Villegas and her lover Manuel de Amat y Juniet, who was Viceroy of Peru at the time]. Most of the events were invented by me, including the fall of the bridge."[2] He based the Marquesa's habit of writing letters to her daughter on his knowledge of the great French letter-writer, Madame de Sévigné.[2]
The bridge itself (in both Wilder's story and Mérimée's play) is based on the great Inca road suspension bridge across the Apurímac River, erected around 1350, still in use in 1864, and dilapidated but still hanging in 1890. When asked by the explorer Victor Wolfgang von Hagen whether he had ever seen a reproduction of E. G. Squier's woodcut illustration of the bridge as it was in 1864, Wilder replied: "It is best, von Hagen, that I make no comment or point of it."[3]
[edit] Recognition and influence
In addition to its 1928 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this novel has also been honored in other ways:
- In 1998, the book was rated #37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-Century novels.
- Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[4]
[edit] Influences
- This book was cited by John Hersey as a direct inspiration for his nonfiction work Hiroshima (1946).
- Qui non riposano, a 1945 novel by Indro Montanelli takes inspiration from the novel.
- David Mitchell's novel, Cloud Atlas, echoes the story in many ways, most explicitly through the character Luisa Rey.
- Ayn Rand references the theme in Atlas Shrugged, her epic of a fictional USA's decline into an impoverished kleptocracy. In the aftermath of a disastrous collision in a railroad tunnel, she highlights train passengers who, in one way or another, promoted the moral climate that made the accident likely.
- The book is mentioned in passing by a character in The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the third book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
- The book is referred to in the Monk television episode, "Mr. Monk and the Earthquake", when an Australian criminal claims to have written a Pulitzer Prize nominated article about five people who died in a bridge collapse.
- The story is quoted on the cover of British Sea Power's album, The Decline of British Sea Power.
[edit] Inspirational
- The book was quoted by Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001.
- The book was cited during the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse by Brian Williams of NBC News as well as Charlie Gibson of ABC News.
[edit] Film adaptations
Three films have been based on the novel:
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)
[edit] See also
- List of bridge disasters
- Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century
- Photos of the first edition of Bridge of San Luis Rey
[edit] References
- ^ John Noble Wilford (2007-05-08). "How the Inca Leapt Canyons". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08bridg.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=387989ff3aaa8379&ex=1178856000&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
- ^ a b c d "The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)", Thornton Wilder Society.
- ^ Von Hagen, Victor Wolfgang (1955), Highway of the Sun, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, pp. 320
- ^ http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield |
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel 1928 |
Succeeded by Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin |
