The Bridge of San Luis Rey

infobox Book |
name = The Bridge of San Luis Rey
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Penguin Modern Classics Cover
author = Thornton Wilder
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Penguin
release_date = 1927
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 138
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"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. [cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08bridg.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=387989ff3aaa8379&ex=1178856000&pagewanted=all
title = How the Inca Leapt Canyons
author = John Noble Wilford
date = 2007-05-08
publisher = "The New York Times"
accessdate = 2007-05-09] . 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.

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?" [http://www.tcnj.edu/~wilder/works/bridge.html "The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)"] , Thornton Wilder Society.] Describing the sources of his novel, Wilder explained that the plot was inspired

"in its external action by a one-act play by [the French playwright] Prosper Merimee, 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."

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. Most of the events were invented by me, including the fall of the bridge." He based the Marquesa's habit of writing letters to her daughter on his knowledge of the great French letter-writer, Madame de Sevigne.

The story makes use of two historical characters, Manuel de Amat y Juniet, who was Viceroy of Peru at the time and his lover, a street singer known as "La Perichole", who, in real life, was named Micaela Villegas.

Recognition and influence

It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and in 1998 it was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best 20th-Century novels. 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.

Time Magazine included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". [http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/]

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 it.

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)

Popular culture

It is quoted on the cover of British Sea Power's album, "The Decline Of British Sea Power". David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas echoes it in many ways, most explicitly through the character Luisa Rey.The book is also mentioned in the Monk television episode, Mr. Monk and the Earthquake, when an Australian criminal claims to have written a Pulizter Prize nominated article about 5 people who died in a bridge collapse. The book is mentioned in passing by a character in The Waste Lands, the third book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

ee also

* List of bridge disasters
* [http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century]
* [http://www.www.pprize.com/BookDetail.php?bk=10 Photos of the first edition of Bridge of San Luis Rey]

References