Helpful Score: 2
Wasn't sure I would like this book when I first started reading it but Wilder has a way of making the characters so meaningful and realistic you feel like you live next to them. No wonder he won a Pulitzer prize in literature for this one. Every reader should read The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
excellent book especially if you are planning on a trip to peru as i was. interesting concept of 'chance/luck/whatifs'
It took me a long time to read a short book. It was very slow moving and did not really keep my inteest. I would not recommend reading it unless you have to.
A 1959 edition of the classic. Thornton Wilder did a lot of research about the 18th century collapse of a bridge in Lima, Peru and the people involved and then wrote this finely conceived, unique novel.
writing inside front cover
Published 1960. From the noted American author Thornton Wilder. Based on 18th century Peruvian history. Wilder takes the histories of the people who perished in this bridge disaster and weaves them into an engrossing tale.
This is a good book for armchair philosophers. The most fascinating thing about the book is that, though it's set in Peru nearly 300 years ago, it is so good at depicting what makes people "tick" and how people change that I think most people would recognize they know someone like at least one main character in the book. The action is not fast because it is a reflective book. Enjoy Wilder's art as an author of subtly making fine points to render his characters.
NOTE: The editorial review provided for this title is for the hardcover format.
!!! THIS IS THE AUDIO BOOK ON TAPE !!!
UNABRIDGED, over 3-1/2 hours on 3 cassttes.
Read by Sam Waterson, who won a Golden Globe award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and for two Emmy Awards.
Thorton Wilder's first major work, The Bridge of San Louis Rey was originally published in 1927. It won Wilder his first of three Pulitzer Prizes, has been translated into more than 30 languages, and was made into a major motion picture.
A true classic!
!!! THIS IS THE AUDIO BOOK ON TAPE !!!
UNABRIDGED, over 3-1/2 hours on 3 cassttes.
Read by Sam Waterson, who won a Golden Globe award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and for two Emmy Awards.
Thorton Wilder's first major work, The Bridge of San Louis Rey was originally published in 1927. It won Wilder his first of three Pulitzer Prizes, has been translated into more than 30 languages, and was made into a major motion picture.
A true classic!
NOTE: 140 pages, not 119
"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence, Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.
By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.
"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence, Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.
By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.