The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
Winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Thornton Wilder had an inspired idea with this book. It is a very obviously constructed book, enjoyable and hitting all the places it needs to, but obviously crafted. It borrows from a more classical style. The problem with works like this is that, while the seams will show somewhat, they can’t be too blatant. I think he succeeds.
It is the kind of idea/promise I could see myself as a writer enjoying the process of working out. I would probably have put in more poetic description of the landscape, woven that into the stories of the people to show the land connected with the people. The cycle of nature as the force that caused the bridge collapse, but then for me writing at the start of the twenty-first century would not have used the more formal modelings: the smallpox seemed melodramatic to me, for instance, but I suppose some way was needed to humanize and humble her.
Also, I would have played up the poetic in the story with the twins. I guess I’m sounding overly critical by saying i would have preferred the book looser, more Virginia Woolf than Thornton Wilder. If the book seemed too overtly moralizing to me, the questions it raises are valid and well presented.
The end is a bit hollow for me, she ends up doing charity nursing work. Maybe it is just that my relatively contemporary taste expects what it considers more likely scenarios.
Having said all of this, this was an enjoyable read.