The Bridge of San Luis Rey
July 3, 2005
On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all of Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.
And so Thorton Wilder's novel opens with the end of the beginning. A resting Fanciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who casts a happenstance glance at the bridge that fatal afternoon bears witness to the tragic event, and that instigates the friar to launch an investigation to ascertain the meaning and metaphysical cause of this tragedy. He posits that this event is not a mere accident dependent on human error, it is never something that takes place so severely by chance. Brother Juniper believes that this tragedy is God's will, and he sets out to prove beyond doubt that the inevitable fate of these five people is indeed a Divine intervention that punishes the evil and bestows mercy on the good. He proceeds with the scientific examination of the lives of these five men, women and child, to validate his convictions that the tragedy of the bridge has a divine purpose and it makes perfect sense.
Plunging to their deaths from the bridge of San Luis Rey are Doña María the Marquesa de Montemayor--a lonely elderly woman abandoned by her daughter and family; her faithful maid Pepita; Esteban--an orphaned young man who has recently lost his twin brother and was about to redeem his life at sea; Uncle Pio, a devoted doting guardian of the beautiful Peruvian actress, Camila Perichole; and Jaime, the son of Perichole. Their lives, we later learn, are neither ordinary nor simple; their complexities are simply a small manifestation of humanity at large. The secrets of their lives finally lead to the inconclusive end of Brother Juniper's inquiries. Their stories have no discernible pattern that logically justifies their deaths at the bridge, and his conclusion later takes him to his own end.
Predestination, or foreordination, is a subject and question of contemplation and discourse throughout history in the circles of religion and philosophy. It is debated rather intensely in the Abrahamic religions, particularly in the Christian and Islamic traditions; although the understanding of the concept is quite different and complex between Christianity and Islam. But this novel is not a pursuit of a definitive answer to this age-old question, the conclusion is stumbled upon by Brother Juniper and him alone, and the last word is still the readers' to discover through their own personal experience. This is Mr. Wilder's narration of the meaning and the more importantly, the nature of human existence; a form of a moral fable.
We are all witnesses like Brother Juniper, and increasingly so in the age of technology and readily available news media. Just like the curious friar, some seek answers hoping to understand and justify the ways of God to man. For many others, bearing witness to events that defy understanding forces them to examine their positions appropriate to their religious and philosophical traditions, prompts them to shape their intentions for their actions and apt comportment. But these responses and investigations are dependent upon the longevity of the events in the minds of the witnesses. Soon, there will be only traces of these events in our memories, and when we leave this existence, these traces will depart with our bodies. Maybe that is just the point, that these events are reminders of the transient nature of human existence, that this realization stays constant in our minds, and that the intentions and responses are for that realization.
This compelling novel, though only 102 pages in this edition, is brevity pregnant with mellifluous prose, and elegantly smooth narration. Mr. Wilder indulges in exquisite aphoristic style such as this: "There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there can never be two that love one another equally well." There is only sweetness in its simplicity.
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060088877/
by Thornton Wilder
1927; Perennial Classics published 1998
ISBN: 0060088877