Monday, October 9, 2017

The Poetic Philosophy of Thornton Wilder

The Bridge of San Luis ReyThe Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is not mere writing. This is poetic philosophy.

I'd heard it was good, but I didn't know what to expect from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey. For all I knew, it took place somewhere along the Californian coast along with all the other Sans and Santas. After all, there is the San Luis Rey Mission in San Diego. But no, this is set in Peru. Even better! I love when a story transports me some place I've never been before.

The concept in a nutshell as explained on Wikipedia:

It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who has witnessed the 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.

And well deserved! This is not a family saga of epic proportions. It's short. It's compact. It takes a slice or two of life and examines it. It does this three times for five people. The numbers are only slightly off and the stories don't all focus on one incident, but this is still quite reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa'sRashomon, itself based on two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

The people and their problems are varied and interesting. Their choices and why they chose them are made even more so by Wilder. Maybe this isn't 5 star perfection, but it is damn good.


View all my reviews

O Pioneers!

O Pioneers!O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beginning with simplicity, innocence and hope, Willa Cather runs her pioneers through the ring of fire that is the hallmark of the pioneer's life and only some of them survive.

Perhaps I've made that sound more exciting than O Pioneers! actually is. There are far too many dull scenes in this book for me to call it a perfect classic, but it is a solid addition to American western frontier literature.

Writing from her experiences, Cather populated her novel with Scandinavian immigrants, gave them backbones and leathery hides, and set them upon the fields of Nebraska. Their characters bloomed into an organic array of flowers, weeds, fruit, and prickly briars. What she sacrifices in the way of drama and action, she more than compensates in personality and the study of human behavior.

The central figure is a strong-willed and whip-smart young woman, who grows into a successful lady of the land. Our heroine is also good-natured, well-loved and kindly even to killers. If it weren't for the slightest of faults, her named could be Mary Jane. However, she is too real to be thought of as some caricature of saintliness.

Cather's My Antonia outshines this novel in its stark-yet-evocative descriptions of immigrant life on the prairie, but this is a damn fine book and worthy of the accolades it has received.

View all my reviews