In writing about Thornton Wilder’s Bridge of San Luis Rey, I can do no better than to try to emulate its directness. The book begins by describing the plunge of five people to their deaths when the renowned bridge of the book’s title collapses. The individuals’ lives are shaped by asymmetric, non-romantic love, powerful enough to confuse speech and thought. The Marquesa de Montemayor obsesses about her daughter, Dona Clara, sending monthly letters to her in Spain. Esteban becomes adrift when his twin brother Manuel dies of an infected wound. Uncle Pio’s genuine, fatherly generosity toward the Perichole eventually earns a share of her general mistrust.
The collapse of the bridge is a pure tragedy, as Brother Juniper concludes in a frame, because the Marquesa, Esteban, and Uncle Pio undertake freeing self-transformations immediately before. (The Marquesa’s servant Pepita and the Perichole’s son Jaime, the other two casualties, also face new hope.) Their deaths–and Brother Juniper’s at the stake–take on meaning in the realizations of those, still living, who they had loved.
