The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
8 Rating(s)
List: $17.47 | Sale: $12.22
Club: $8.73

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Author: Thornton Wilder, Richard Ferrone

Narrator: Sam Waterston

Unabridged: 3 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/13/2004

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Synopsis

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder's second novel, won him the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes. The novel opens in the aftermath of an inexplicable tragedy—a tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five travelers hurtle to their deaths. Most townspeople think to themselves with secret joy, "Within 10 minutes myself...." But for Brother Juniper, a humble Franciscan friar who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is inescapable: Why those five? Suddenly, Brother Juniper is committed to discover what manner of lives these five disparate people led—and whether it was divine intervention that took their lives, or a capricious fate. Wilder maintained in his works that true meaning and beauty are found in ordinary experience. This is especially true of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. From the very beginning to the stunning conclusion, the listener is absorbed into the individual stories of the five victims, and how their destinies intertwine.

About Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. His Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). Wilder's The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! He also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, the opera, and films. (His screenplay for Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt [1943] remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day.) Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit on March 29, 2025

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a beautifully written book full of eternal questions. If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered mysteriously latent in those lives so suddenly cut off. Either we live by accident and die by acc......more

Goodreads review by Henry on October 24, 2024

On the 20th of July, 1714, in the Spanish colony of Peru five people descended to eternity when they fell into an enormous abyss. Ironically as colorful birds sung sweetly nearby a beautiful scene of snowy mountains far away seen, and green vegetation with pretty trees below. The noon collapse of th......more

Goodreads review by Emily May on September 19, 2016

"Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God." You might think a book so focused on God and faith w......more

Goodreads review by Lea on October 10, 2021

“Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.” The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a Pulitzer Prize winning s......more

Goodreads review by Valeriu on August 02, 2023

O meditație asupra relației dintre hazard și necesitate: totul se petrece pentru că așa a vrut Dumnezeu sau totul se petrece la întîmplare? În data de 20 iulie 1714, în amiaza unei zile de vineri, puntea de rafie - zisă a Sfîntului rege Ludovic - se rupe și 5 oameni pier. A fost un hazard sau lucrare......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List