A short, well-written, but ultimately disappointing novel.

Wilder individually recounts the lives of the bridge's five victims, describing the events that led up to the collapse of the bridge. The five victims are not completely unrelated to one another, and it is interesting to see what lies in common among them. Unfortunately, Wilder writes his sketches by telling rather than showing, and so his characters end up being somewhat flat and uninspired.

Each of the characters in this book comes to some minor revelation before the fateful fall. Furthermore, the ostensible reason for the novel's structure is that it is supposed to parallel the investigation of a priest who is trying to divine God's will through this seemingly random accident. So I expected some point to be made throughout the book. And, indeed, I can feel the hints of a point working its way through the narrative, but despite an epilogue that hints more strongly at the point of all this, I just found the book's message somewhat confusing. And the characters weren't compelling enough to make up for this deficiency.

(Incidentally, the way that Wilder handles the end of each sketch is oftentimes unintentionally amusing, in a dry sort of way. For instance, at the end of Uncle Pio's sketch, Wilder writes, "Uncle Pio said that when they had crossed the bridge they would sit down and rest, but it turned out not to be necessary." Ha!)

I'm getting worried: first, I found Breakfast at Tiffany's to be insufferable, and now I find another undisputed classic to be only mildly interesting. Am I losing my edge with real literature? I hope not. Perhaps this book, like Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, deserves a rereading to truly appeal to me. Until then, I can't really recommend it.

Copyright © 2001 Steven Wu