The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Thornton Wilder

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder
New York: Time Incorporated
1927/1963

In 1714, a bridge over a canyon in Peru breaks, precipitating five travelers into the gorge. A Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, attempts to learn why the tragedy happened to these particular five people. Does God have a plan?

I have read this book several times, and I have never truly completely understood it. I know it was an attempt to put science in the service of morality, to discover if objective evidence could be found to explain why bad things happen to people. Why are victims of tragedies, from the Black Death, to the Holocaust, to 9/11, victims? Does God have a reason, a purpose for the destruction of these human beings? Or does God remain aloof, an observer, who is uninvolved in the fate of the victims of tragedy? Is God, as Mark Twain cynically suggested, simply someone who plays with men the way boys torture flies? In a sense, the question is being asked, “What is the purpose of death?”

Brother Juniper studies the lives of a limited number of victims, the five who were precipitated from the broken bridge. This book is a meditation on the varieties of love, love that suffers, selfless love. The stories give detailed descriptions of their tormented experiences with selfless love—and the creativity that issues from it. But, in the end, there are no clear answers as to why these victims died at this particular time. They all suffered from selfless love and they were all beginning again. What do those characteristics mean? Do they mean anything? What does death mean?

One of the characters suggests that love is all and that love gives the meaning to us beyond life, that love is our payback in death for our living it in life. Something to think about.