In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Wilder as the narrator-voice says that in literature, it is the expression of the heart that matters; style is merely the vessel. That precisely accounts for the missing star in my rating, as someone whose greatest delight in literature is the way, the manner of the expression of the heart. Make no mistake: Wilder is tender, funny, and at times, unexpectedly and beautifully moving with his expression. But the book is rather plot-heavy, and for me that doesn’t make for the most enchanting experience.

For a while I also had difficulty reconciling the expectations created by the misleading blurb versus what the book really is. The blurb makes it sound very much like it’s the story of a friar surveying the life circumstances of the five people who die when a bridge collapses before his eyes. That’s not what happens. The friar is only ever mentioned; the stories of the five are told by a different narrator, who by the addressing of the reader as ‘you’ seems to be the author himself. Once you accept it’s the blurb and not the book that’s misleading, you get to like the book for what it is.

The ending finally moved me to tears, so it’s safe to say Wilder accomplished what he believed to be good literature: baring the heart. All along the story his respectful, loving, and tender treatment of women was a pleasant surprise, and when the book ended with three very different women coming together, I was in awe. After reading a review claiming the book is sarcastic and not appreciative of love, I felt the need to read Wilder’s Wikipedia page. What I found out about his life provided for me an explanation behind this attitude towards women that was beyond his contemporaries’ stance: he had three sisters, all of whom had strong careers. Things we love to see.

Also, Wilder remarked that the book stemmed from debates with his father who, in the Puritan tradition, believed in a swiftly punitive God, which Wilder believed totally ignored God’s caritas. He said he only asked the question in The Bridge of San Luis Rey, but from the ending I believe it safe to say: this is a book about the everlasting power of love, whether it be secular or divine. It’s not the sort of approach to the theme of grief that I usually read, but to be fair, it’s by far the most comforting.