This Pulitzer-winning book was the first of three Pulitzers for Thornton Wilder, who also won for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. It has an interesting premise. One that people could relate to today (in light of the Omaha Mall killings) and in recent years (9/11). When a bridge collapses near Lima, Peru, the question is asked, “Why did those five particular individuals die, and the rest did not?” A monk who witnesses the event seeks to delve into the lives of the five who were killed and into the lives of the survivors to see if he can find any answers. The book then flashes back to the histories of those dead, and we get a glimpse of their goodness and piety (or lack thereof) and their usefulness to society. This ‘formula’ is used by the monk to try to determine an explanation to this question.
I have read Our Town and have also seen it performed, but I was not prepared for Wilder’s gorgeous writing. I will definitely be seeking out more of his books and plays. Two that look promising are Theophilus North and the one-act play “The Long Christmas Dinner.”
I’ll leave you with a sample of his prose:
All night they talked, secretly comforting their hearts that longed always for Spain and telling themselves that such a symposium was after the manner of the high Spanish soul. They talked about ghosts and second-sight, and about the earth before man appeared upon it and about the possibility of the planets striking against one another; about whether the soul can be seen, like a dove, fluttering away at the moment of death; they wondered whether at the second coming of Christ to Jerusalem, Peru would be long in receiving the news. They talked until the sun rose, about wars and kings, about poets and scholars, and about strange countries. Each one poured into the conversation his store of wise sad anecdotes and his dry regret about the race of men.
This was a quick read, and one that probably deserves to be re-read in the future.
1927, 129 pp.
Rating: 4.5
