Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.70 You Save: $24.25 (90%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Bridge of Sighs
Book Review: An epic
Summary: 5 Stars
Bridge of Sighs is an epic, both in hefty scope and in material. Russo is a fiction master, and it shows here.
This is the story of two childhood friends, rivals, who vie for the hand of a woman. One, the main character, is nervous and needy. The other is becomes an artist living in Venice. It's the triumph of the quiet life over the flashy, spectacular, celebrity world.
It is surprising to me that an American wrote this novel. It seems to me that most Americans are obsessed with TMZ or other celeb-watching media. If this were a cliche book, the main character would have ended up somehow, unlikely, famous. Instead, he struggles with his world view.
I liked this book very much. It delves more deeply and authentically into the unhappy American family than some other books that I've read lately. Rabid: A Novel is another excellent book that explores characters in novel, original ways. If you like Bridge of Sighs, you'll probably like Rabid, too.
Minna
Book Review: An epic image
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bridge of Sighs is by far Russo's most ambitious novel, and is in my opinion a great success. The book rises well above what appeared in similar genres in recent years, and could be even compared by its scale and impact to some major works of Thomas Mann. The Bridge of Sighs seems to signal the return of the great novel of the past.
Russo starts weaving his story inconspicuously, in an informal quiet narrative, a recollection of an ``ordinary person's'' childhood. Yet, it soon becomes clear that the subtlety and emotional richness of the main characters is exceptional. As they mature into their teenage years and beyond, the stakes are rising gradually. Without a showy plot and easy effects, tension increases gradually into a profound climax.
Unquestionably, some details of the book will be subject to the reader's individual taste. Yet, there are simply so many details that any literary connoiseur is sure to find delight in this masterful book. The subject of art is used with surprising authenticity and functionality, and paintings of different styles and levels of skill, as well as artistic fantisies, symbolically reflect on the plot. The progression of time is managed with beautiful care. While events mostly take place in memories of the characters, the author selects with deep instinct for drama at what time specific turns are unfurled, and who recalls them for the reader. Wonderful plot inconsistencies are not frivolous, as is often the case in postmodern literature, but expose the individual characters' limitations and emotional commitments. In addition to this, the author manages to hide into the book anecdotes and parables on religion and politics, communicating deep insights in a funny manner, without taking obvious sides.
This book is great fun, as well as a `must read' for anyone who cares about contemporary american literature.
Book Review: An interesting and thought provoking story.
Summary: 4 Stars
Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs" is the story of Lucy (Louis C.) Lynch, a young boy from a working class, upstate New York family. It encompasses three generations of the Lynch family, and the changes that transpire as each group ages and matures. It's about their financial hardships, relationship and friendship complications, trials and tribulations, psychological hurdles, and struggles to live and love.
A mere smidgen into the novel I realized that Richard Russo had broken many of the rules that successful authors stress should be adhered to closely. I found that he often back-tracked the story, flirting constantly with a time-line that was as flexible as a rubberband. While many writing instructors demand of their students to 'show don't tell', the story was loaded with pages of telling. Back-story elucidation, situation enlightenment, character thoughts, reflections, and opinions filled close to two-thirds of the books 530 pages. Actual present tense situations and dialog were sporadic and infrequent throughout.
All that said, Russo made it work.
The book is proof that an author can follow his heart, without paying attention to formats or set plans, and merely write prose as he sees fit. It was very well written in fact, making for an effortless read. Provocative and opinionated situations from one chapter to the next kept the story interesting. I grew to be well acquainted with the extremely vibrant and colorful characters within; those with flawed personalities, emotions, and human conflicts so true to the real world.
"Bridge of Sighs" is about intricate and evolving relationships. It's a story of life and love, and the lengthy road people travel to get from one end of their existence to the other, just to discover how quick and transitory it all was. It was truly an interesting and thought provoking story.
Book Review: Another fine novel from America's master storyteller
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Russo is one of a half-dozen authors whose books I buy sight unseen. I have laughed and cried reading his novels, especially my favorite, Nobody's Fool, but also the chilling Empire Falls and the burlesque Straight Man.
So I was delighted to get yet another novel from an author who doesn't write as much as I'd like, and it's a big meaty one. As one of the other reviewers pointed out, you want your favorite authors' books to be like his or her other books, but you want them to be different. And Bridge of Sighs is about as different as possible from Russo's other books, yet at the same time his depth of character, humanism and touching details are ever-present.
The story tells the tale of Lou C. Lynch (nicknamed Lucy), and his relationship with his family, his only friend, and eventually his girlfriend who will later become his wife. It's vintage Russo in his characterization and portrayal of small-town America, a tiny slice of life of a small town in upstate New York. This is what's called a "character-driven novel", where the plot itself is dependent on the characters and their actions, and that explains why some reviewers found the book "slow" or "wordy". Russo weaves a tapestry of the events in his characters' lives, their feelings, and their thoughts.
I won't deny that I was a bit thrown by this book after a while. But I trusted Russo to bring this story to a moving conclusion, and had tears in my eyes during the final chapter. If you don't have patience to read a true stylist and, in my opinion, on of America's finest character authors, you'd best avoid this book. But if you are willing to give yourself up to Russo's world for more than 500 pages, you'll be much the richer. As always, Russo gives a great story, with moving, real people in events that you can imagine occurring to you. A great read indeed.
Book Review: Another good Russo novel with rich family dynamics
Summary: 4 Stars
I've read all of Richard Russo's books from Mohawk up to the present one and have enjoyed them all. His best books have been those such as The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool, and Empire Falls that focused on family dynamics, especially the relationships between children and their parents. Russo has explored these relationships from the point of view of young children and of adults still grappling with their deceased or living parents. While he consistently sets his stories in decaying small towns and deals with similar family dynamics, he always manages to engage my interest with each new book.
Bridge of Sighs is another good novel from Russo that focuses on 3 families, their internal dynamics, and the love triangle that arises between 3 of their children. While Russo's sets are familiar, his characters are fresh even while sharing many traits with characters from his previous novels. Russo does extend himself in Bridge of Sighs by describing the artwork of two characters and following one of them to Venice, Italy.
Some Russo fans might miss the humor that was more evident in Straight Man and Nobody's Fool. Readers might also find the narrator, Lou Lynch, somewhat wimpy and annoying. But I think Russo draws his characters with good depth and feeling; I certainly found myself pulling for the Lynch family to make their convenience store successful despite the odds against them. I also was interested in discovering the paths that the 3 main characters took to get where we see them as adults early in the novel. And this was true despite my own personal aversion to the willingness of Sarah to give up a potentially more enriching future to stay in the small town of Thomaston and marry Lou.
Overall, Russo has written another good novel. While it is not as convincing as Empire Falls, it is well written and engaging. That being said, it is probably time for Russo to move outside his comfort zone and take more risks. It would be interesting to see him write a novel that took place in an urban or suburban setting and focused on different interpersonal dynamics generated in those environments.