Mrs. Bridge

It took some time for me to get to this review for a simple reason: I so tremendously enjoyed both Mrs. and then Mr.Bridge. that I wanted to make sure I said the right thing to encourage everyone to also feast on these wonderful American novels. Both these books are so beautifully written, so carefully honed, so excellently edited and are such remarkable windows into a past generation, they cannot be dismissed for any reason. Do not hesitate to indulge yourself. So much can be said about the emotions stirred (from anger and sadness to outright laughter) by this upper middle class couple, so typical for their generation, it would be frivolous to try to convince with more words. There are already multiple 5-star reviews here. Believe them.

Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge" is one of the truly outstanding works of Twentieth century American literature, a restrained, yet brilliantly wrought fictional portrait of upper middle class married life in the decades surrounding World War II. Connell tells the story of India Bridge in 117 short chapters, each a spare vignette of her enervated life in the perfectly manicured "country-club district" of an affluent Kansas City suburb. Linear in its narrative and meticulously realistic in its style, "Mrs. Bridge" follows India's life from marriage, to the birth of three children, to the rejection by those children of the repressed life of their parents as they grow into adults, to lonely suburban widowhood. While it is, at its heart, a grim tale of one woman's life of repression and, ultimately, loneliness and resignation, Connell's flawless and restrained narrative ultimately leaves the reader feeling exhilarated at the sheer literary achievement of "Mrs. Bridge".Ostensibly the story of a marriage, Mr. Bridge is noticeably absent from much of the narrative. A successful lawyer, he is a man who is unable to express love or affection for his wife or his children, a man who is focussed on becoming "rich and successful," the epitome of the status-conscious husband and father whose identity lies in material possessions. "The family saw very little of him. It was not unusual for an entire week to pass without any of the children seeing him. On Sunday morning they would come downstairs and he . . . greeted them pleasantly and they responded deferentially, and a little wistfully because they missed him. Sensing this, he would redouble his efforts at the office in order to give them everything they wanted."Mrs. Bridge, too, is powerfully repressed, unable to articulate her feelings of dissatisfaction, a woman who is beholden to the expectations of respectability and obsessed with appearances. "She brought up her children very much as she herself had been brought up, and she hoped that when they were spoken of it would be in connection with their nice manners, their pleasant dispositions, and their cleanliness, for these were qualities she valued above all others." Thus, she ultimately drives all three of her children from her life, her unthinking obeisance to social convention destroying any thread of relationship that she might have had with them. Her oldest daughter, "curiously dark", flees to New York City, where she pursues her more unconventional dreams. Her second daughter, an accomplished golfer, enters an ill-fated marriage with a college dropout who cannot provide the country club life that she has been weaned to expect. Her son joins the army, asserting an act of individuality that Mrs. Bridge never seems able to accept or reconcile.It is, most notably, however, in her relationships with her peers-with the other affluent housewives of the "country-club district"-that the grim and vapid nature of Mrs. Bridge's life becomes most apparent. In partic

Denounced in 1959 for not being a 'real' novel, Mrs. Bridge is judged differently these days--and rightly so. The novel is a compelling portrait of American suburban bourgeois life; reading it causes precisely the same claustrophobia Mrs. Bridge sometimes realizes she's suffering from. In a way, this is Sartre's La Nausee moved to Kansas City, but an easier read--almost deceptively so. Closing the book though doesn't really relieve the angst the reader shares with poor Mrs. Bridge in the final section (no I won't give it away)--this book is too real. Don't look for plot, don't look for cheap thrills, but do look for detail, look for the Real peeking into Mrs. Bridge's seemingly perfect life in the Imaginary.I'll be brief: others have said plenty. Just one quick remark: Connell is a stylist of the highest order. His prose is crisp; style matches subject matter. Example: "It was necessary to be careful among people you did not know." Every sentence is carefully crafted to the point where grammar itself becomes a web of cleanliness, clear and transparent. It may seem nothing special, but Connell is a craftsman. All the more striking, both in grammar and in plot, are the few moments, aporia, where something else could have happened--such as when Mr. Bridge is breathlessly studying, in Paris, "a black lace brassiere with the tips cut off," a moment Mrs. Bridge returns to later with vague uneasiness.I am glad I was recently introduced to Connell's work. It is a treasure trove, and it's a pity so few of his works are still in print. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more of his novels to read: Deus Lo Volt! is next.

I'm writing this review not only because I loved this book but also because I'm not sure many of the other on-line reviewers understood it very well. Mrs. Bridge is not meant to be a heroine -- nor does the author intend to endorse her views and practices. The reason for these misunderstandings is simple: Connell is a brilliant realist who keeps himself and his own judgments carefully out of the way; he has such a light touch, such a deadpan approach, and offers so little help in interpreting the book's events, that he creates one of the most joyously liberating literary experiences I've had; unfortunately, he also opens himself up to radical misinterpretation. For my own part, I'm almost ready to put Connell among the 20th century's finest writers (I don't go in for the usual gang -- Fitzgerald, Nabokov, Joyce ad nauseam are all over-rated and far too cerebral); this is a moving, painful, hilarious, deeply insightful and sometimes satirical look at a middle-class woman whose well-meaning workaholic husband has given her everything and thereby slowly destroyed her life; she's not a thinker or a go-getter, and has only occasional moments of beginning to understand what has happened to her (or failed to happen). Connell pulls this off without condemning her or her lunk-headed husband; it's a powerfully compassionate performance, and one of the best books I've read in the past year. Very highly recommended. (Its companion -- "Mr. Bridge" -- is also excellent, as is the overlooked Merchant-Ivory film of both books called "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.")