the book is not supposed to solve

Scores of readers, often students, wrote to Wilder over the years seeking his position on the questions posed in The Bridge. In this excerpt from a letter written march 6, 1928, four months after the appearance of the novel, Wilder responds to a query from John Townley, one of his former pupils at Lawrenceville.

The first:

Thornton Wilder
Davis House
Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Dear John:

The book is not supposed to solve. A vague comfort is supposed to hover above the unanswered questions, but it is not a theorem with its Q.E.D. The book is supposed to be as puzzling and distressing as the news that five of your friends died in an automobile accident. I dare not claim that all sudden deaths are, in the last counting, triumphant. As you say, a little over half the situations seem to prove something and the rest escape, or even contradict.

Chekhov said: “The business of literature is not to answer questions, but to state them fairly.”

I claim that human affection contains a strange unanalyzable consolation and that is all. People who are full of faith claim that the book is a vindication of this optimism; disillusioned people claim that it is a barely concealed “anatomy of despair. I am nearer the second group than the first; though some days I discover myself shouting confidentially in the first group.

Where will i be thirty years from now? – with Hardy or Cardinal Newman?

- Thornton Wilder

Afterward, The Bridge of San Louis Rey

dramatically speaking, intention is everything

“When the pressure is intense, a driver who is being chased relentlessly by a competitor, realizes that he might be better off pushing from behind than pulling from the front. In that case the smart move is to yield his lead to the trailing car and let the other driver pass. Relieved of his burden our new leader can tuck in behind and make the leader drive his mirrors.

Sometimes however it is important to hold one’s position, and not allow the pass. For strategic reasons. Psychological reasons.

Sometimes a driver simply has to prove that he is better than his competition. Racing is about discipline and intelligence. Not about who has the heavier foot. The one who drives smart will always win in the end.

Sometimes you have to assert yourself.

And dramatically speaking, intention is everything.

No race has ever been won in the first corner. But many a race has been lost there.”

- Enzo, The Art of Racing in the Rain

no genuine attempt to address the issues

The West went to Vienna accusing Asia of trying to undermine the ideal of universality and determined to blame Asia if the conference failed. Inevitably Asia resisted. The result after weeks of wrangling was a predictable diplomatic compromise ambiguous enough so that all could live with it, but settled very few things. There was no real dialogue between Asia and the West, no genuine attempt to address the issues or forge a meeting of minds.

-  Ambassador Kausikan, World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, June 1993

 

…nothing so liberalizes a man

“…nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people. An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotchman, an Italian or so, several Frenchmen and a number of Americans were present, and you couldn’t ask a question about any possible country under the sun, but some fellow in the crowd had been there and could give the information from personal experience.”

- Mark Twain

whatever….

 ”did I say that? …. whatever…. shit….. Whenever you play some shit and someone else feels inspired to get off their ass and do something creative, positive. That’s some shit, right?”

- Prefuse 73