Granted, I’m glad this wasn’t some rosy-glasses Scarlet Sister Mary version of Chinese peasant life. But I felt it pretty clearly was anti-China throughout: religion is insincere, men are greedy or lustful or snivelling or all three, women are fat gossips or thin sullen workhorses, the rich are lousy, so are the poor, etc., etc. There’s not a single person in the novel, with the possible exception of Wang Lung’s old servant (whose name I forget) who seems to be made really genuinely happy by anything for any stretch of time. I’m glad Buck wanted to be honest, and not make everything sunshine and daisies. But don’t you think her “honest” image of China is, in fact, a pretty clearly skewed view by a Western missionary’s daughter who can’t believe that anything about this society really works or has real value? And, if so, does that impact your reading of it (it did mine)? As is sometimes the case, maybe I just disagree (with respect!) with your collective opinion of the book.

A couple of things, though. One: Lesbians. Thank you for saying that, Diablevert! Didn’t it strike you that one weird underlying message was that some women do just fine without a man….just find a woman friend and settle down? Weird, of course, not because I disagree, but weird because it’s 1931 for goodness’ sake. Was Pulitzer really okay with a novel that alludes to happy lesbian couples? Or am I reading my 21st century values into relationships that Barnes never intended that way?

And two: is it just me, or is Barnes really good at setting? I am probably hopelessly biased since I just moved to Chicago and love it. But I felt like all her writing about the city of Chicago (and even her other settings…Bryn Mawr, and Gull Rocks, etc.) was pretty perceptive and evocative, especially when she looks at how the city changes over time. I know it’s been a while and the book is darn forgettable to begin with. But is it possible your chat above overlooks her one strength?

I’ll admit, though, the notion of being an inspiration for Hurston’s a big shock, and maybe alters some of my attitudes: thanks for sharing it. Overall, though, not a fan.

Your comments about the poetry of the book are nice — in my review of it, I use Marianne Moore’s line “a poem should not mean, but be” to try and get at what I think Wilder does well (which is to let these people’s lives be what they are, rather than trying to wrench a moral out of them, for the most part). I certainly agree that the Pulitzer committee doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of style. Where’s Fitzgerald, or at least one of his better imitators?

Penny’s thesis about these people all being at a point of change is an interesting one. I’m not sure I buy the Marquesa’s change (is she really done with her daughter? I don’t think so), and Uncle Pio hardly seems like the kind of man who will stay away from the Perichole forever. So, I like the explanation being offered to a certain extent but not quite totally. Maybe I’m taking things too simplistically, but there’s a sort of poetry there — people dying on a bridge are, by definition, people who died on the way from somewhere to somewhere else. And maybe Wilder’s novel has simply helped us understand that their lives truly were at that stage in a larger sense — that the bridge was not just a physical bridge but a metaphysical bridge. Maybe that’s why I feel there’s a peace in even the death of young Jaime (I audibly gasped when Uncle Pio asked to take him for a year, and I realized who the fifth victim would be, but that “shock” quickly faded). Wilder tries to turn the bridge into love, etc. Maybe so. Certainly for four of the five people who die, the bridges of love they’ve tried to build have all fallen — the people they love have not returned the emotion, or have not known how to return it in a way that can be received. But in the end these deaths ironically bridge the gaps between those left behind, so that the Marquesa’s daughter and the Abbess and the Perichole stand together for a moment, unified by something approaching love, if not love itself. There’s a lot of richness to this book….it warrants a re-read, and further reflection. Thanks for sharing your conversations so freely!

Thanks for the tip re: Pnin, by the way. My wife’s obsessed with Nabokov, and it’s sitting on the shelf….maybe a good “break from Pulitzer” novel to throw into my bag for the bus.

Your characterization of it as fable or nascent magical realism is nice–I’d suggested it reminded me of philosophical science fiction, in a way (there’s something about this Lima that’s almost an alien planet). I’d bounced around on my opinion of Wilder, and your added details (I try to read the original editions, when I can, so I didn’t have the benefit of the Wilder bio) and comments about Our Town help me find the rails there, I think. I agree with Penny regarding E. A. Robinson (who is great), and Sherwood Anderson (a recent Poetry Friday feature on my blog…well, now that I think about it, “recent” is more like “two months ago”) — Wilder is a lot more in their camp than I would ever have suggested coming into this book. I wish I had taught it when I was a high school teacher: there’s a lot of depth to it.