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    Mr. Bridge
    Mr. Bridge
    Mr. Bridge
    Audiobook11 hours

    Mr. Bridge

    Written by Evan S. Connell

    Narrated by George Guidall

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A lawyer with a growing stockpile of securities in the bank, three beautiful children, a compliant and decorative wife, and a lovely house in the suburbs, Walter Bridge has achieved all that is expected of someone of his race and background. But try as he might to control the lives of those around him, they prove perversely independent. In Mr. Bridge and its companion, Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell has brilliantly realized the lives of upper-middle-class Americans living in the years just before and during World War II.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 14, 2011
    ISBN9781461809906
    Mr. Bridge
    Author

    Evan S. Connell

    Evan S. Connell (1924-2013) received numerous prizes and awards for his writing and was the author of many books of fiction, poetry, essays, and history, including Mr. Bridge, Mrs. Bridge, The Diary of a Rapist, The Alchymist's Journal, and The Collected Stories.

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    Reviews for Mr. Bridge

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Easy listening. Both a relief after enduring a lot of nasty stuff that consists in most publishing of today, and a disturbing look at what makes people tolerate, if not participate in, the destruction of others. Good writing is also a relief. Leaves a lot to be investigated: some Leave It To Beaver expressions, Kansas City untouched by The Great Depression or what? Plus, now I hafta reread Mrs. Bridge, and I had a policy against doing that because of the so many books, so little time problem. But this book provokes too many questions to just ignore it.
    • 5/5
      When I just finished the book, I was planning to rate it four star. But until I got to typing, changed my mind. I saw myself reading this book as a paper copy and holding in my hands when finished - meditating over it for a moment and putting it on a shelve with other books that I want to “own” with intention to reread it at some point.
      Do not expect action. Do not expect turn if events. Do not expect hidden plot. Non of it. The book will end and you didn’t get any “thrill “.
      The smartness of this book is in its simplicity. In depiction of a old white male who could be not just in America but in any other European or North American country. You get it all : views on race, diversity, role of women, generation clashes. Even though the time is end 30s, begin 40s - with a little tweaking this book could be turned into example of any time period. Including today.
      Mr. Bridge should be on reading list for highschool students.
      Hope you like it as much as I did.
    • 4/5
      Short snippets of the life of a woman, wife, mother, in Kansas (middle America) in the 1930's. Very concise, well done and disturbing. She seems not to have a mind of her own, or at least she is not proactive. she is bored with her life and follows directions of her husband. The correct way to act, speak, dress and appear before others is most important
    • 4/5
      This is a modern classic and Evan S. Connell's debut novel, a sometimes sympathetic, sometimes uncharitable look at a woman's life. Mrs. Bridge of Kansas City is a woman who has lived within the confines of what is expected of her and she places those same restrictions and expectations on her family. Yet while she is the one who keeps the rules and knows what to do, this doesn't mean she doesn't also chafe sometimes or realize that there is something missing from her life, an entirely pleasant, financially comfortable existence that doesn't entirely cover for her lack of connection to her children or her husband's emotional and often physical absence. Connell does not go lightly on Mrs. Bridge, spotlighting moments where her need to preserve appearances was silly or harmed her relationship with her children. But he's also often kind to her, revealing how little respect or support she receives from her husband. This book is also full of quietly powerful moments or humorous ones and Connell's descriptions of daily life allows plenty of room for the small disappointments and harms to be given their due. This quiet novel is a wonderful glimpse of a world that no longer exists, and of a woman who honestly did her best.
    • 5/5
      Mrs. Bridge is the well-told story of India Bridge, married to a work-obsessed attorney. The novel takes place in Kansas City beginning in the 1930s. The Bridges have two daughters, Ruth and Carolyn, and a son, Doug. As the years pass, Mrs. Bridge becomes increasingly dissatisfied with a life that is centered around appearances and her emotionally-distant husband, but continues to present a perfect facade despite her increasingly private despair. Her life is told in a series of brief vignettes, which perfectly capture her emotions and memories. As the years pass, the children drift away from their mother, compounding her loneliness. Doug is in the army during WWI, Ruth works as an assistant editor for a fashion magazine, and Carolyn returns home only because she is trapped in a volatile marriage. The last paragraph sums up all that Mrs. Bridge is feeling. This was written at a time when women's roles were largely determined by their social status and their husbands. It is a sobering rendering of Mrs. Bridge's life, and I look forward to reading the sequel entitled, fittingly, Mr. Bridge. It will be interesting to see their life and his marriage through his eyes.
    • 5/5
      Very sad, very recognizable.
    • 5/5
      a masterpiece in economy and emotional and social perceptiveness, it broke my heart, i loved it.
    • 4/5
      All I can say, is how stifled wives were in the mid-20th century. I enjoyed the short stories about her life. There was no plot and that seemed to be the story of wealthy women’s lives. You were there to showcase your husband, and your thoughts and wishes weren’t important. Connell captured the times so well.
    • 5/5
      In some respects this is just domestic comedy - a woman in the mid-west marries, has kids, interacts with her friends, feel discontented, grows old. But it's so much more than that, with the lovely grace notes of Cornell's writing at its best. Mrs. Bridge - and her first name is "India" which hints at the exotic and strange - lives her life and accepts it. She's sort of a female Bartleby the Scrivener. She goes to her husband for sex (and love?) and doesn't get it - and accepts that love sometimes means being disappointed. She sees her son building a tower in the vacant lot next door and watches - and watches -- and then quietly arranges to have it knocked down. But never talks to him about it. Communication is not her best thing. Her little daughter can play with the smarty pants little black girl but only when both children are . . . little. What does Frost say? "(S)He will not go behind (her) father's sayings" Mrs. Bridge is a little bit like that. But her awareness of her limitations -- which comes and goes - makes her an almost tragic figure.There is a companion piece Mr. Bridge but it seems to be just an addendum. Mrs. B is the real deal. Lovely and unforgettable
    • 5/5
      We met to discuss [Mrs. Bridge] yesterday, and it was a very satisfying conversation. Most of us (numbering about 15) liked the book very much, and we immediately began talking about our mothers or grandmothers, and how the need to conform so pervaded some of these women's lives. This is a portrait of a culture that is not really gone, even now, although the generalization may be fragmented. We all have our cohorts, whether religious, social, geographic, racial, or class, and each cohort has a certain amount of unspoken norms dangerous to transgress. Mrs. Bridge, of course, cannot step out of her cohort. Each time she initiates an individual action, however mild, she pulls back. Poor lady. She has exactly what she wanted, and that's the problem.The language and style is wonderfully spare, and the reader (or listener, in my case) can look into the episodes of her life through a one-way mirror of crystalline description. Nothing happens except a life, and it's mesmerizing.
    • 5/5
      This little book is so, so clever I can't stop thinking about it.On the surface it seems straightforwardly simple - a series of short vignettes about the daily minutiae of Mrs Bridge's life, peppered with subtle specks of black humour. Mrs Bridge is the quintessential wealthy suburban housewife during the pre-war period. In vignettes of not more than 2 or 3 pages long, we are a fly on the wall of her daily struggle against the minor insignificances which dominate her everyday being, such as her son using the guest towels, her struggle to parallel park the impressive Lincoln her husband bought her, the new washer woman who doesn't take the hint about sitting in the back of the car. At first all seem trivial, amusing, delicately clever observances on human behaviour.For example, this quote reminded me very much of my co-founder at work who puts in 100 hour weeks:(Talking about Mrs Bridge's husband) 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 might be at the breakfast table; he greeted them pleasantly and they responded differentially, 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.Many times I got to the end of a vignette thinking "ohhh, that was clever" as Connell deftly dealt another ironic blow or observation.On their own, the vignettes were cleverly enjoyable parodies. For the first while I enjoyed them well enough, but thought to myself that I wouldn't be desperately rushing to read anything further by Evan S. Connell. However, less than halfway through the mist cleared and I realised that he was a master in disguise. A pattern started to form from the seemingly unimportant snapshots of Mrs Bridge's life, and a novel began to emerge as all the pieces fell into place.Mrs Bridge is a sadly familiar tale of a privileged wife whose only job is to raise her children and attend luncheons, and who finds herself totally at sea as she loses them to adulthood. She is a desperate people pleaser, yet the harder she tries to please people the less they respect her. Evan S. Connell so eloquently succeeds in 'show' rather than 'tell'. It's a short novel, yet by the end you have a lump in your throat at the unjust realism of a life that has passed her by, of a wife, a mother and a friend who is loved yet overlooked at the same time.4.5 stars - achingly subtle in its execution yet hugely impacting. I'll be thinking about this book for some time to come.
    • 5/5
      Yet another American novel that takes a mundane life and renders it fascinating. For me this novel ranks alongside some of my other favourites - Stoner by John Williams,Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and most of Anne Tyler's and Richard Russo's novels.
    • 5/5
      "I wish I knew what to do but I just don't understand", April 18, 2015This review is from: Mrs. Bridge (Paperback)A wonderful exploration of people: the unbridgeable distances between us, even members of the same family. Set in the 30s/40s, this is a family story seen almost entirely from the perspective of India Bridge. Living a comfortable middle-class life in Kansas City, Mrs Bridge's days revolve around her lawyer husband, her three increasingly alien children, and her friends at the country club.Mrs Bridge has received a 'proper' upbringing and her inability to raise children with the same values, and her constant need to make bright, courteous, meaningless remarks are perhaps her defining characteristics. And yet at moments she becomes aware that there is something missing from her life - an emptiness that she tries in vain to fill...The author describes her life in a series of 'sketches' rather than in lengthy chapters. At times hilarious (who could forget dinner with the unutterably dull and patronising Van Metres), elsewhere sad and hopeless, many of the events are minor in themselves yet illustrate life as it is.I couldn't put this down and would totally recommend it.
    • 3/5
      I go back and forth on this. Is it a great achievement of sympathetic yet ironic craft? Or is it an okay goy version of Roth's 'Goodbye, Columbus'? Is it masterfully subtle (compared to, say Pynchon), or eye-rollingly heavy handed (compared to, say, Yates)?
      No matter what, the fact that the same author has also written a book called 'Diary of a Rapist,' and a novel of the crusades in which the characters, so I hear, speak in archaic English, means that I can't do otherwise than respect Connell's range. But I suspect that this will fade from my memory in a way that Goodbye, C; Gravity's Rainbow; or Yates' short stories will not. Hence three stars, subject to revision.
    • 4/5
      Very well written, and the style is very innovative, but my engagement progressively diminished - in mch the same way as Mrs Bridge came increasingly to despair about the barreness of her suburban life. Perhaps my enthusiasm for this book was limited due to the structure, the cool detached tone, and the rather unsympathetic character of Mrs Bridges. It reminded me a bit of 'Revolutionary Road'. It’s from about the same period and also tells a story of suburban despair – but unlike Mrs Bridge the wife in Revolution Road tries desperately to break away from the constraints of suburban life.
    • 3/5
      Very well written. Connell's indictment of Mrs. Bridge is subtle, but very real. I can't help but feel that he judges her and her life based on his own standards. Because she did not read Joseph Conrad or pursue psychoanalysis, she is empty. I liked her, and found her thoughtful and insightful in her own way. She seemed to find some meaning in her children's lives. I think her real failing was one of taking risk and following through, and this is one most of us can relate to.
    • 4/5
      I have admired Thomas Savage ever since I on Oct 25, 1989, read his superaltively powerful novel The Power of the Dog and when I heard that he had said Mrs. Bridge was one of the best novels he had ever read I sought it out and have now read it. It tells of an incredibly ineffectual society woman in Kansas City utterly dominated by her brusque lawyer-husband and overwhelmed by her growing children. I found the book laugh out loud funny often even though the woman's inability to assert herself or to express an unfavorable opinion is pathetic. The bookt is extremely easy to read and thought-provoking. It is so good that one thinks one should read other books by Evan S. Connell.
    • 4/5
      "She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting. But waiting for what? She did not know." This is a beautifully written novel. Built through a mosaic of vignettes and episodes in the life of the titular character and her family, the novel gently limns the world of the aptly named Mrs. Bridge. She is a part of the generation that tries to hold on to the past during the era between the wars. It is not immediately clear that her family is living through the depression, although early in the novel the hard work of her husband is emphasized, it is hard work that pays off in a better life for Mrs. Bridge and the family. Toward the end of the book, their son Douglas heads off to WWII, signalling an end to an era. While the senior Bridges are tradition bound and deeply conformist, their children and their society are changing rapidly. Evan Connell paints a sympathetic but fairly condescending portrait of Mrs. Bridge as she fights to hold back the tide of these changes. She struggles to preserve proprieties and appearances as her three children grow increasingly rebellious at the stifling social conventions that she seeks to force upon them. Meanwhile, as the children grow away from her, and with Mr. Bridge completely focused on his legal work, Mrs. Bridge begins to sense an emptiness in her own life. At one point, a friend who later takes her own life asks : "Have you ever felt like those people in the Grimm fairy tales--the ones who were all hollowed out in back?" This is pretty clearly Connell's point in the book, that Mrs. Bridge, however likable, is indeed hollow, that she is all deference to her husband, service to her children, and conformity to public mores, with no room left over for a unique and genuine person. He conveys this message with great humor and no little understanding, but it can't help but be a pretty harsh indictment of her essentially wasted life.Then there are two scenes with Mr. Bridge, one where, having gone to their club to celebrate their anniversary, he refuses to leave the dinner table as a tornado approaches. The twister does indeed miss them, but the episode suggests the solidity of Mr. Bridge and of their marriage, both unyielding even to forces of nature :"The tornado, whether impressed by his intransigence or touched by her devotion, had drawn itself up into the sky and was never seen or heard of again."And in the most moving scene, Mrs. Bridge, despite having not cooked in years, tries to make Mr. Bridge's favorite dessert, pineapple bread, and biffs it horribly, Mr. Bridge gently tells her, "Never mind", and the next day brings her a dozen roses. Though Mr. Bridge is rarely even present in the book, these episodes capture the strength and essential goodness of the marriage.Finally, though the children move away, even move quite far away, the most pleasant thoughts of the more rebellious daughter are of home and the other daughter returns whenever there's trouble in her own ill-advised marriage. And the son, Douglas, grows up to be a man very much like his father. They, like Mrs. Bridge, and like the author himself, seem to realize that though the life that the Bridges have made may at first seem emotionally stunted, overly circumscribed, and unfulfilling, upon further reflection, there is something powerfully compelling about it. This book is terrific, by turns moving and funny and heartbreaking - there are many small moments of humor that both lighten and enliven the story. But in the end, the Bridges come off much better than they first appear, and forty years later they look better still. Would that we had a bridge back to the simple values they represent.
    • 5/5
      "Mrs. Bridge" is an outstanding book! Connell has created a masterpiece of well-observed vignettes about the 1930s-1940s upper middle class American society, psyche, and vulnerabilities that define Mrs. Bridge. He realistically, sympathetically, and sometimes humorously portrays a range of different characters in a way that brings them to life in the context of a society which is so different from today's. I really enjoyed Connell's writing style and was impressed with his dead-on but understated characterizations. Connell's spare writing forces the reader to fill in the details of the characters he has sketched so carefully. This is the best book I have read in about a year.
    • 4/5
      Mrs. Bridge is married to a successful lawyer and has three children. The novel is set in Kansas City during WWII and the years immediately proceeding it, and is told in a series of small snippets, sometimes just a few paragraphs.. Mrs. Bridge is always concerned with keeping up appearances, yet things never seem to go as she has planned. Such a sad character. Good book.
    • 4/5
      This book, written in 1959, tells the story of Mrs. Bridge, a society lady living in Kansas City around the 1940s. The book is made up of very short chapters, snippets that provide striking insight into Mrs. Bridge's life. In the beginning, I didn't like Mrs. Bridge much. She seemed more concerned with appearances than with substance, and she passed this view along to her children. Her husband, Mr. Bridge, played a very minor role in the book, showing up (sometimes) for dinner after a hard day at work. (However, Connell wrote another book, [Mr. Bridge], from his point of view.) But by the end of the book, I really felt sorry for Mrs. Bridge. Connell was able to convey the emptiness in her life with a few well-placed details. So, while I can't say that I enjoyed Mrs. Bridge's story, I admired the telling. Connell painted a vivid picture that I imagine will stick with me for a while.
    • 4/5
      India Bridge is a perfect woman with a perfect life: married to a successful lawyer, mother of 3 children, maven of the Kansas City country club set in the years surrounding World War II. It's difficult to say what this book is about. It's about India Bridge. And yet, it is so much more. I found this to be one of the most touching and sad books I have ever read, but the tragedies are the day-to-day ones. There is no overwhelming climax, nothing extraordinary, and the ending, although abrupt, is absolutely perfect. And I think that the cover of my book, unlike the others shown, is the best of them all.
    • 4/5
      While reading the early part of the book, I did not like the title character. She seemed shallow and not terrible bright. But in reading further, it seemed that her limitations are not of her own making and that she tried very much to do what she could to facilitate the activities of others. She was quite devoted to her family, and often in a rather sensible way. Certainly, she was bound by the public expectations for her social class, but who isn't bound by class and role expectations?The ending of this tersely and very well written book is quite sad. The book is well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      James Patterson claims this book had the greatest influence on him as a writer
    • 5/5
      A brilliant book! Evan S. Connell anticipates Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique and "the problem with no name" by four years. Mrs. Walter Bridge is a pampered upper-middle class wife, clueless mother, and model community member who struggles with her own identity outside of her relationships with others. She's bored, empty, scared and has no language to express her needs. And she's not the only one in her set - a good friend commits suicide. Although the story is poignant and sad, the writing is what paints this portrait of an unrealized woman. Connell builds this portrait with perfect brush strokes - short vignettes over a lifetime showing mundane but telling moments. Although there is no traditional narrative or plot, the reader sees deeply into the characters and sympathizes with their repressed and unrealized lives. Highly recommend this one!
    • 5/5
      I love the way this book was written, in little short chapters, little scenes from Mrs. Bridge's life. Each little chapter is like a Zen story, a little piece of a life that zings the reader like a tiny dart. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      Author Evan S. Connell depicts the life of a middle-class woman and her family through a series of snippets, vignettes, and interludes -- no "chapter" in the novel is more than ten pages long and some are only six sentences.With sequences entitled "Guest Towels," "Nothing Spectacular," "One Summer Morning," "Servant's Entrance," and "Parking," Connell builds a portrait of an existence that is mundane, yet also encompasses the profound grief, doubt, and accomplishments of which everyday life is made.The following passage illustrates Connell's beautifully simple writing and how he reveals the sorrow of decades in a single paragraph: "Her husband had never been a demonstrative man, not even when they were first married; consequently she did not expect too much from him. Yet there were moments when she was overwhelmed by a terrifying, inarticulate need. One evening as she and he were finishing supper together, alone, the children having gone out, she inquired rather sharply if he loved her. She was surprised by her own bluntness and by the almost shrewish tone of her voice, because that was not the way she actually felt. She saw him gazing at her in astonishment; his expression said very clearly: Why on earth do you think I'm here if I don't love you? Why aren't I somewhere else? What in the world has gotten into you?" Mrs. Bridge is a very quiet book of tiny moments that cumulatively pack one hell of a mighty wallop.