Alexander's Bridge

By: Willa Cather

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

There is a pleasure in listening to the imagery of Alexander's Bridge that is similar to viewing a beautiful watercolor, as in the following description of a Boston street in late afternoon: "The sun sank rapidly; the silvery light had faded from the bare boughs and the watery twilight was setting in when Wilson at last walked down the hill, descending into cooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow."

Against this delicate imagery, Willa Cather renders the tough inner terrain of a man in mid-life crisis. Bartley Alexander is a master bridge engineer. At 43 he is at the height of his power, comfortable with success and all it brings. Yet he yearns for the lost vibrancy of his youth. He leads a double life, veering between his beautiful, accomplished wife and his mistress, an actress he knew as a student in Paris. The conflict creates a crack in the structure of his life that ultimately undermines him.

(P)2000 Blackstone Audio Inc

Written with empathy and poetry

This book shines with understatement and reminds me of a painting which conveys much more than is overtly portrayed. I feel that every reader must experience this book uniquely, according to the reader’s own understanding of human nature and art.

The ambivalence of being

After reading a few of the reviews below , all negative , I was taken aback , was I truly in the minority in feeling this a profound work ? Life is exactly as ambiguous as this sad tale unfolds , strength and weakness and flaw and virtue . I found myself entranced and admiring the three central characters; wishing to emulate certain virtues and reminded to avoid certain failings of character . Cather was an astonishing artist .

Better than expected

The story is fairly short, but even so the tension and conflict are all there.
The characters are believable and understandable in their follies.
Cather has a very endearing way of describing a scene with romantic imagery.
And the ending is so bittersweet I'm not sure it's right to call it a tragedy.

Disappointing...

After finishing this story, I still don't really know what the author's point was. No one grows or changes for the better. My conclusion is that her story conveys the message that men are generally cads, and the women who love them are fools.

Waxing poetic into deep distraction.

This one was difficult for me. It’s a poem that goes on way too long, it’s a novella with all the fanfare of pretty writing with no substance. It struggles with not knowing what it is and feels like something that someone picked up among Willa Cather’s scrap pile of ideas for books (that wasn’t completely worked out) and said “hmm, I bet if I put this out with her name on it some one will buy it”.