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Title: The Bridge on the Drina (Phoenix Fiction Series)
ISBN: 0226020452
Author:
Ivo Andric
Publicate Date: 1977-08-15
Publish: 1977-08-15
List Price: $15.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.98
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.29
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.20
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Worthy
Mr. Andric wrote a masterpiece. I purchased and read this little gem during the Balkan crisis of the 90's and quickly purchased and read The Bosnian Chronicles. Of the two, this book is far superior. For a translation, the language is persuasive and compelling. Many peoples have suffered to be sure, and Mr. Andric's thought-provoking review of the Bosnian peoples and their struggles will never be far from public consciousness.
Very highly recommended.
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2: The definition of Epic Masterpiece
The masterpiece that won the author a Noble prize for fiction. If he was Russian, his name would follow in the same breath as Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, and he'd barely need introducing. But the literary landscape doesn't always offer the same kind of literary stage to all its masters. Some of them are almost buried in the wreckage of European history. At the epicentre of the Continent's eruptions, Andric set out an epic (this word so often overstated, here is an understatement), on the crossroads between divisive Christianity and relentless Islam, modern Imperial powers and those that began to dissolve after hundreds of years of desperate control. Written in Belgrade, during the worst of the Nazi bombing, demolishing the city as the author wrote, Andric looks back across the histories that have been written across his home-land. A substantial book that does not drag with weighty history or become mired in tearful sentimentality; does not proclaim battle inspiring philosophies or declaim political war cries. Andric finds his focus on an elegant bridge spanning a coursing river, and is mesmerized by the confluence of human destinies passing over it. His genius lies in his perception of unique human character and the ability to reveal it in all its complexity with the clear light of god-like wisdom. Third person narrative brought to its ultimate resolution, and the epic novel to its most complete expression. It deserves to be read, and perhaps, celebrated.
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3: The Bridge on the Drina
A refine story telling about the five centuries of occupation in the Balkans by the Ottoman Muslims.
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4: a great 20th century novel
The Turks built it, but many of the "Turks" were Balkan converts descended from the Slavic people of Bosnia, Serbia, and other regions. The eleven-arched bridge stood there, over the green Drina, for centuries, as the human parade passed over it. This wonderful novel tells the story of the people who lived nearby, of those who came to dominate the town from outside, and ultimately, who, in 1914, destroyed the stone span. As a novel that covers nearly 350 years, THE BRIDGE ON THE DRINA can have no continuous cast of characters. Instead, there are sharply drawn portraits of the inhabitants of Visegrad---Muslims, Serbs, Gypsies, and Jews---and the people who came from all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the days when that state occupied Bosnia (1878-1914). Just as Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan's "Barometer Rising" has an explosion as the main character, so Andric has made a bridge the main character here. We meet the Turkish builders of the bridge and the local opposition to it. Accidents happen, an awful punitive impalement is described in gruesome detail. The townsmen meet on the kapia---a wide section of the bridge in its midsection--for centuries: it provides a place to talk and drink coffee, for youth to sing. A Turkish blockhouse is built in one period, to catch rebels, who fight for the end to Turkish rule. The bridge is decorated with the heads of luckless captives. The stone inn, built as a free lodging for travellers, declines and eventually collapses. A girl refuses the love of a young man who has seen her crossing the bridge, but the parents decide on a marriage. She jumps off the bridge to her death, but remains forever in the songs of townspeople. Resistance and rebellion swirl around the bridge during the 19th century before the Austro-Hungarian takeover in 1878. Gamblers appear, and maybe the Devil as well. A soldier is seduced by a Serbian woman who plans to smuggle a guerrilla leader across--he is jailed for his troubles and kills himself. Galician Jews come to run hotels and businesses, but lead sad lives. Early 20th century students argue and fight over clashing ideals---nationalism, communism, socialism. And at last the Great War empties the town and destroys the bridge. The world that so many generations had known came to an end. A vast panorama of history, philosophy, and romance fill this novel, which led to a Nobel Prize for its author in 1961. I read it over 40 years ago, but recently took it up again, having forgotten most of it. It blew me away again.
The bridge is a real one. It suffered more damages during World War II in the vicious multi-sided fighting that wracked Yugoslavia. Then, during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, thousands of Muslims were murdered and pushed from that very bridge. The bloody history continued. On page 118, Andric writes, "moments of social upset and great inevitable change usually throw up just such men, unbalanced and incomplete, to turn things inside out or lead [men] astray. This is one of the signs of times of disorder." These words, written so long before, describe Milosevic to a tee. As I read Andric's novel again---these thoughts added an extra tragic note to it.
Yugoslavia is no more. It was an idea of a certain time. Perhaps it was a good one, perhaps not: I am in no position to judge. But no doubt a cultural flowering took place. When I read this marvelous book back in my twenties, it stimulated me to look into Yugoslav literature in general. I was not disappointed. I found the novels of Krleza, Djilas, Bulatovic, Vuco, and Oljaca, all of which enriched my life. But Andric was certainly the best. He is one of the great writers of the twentieth century. If you have never read him, you have missed something.
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5: BRIDGE ON THE RIVER DRINA
PROVIDES AN EXCELLENT AND STUNNING BACKGROUND FOR THE SERBIAN AND MUSLIM DIFFICULTIES BY WAY OF A TITILLATING FICTION DURING A PERIOD OF TURKISH EMPIRE DOMINANCE OF THE REGION. THIS IS A TIMELESS READ AND VERY MUCH APPLIES TO ENHANCING WESTERN UNDERSTANDING THE UNDERLYING HISTORY BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE TURKISH EMPIRE TO THE NEVER ENDING CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS--NOW BEING FURTHER EXEMPLIFIED BY THE SERBIAN RESPONSE TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BY KOSOVO THIS MONTH.
JIM KOZIAK
02/23/2008
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