PENGUIN Mrs Bridge

What a very great pleasure! Connell writes smoothly and fascinatingly in small, juicy, understated chapters, creating a deeply textured and yet impressionistic picture of the unfortunate, narrow-minded Mrs Bridge, of Kansas City.However, for me, this brilliantly sustained satire became a little repetitive by the last quarter of this relatively short book, since the author’s subtle negativity about put-upon, image-conscious Mrs Bridge is too relentless. Also, the author makes his message unnecessarily explicit near the end, for example when Mrs Bridge comes across a book about people ‘who go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last.’ But it still works extremely well.

Mrs. Bridge is an ordinary limited housewife of the 40s/50s. Her limitations may be imposed by her education. You've got the idea by page 50, and it goes on, like that till the end, page 185. The book could have been half as long and not lost anything."Very very funny..." says the Daily Telegraph. They lie.And who cares what that patent medicine salesman Joshua Ferris has to say about it? He writes an afterword.

Evan S Connell's Mrs Bridge was first published in 1959. I first heard about the novel in late 2012 when it was published as a Penguin classic. It strikes me as an intriguing novel in that it focuses on the domestic and social affairs of a family yet its reach and insight into the conditions of married and family life is far reaching and universal. If you embark upon reading the novel do not let its brevity deceive you of its significance.The novel is set in Kansas City between the first and second world wars. On the surface the novel is a simple straight forward portrait of a housewife, India Bridge. Mrs Bridge expected role is to devote herself to her husband and raise their three children. However, it would be an extremely narrow read of the novel to take it merely at face value because bubbling under the surface are profound issues of family ties and relationships, privilege, the repression of social mores, and the longing to find one's individual self. The novel is rendered by the third person narrator and one feels that it is the author himself. It is rendered in a manner of great economy and neutrality by the narrator. It is structured by means of 117 short vignette-like chapters each with its own title. The reader is left to see and judge things for him or herself. This makes for a very engaging read.The fact that the novel is rendered with great economy does not make the prose completely sparse and unadorned. Readers should find Connell's prose lively and vivid. In one scene where the Bridge's drive out to a club with a rather posh-like couple by the name of Van Metres, Connell describes part of the setting thus: "They seated themselves around an oval table in front of some French doors that opened onto the terrace. They could see a flood lighted, empty swimming pool, a number of canvas-backed chairs, the flagpole, and a winding gravel path lined with white-washed rocks. In the distance above the dark wall formed by the trees, the sky was suffused with a chill pink colour from the downtown lights of the city." The creation of this scene is so simple yet evocatively memorable.It is a novel of great subtle humour. To some extent it could be said that the novel is a comedy of manners. I am almost tempted to say a comedy of family manners but for the fact that the Bridges are caught and trapped in the social context of their time. However, what moves the story beyond the mere concerns of a particular family is that in many instances Connell is addressing aged old and still continuing family issues. Mr Bridge's concerns about her elder daughter's coming of age and growing sexuality is one that remains the concerns of many parents today. An exchange between mother and daughter about the issue of sexuality sees Connell commenting about the exchange with simplicity but telling effect. "Ruth stepped backward, narrowed her eyes, and unfastened the top of her blouse. ... Mrs Bridge remarked a trifle sharply, button yourself up"It would be a mistake to see the novel solely as a portrait of Mrs Bridge rather many of the vignette chapters prompt or create situations, beyond her immediate family concerns, that tries Mrs Bridge. Her life is not only fraught with the trials and tribulations of marriage to Mr Bridge, the rearing of three children but just as important keeping in line with the issues and concerns of her social milieu. Mrs Bridge strives to find her place in the world she inhabits. However, what Connell reveals is just how that world shapes Mrs Bridge. She succumbs to the prejudice of the times by keeping a careful eye on her daughter's, Carolyn, relationship with a coloured girl, Alice Jones and allows the undue dereference of Alice's, father.One outstanding feature of the novel is time. Time is of the essence. It's as if Connell is suggesting to us that aged old proverb "don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today". In terms of Mrs Bridge's first name, India, Connell said: "As a child she was often on the point of enquiring", about how she came by her name, "but time passed, and she never did". And as if anticipating events to come after India marries Mr Bridge we are told: "All seemed well. The days passed, and the weeks, and the months, more swiftly than in childhood, and she felt no trepidation" and the sentence rambles on with careful rhythmic cadence suggesting a carefree happiness.Aesthetically, the writing style is clear and precise. One gets an impression of a perfect piece of literary creations there is no unnecessary use of adjectives and adverbs. Figures of speech are used precisely to add apt imagery. One of things Connell does surprisingly well is to end many of the chapters with a sense of closure. This is turn has the effect of either making the chapter self contained miniature events or they left things dangling in the air for the reader to ponder. This is how chapter 90 ends in which Mrs Bridge's son comes to realise that he has not fooled his mother about the reason why he crashed her car: "Although she had not said a word, he perceived that in some fantastic manner she sensed the complete truth, and he reflected that in matters however distantly related to sex she possessed supernatural powers of divination".Mrs Bridge is a timeless and remarkable novel. Timeless in that its themes and issues are still relevant today and I guess they will always be so. Remarkable in that with brevity and subtlety Connell manages to lay bare the soul of not just a marriage but more importantly family life - do read the novel.

The eponymous heroine, India Bridge, is upper middle class, has a successful hard working husband, three children and lives in an affluent district of Kansas during the 1930's. Perhaps we should envy her, as I am sure many would! She is also insecure, ill at ease with herself, frightened by a world she cannot understand, insular, and trying bravely to cope with the inevitable changes that family life must bring. In 117 short chapters and under 200 pages the author provides us with a beautifully written, sympathetic, sometimes amusing, rather sad, story of her life. Mr Bridge is kind, and generous. He takes her to a Europe on the verge of war, for a vacation. But he hasn't a clue about his wife! Meanwhile her growing children acquire values and partners that are as foreign to her as are the people of those strange lands across the ocean. Apart from the occasional irony there is only a hint of a judgmental element. Apart from the cumbersome Lincoln car, another unsuitable present from her well-meaning husband, there is little symbolism. I don't think the style is realism, for that suggests a more gritty perception. I would suggest that Anne Tyler is closer than most other American novelists in tone. Connell, too, has a gift for empathy with his characters.I read and enjoyed the novel before reading the introduction by Joshua Ferris. The last sentence of this essay sums it all up so well that I would suggest that new readers are advised to do the same!

Really enjoyable book about the human condition, particularly regarding women in the 1930s/1940s. What do we do when our children are grown up and our 'role' as a wife and mother seems redundant? Does loneliness and a sad old age beckon? Particularly apt when women's 'work' was in the home with few choices for most of them. .... But the book is funny as well as sad, skewering the 'country club set' of the time. Really enjoyed it....