In this telling, both characters remain relatively unsympathetic, but you feel more empathy for Mr. Bridge, the novelist tackled the same subject from the perspective of her husband, Mr. It arrives without her consent, but she sees no alternative. Bridge experiences the “growing sense of despair and futility”-but isn’t able to do anything about it. Bridge, counting down the years as she observed, from a distance, the conclusion of the youth which was her own, felt a growing sense of despair and futility, and ever after that day she herself moved a little more slowly.” The woman was now evidently verging on old age, and Mrs.

One day, while shopping on the Plaza, she had recognized someone who used to live next door to her when she was a child. Does it run through our lives, too? “She saw that it was inevitable these things had come to pass, and she could not escape a feeling of unreality.

This creeping sense of time passing, with the expectation that “something will happen” but never actually does, runs through the book. She had a feeling that all was not well and she waited in deep expectancy for some further intimation, listening intently, but all she heard before falling asleep was the familiar chiming of the clock.” She heard the velvet chimes of the clock in the hall, and presently the barking of a dog. Bridge was awakened by the immense silence and she lay in her bed listening. It fell without a sound and covered the frozen ground, and the dead leaves beneath the maple tree, and bowed the limbs of the evergreens, and sifted out of the high, pearl-blue clouds hour after hour. Here are a few favorite passages: “The snow fell all night. I made a bunch of highlights in my Kindle app. The novel is essentially about discontent and regret, or about encountering the panic and quiet desperation of an ordinary life. Sounds thrilling, right? But underneath the surface, there’s a lot more going on. Their three children have normal childhood problems, and eventually grow up. A boring and largely unsympathetic character ambles though normal life events, rarely seeing her equally boring husband. Bridge, a lesser-known novel from 1959 in which nothing really happens. I think the message in the book is that we all have flaws we can’t resolve.” -Amazon reviewer

“What Have I Missed in My Life?” Notes on The Novels Mrs.

Mr and mrs bridge novel