A Bridge Over The Last Two Days

Sorry about the lack of posts. Internet difficulty that was beyond my control, perhaps you know how that goes. Anyway, back into the swing of things. While I was out of town that last week, I picked up a few books from my father's collection*, and I bought a couple from a bookstore I visited back during the summer as well. Haven't gotten to my dad's books yet, but I got through The Bridge Over The River Kwai, by one Pierre Boulle last week, and so I'd kind of like to discuss that.

I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how closely the film hews to the book, in case the movie is your source of familairity with the material. The gist of the story is a unit, commanded by a Colonel Nicholson, is captured by the Japanese, and put to work building a bridge, while a sort of British demolitions squad plots to destroy said bridge upon its completion. Hilarity ensues. I thought I had a pretty good idea where the story was going right from the start, but it threw me a bit of a curve at the end.

I'm not certain quite what point Boulle is trying to make at times. Throughout the book he emphasizes the properness, civility, and devotion of the British soldiers. The enlisted men are devoted to their colonel, and have no issues with the officers insisting that they merely supervise the enlisted mens' work, rather than actually help move earth or cut down trees. Nicholson demands the bridge be constructed properly, in a proper location, even though it will aid the movement of supplies through Southeast Asia for the Japanese. Additionally, the Japanese are frequently referred to as barbarians, who only manage to mimic aspects of Western culture, and don't even know how to build a proper train-bearing bridge**. There's some suggestion this could be due to the best engineers being kept near the capital, and the ones on these frontiers being substandard in their skill, but the book seems full of derisive remarks about the commanding Japanese officer, and how out of his depth he is compared to the brilliant and poised Colonel Nicholson. Yet, it seems that British pride in a job well done, that civility, is what fouls everything up.

Wikipedia says Boulle commented that Nicholson is based on memories of different French collaborating officers. So is Boulle examining the mindset that makes an officer aid the enemy, even if it appears to be unwittingly***? Is he trying to lampoon all these characteristics that supposedly mark the superiority of the Western civilization, the ones the Japanese in the story apparently haven't mastered? Sure it's great to have the loyalty of your men, their trust that keeps their spirits from flagging even as they push themselves to death, but when they're doing so on a project that aids their enemy, it's somewhat less of a positive, I should think.

Another thing to discuss is the British demolition crew, especially their rookie member, a chap named Joyce. Throughout the book Joyce is very happy to be on the mission, full of energy and constantly pushing himself harder than is strictly necessary, so great is his excitement. He goes to reconnoiter the bridge cosntruction, which requires three days trek with time set aside for sleep, but makes the return without stopping, because he is so eager to report back and begin planning the destruction. He even gets to be the one who will detonate the charges when the time is right. Yet when the day comes, he is faced with the possibility he may need to kill to protect the charges, and he is uncertain he can do that. That starts a segment of introspection, as Joyce tries to come up with some inner justification that will enable him to kill if the need arises. What he settles on is somewhat curious and a tad disturbing, but perhaps more honest than if he had settled upon duty or love of country as his guiding principle, as least to my cynical perspective. Joyce seems to serve a twofold purpose here. First a commentary on the energy and desires of youth at the start of the war, their dissastisfaction with a peaceful and stable life, which Joyce had in spades**** prior to the war. Second, as a further deconstruction of that supposed superiority of the Western civilization that the characters in the book believe they have.

There's one character that seems to serve as reader identification, and this is Nocholson's medic, Major Clipton. He's described as alternating between admiring, hating, and being perplexed by the colonel. He's the figure who most frequently questions the Colonel's decisions, and tries his best to keep the men from working on the bridge (for their health), only to be approached by Nicholson and told to clear all the men who can walk, because they are needed. Nicholson tries to couch it in pragmatic terms, that if their work falls behind, the Japanese commander will order all workers out there, regardless of physical condition, and Clipton sadly, can't argue with that logic (though I think Nicholson has Saito suitably bamboozeld he could circumvent that), but there always seems to be something more to it, especially when you see the soldiers apparently quite willing to march back out there and get to work. Does Clipton represent civilians, or people without any pretensions of superiority? He's described as someone who can readily examine both sides of an issue logically, and give credit where due, regardless of who receives it, so maybe he represents good officers Boulle knew?

I admit I had a hard time swallowing the resolution of the assault on the bridge on the initial read through, but as I've compared it to other situations I'm more likely to encounter in life, it seems more plausible. Even prior to that, I found it to be an interesting read, and it's a short book, so if you were to read it and not be drawn into it, well you still wouldn't have to invest a terribly large amount of time on it*****.

* Though not the book he kept suggesting. He really wants me to read Greg Iles' books for some reason, but the back didn't make it sound like something I'm interested in.

** I wonder about that. Could the Japanese really not know how to build a proper bridge by the 1940s? It seems reminiscent of the type of thinking prevalent in the U.S. military prior to World War 2, where reports of the remarkable performance of Japanese planes where dismissed as being incorrect or misreported because they exceeded what American planes were capable of. Except, whoops, the figures and reports weren't wrong. Granted, building a plane isn't the same a building a bridge, but it still strikes me as strange to indicate the Japanese aren't capable of the latter.

*** Nicholson never gives any thought to what this bridge he has so dedicated himself to building will be used for, namely transporting munitions and supplies to help kill other soldiers of England and her allies. All he cares about is making sure the bridge is built properly, as befitting an officer of her Royal Army or some such nonsense.

**** Why "in spades"? Why not "in clubs"? It doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely, but that could simply owe to me not being as used to it as a saying, couldn't it?

***** Though with the attention spans I see alluded to on the Internet, maybe it would be too long. I saw a list once, of books people wished had never been written, and once person listed The Old Man and the Sea, and complained it was too long. It's 120 pages! What are you, a goldfish? Complain about the bleakness of the ending, all that struggle and no material gain, but complaining it's too long just makes you look like a twit. Save that for Victorian Era literature.