Bridge of Clay by Markus ZusakMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Spoilers ahead...
Since The Book Thief was one of the most stirring books I have ever read, I was more than eager to lay my hands on Markus Zusak's recent book - Bridge of Clay. This book is 579 pages long, which could have been a good thing if the story was worth something. Unfortunately it is not. We don't get invested in the lives of the characters and feel like bystanders of the Surrounds - the now derelict race course which witnesses the lives of the Dunbar family.
The story is told by Mathew Dunbar, a school drop out, the eldest of the five Dunbar brothers living in Australia. I don't know if it is intentional then, that it is written in bursts of prose and regular speech. Most of the time it's only his words that tell us to feel something, like - see, my brother is hurting and he is coping the way he can; see, my mother was a woman with some spunk; see, my father felt deeply for my mother. There are a lot of references to Odysseus and The Quarryman, which somehow seems significant, but again was lost on me.
Also, the time line is confusing; there is so much of to and fro happening in the book that it’s mind boggling. I'm not a fan of books that make me work at understanding the time line and keeping it linear in my head. Sample a few of the lines with which many chapters begin -
"In the beginning there was one murderer, one mule and one boy, but this isn't the beginning, it's before it, it's me, and I'm Mathew, and here I am, in the kitchen, in the night..."
"If before the beginning (sic) was a typewriter, a dog and a snake, the beginning itself - eleven years previously - was a murderer, a mule and Clay."
Whole scenes are written as if they were physical props for the story to hang on, with many scenes written like a comic strip without the pictures. The words described the scene so eloquently.
She was astounded by the mauling light here.
This city.
It was so hot and wide, and white.
The sun was some sort of barbarian, a Viking in the sky.
It plundered, it pillaged.
The above words are nice to read and the book is replete with such writing, but were it being supported by equally strong and embracing story line, this book would have been a delight to read.
Just like Penelope Dunbar, who refuses to die (something the Dunbar children are the most in awe of) the book refuses to end. It goes on and on. By sheer will, I managed to finish it with nothing to make up for in the end too. The big reveal - of why Clay (the third son) and Micheal (the boys’ father) carry this burden through life, is unclear and lacks conviction. I still don’t know how Penny dies.
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