the bridge on the drina (ivo andric)

First things first. Ivo Andric’s novel is completely radical in so far as its central character is not a human or even an animal. It’s a bridge. Which is in theory an inanimate object, but the novel traces the way in which this inanimate object touches the lives of those who live on either side of it, over the course of hundreds of years. This isn’t a typical approach. Shape shifting, generation busting novels come along every now and again, (eg Orlando), but even these rarely span 600 years. The effect is oddly hypnotic. Characters recur, particularly towards the end, and at times the novelist notes something that happened to an ancestor in another era of the bridge which we have already seen, but the emphasis remains, more than anything else, on the bridge.

And what the bridge represents. Reading about the novel and knowing something of the history of Bosnia (where the novel is set), something my generation became aware of back in the dog days of the post-Yugoslav wars, one notes there has been criticism of Andric for being too pro-Serb, and anti-Moslem. I have to say that this did not strike me during the reading of the novel. This might have to do with my ignorance in terms of reading the codes, but it felt to this reader as though the novel was a constant celebration of ethnic and religious integration. Generation after generation is marked by a harmony where the greatest threat is the possibility of the river flooding. The only time this harmony is disturbed is when politics rears its ugly head, and suddenly the differences between the townsfolk become an issue, where for decades or more the mix of Serb, Moslem and Jew has allowed each to value the differences of the other.

As such, it feels as though the bridge itself is more than something that links two sides of a river. It is also the bridge between cultures. Whenever the bridge is threatened, the community as a whole, consisting of these different peoples and their stories, is also threatened. The affection that permeates the novel for people from every walk of life feels tangible. The Bridge on the Drina doesn’t read, to an ignorant stranger’s mind, like a novel setting out to promote discord, but one seeking to bridge difference.