Bridge of Clay

Product Information

Warm and heartfelt. . . . This is a tale of love, art and redemption; rowdy and joyous, with flashes of wit and insight, and ultimately moving.” Times of London On several occasions, I found myself more engaged by the writing style than the story being told. And even then, there were moments of too-much-of-a-good-thing within Bridge of Clay, and dare I say it decadent procrastination. As we learn of life before the five Dunbar boys were born; of Michael’s early life, and Penny’s as well, we get to know their individual likes and dislikes; their hopes for the future. It was Penny who said she’d like five children, but Michael who said, let them not all be boys! The narrative voice and framing is unusual, and often oblique. Many readers have found that confusing, but I found it beguiling — I trusted the author and so was both a willing audience and participant — eager to marvel in the colour, intensity and heart imbued in the commonplace and accepting of the challenge being presented. And one should not underestimate the challenge, patience is required. Poetic prose As I could notice, the narration was a problem for many. If you open an English grammar book on morphology and syntax you could use this story as an example. But I’m now convinced it was all part of the author’s evil plan.

Markus Zusak pitches the reader into a ‘terrifically teenaged world’. Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images I read The Book Thief and it was great so I wanted to read this one. The language was so bad it ruined it. Not needed. Ruined the story. In a complex narrative that leaps through time and place and across oceans, Zusak paints a vivid portrait of the brothers trying to regain their balance by keeping their family’s story alive.”— Time Rory is shown after heavy drinking several times. Penny and Michael have a beer or a drink a few times. Penny takes the whole family for a pint at the pub before she dies, even her underage kids. Parents shown smoking cigarettes a few times.Publishers Weekly commented that Zusak builds tension skilfully by his use of foreshadowing and symbolism, which exposes the secrets of the story. They also praised his use of historical scope to create a "sensitively rendered tale of loss, grief, and guilt's manifestations". [10] Though praising the book for its symbolic weight, The Washington Post points out that the work is burdened by its two decades of rewriting and revising, claiming the story to be 'extravagantly over-engineered'. [4] The Guardian finds that much like his previous novel The Book Thief, Death plays a major part of this work—noting that 'death steals the show'. Noting that his use of colors often leads to "theatrical illumination", and that this work, unlike his former is "affirmatively full of life". [5] you know that one book that makes zero sense 99% of the time and then you read one line and it all hits you and you're like WOW THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY CRAFTED MASTERPIECE? The grief that transcends this novel is palpable. Although death does not haunt this novel as visibly as with The Book Thief, it is there nonetheless. There are moments of such raw potency, it is almost hard to read on. The loud, direct strength of Penelope – a woman who has endured and lost so much – juxtaposed with Michael’s quiet resignation and desperate sadness are tangibly painful. Yet, the healing capacity of stories and the understanding that they bring offers a hope that tempers the novel’s hardest moments. As Zusak explained in an interview with Publisher’s Weekly: “We’re all made up of so many things. We’re made up of stories – not only the stories of our lives, but the stories of lives that came before our lives. Clay builds the bridge and it’s made of him, but so much of him is made of his mother’s and father’s stories.”As Clay, through Matthew’s narration, weaves the stories of his families together, he creates a history that mirrors the expansiveness of the Greek legends that Penelope so loved. So there’s not much more I can say. There isn't a regular plot with things happening and people dying.

Well, it was harder, and definitely longer. There were a lot more failures, too. People would say, ‘Just write a different book. It doesn’t have to be better than the last one.’ But I’ve always tried to write a better book than the last one, so why stop now? There was also the thought of writing a different project, but there was a problem with that as well – there were no other projects. Every idea I had was going into BRIDGE OF CLAY, and I’m glad now that I persevered. The story of how the boys bought Achilles. It was so lucid! It was sweet and heartbreaking! I even lulzed a little bit!

How do you feel about stories centered on the loss of parents? Is it interesting to you to see how different characters deal with such a huge loss? Does it help you empathize with people you know who have experienced this kind of loss? I have a customer that comes into work every Thursday. His name is Doug and we bonded over Markus Zusak and over the last eight months we've become really great friends. I lent him copy of this book to read and he left little notes throughout it and it's a copy I will treasure forever. And soon we're going to go and meet Markus Zusak at a book event and we're so excited. These books have changed my life and they've also introduced wonderful people to me too. This is a story about family and the narratives that underlie them. The idea of personal history forms such a central part of the plot and the novel’s structure. The chronology of Bridge of Clay drifts around, from the story of Penelope – the Dunbar’s mother – to the history of Michael – their father – to Matthew’s present-day writing of the narrative, to the eleven years earlier that Clay left school to help ‘the Murderer’ build his bridge. It is an expansive story and, admittedly, the elliptical nature of the various revelations and histories can be a little tough to follow in places. However, this is something that Zusak pursued consciously: “You have to do a bit more work but I think the rewards are greater, too” ( Entertainment Weekly). For me, the payoff is most definitely worth the patience required as the various narrative threads come together. She turned the knob to a shadowed dimness and sat on the stool at the piano. Slowly, her hands drifted, and genly, she pressed the high-pitched notes. She hit them soft but true and right, where she'd used the paint left over.