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Showing reviews 1-5 of 397
 The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller July 26, 2010
Corra McFeydon
'The Bridges of Madison County' is well worth the read. A wisp of smoke this one. Simple without being simplistic. I cried, and I've seen the movie! - I knew how it would end.
From the first lines I was captivated:
'There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads. This is one of them.'
Such featherlight poetry! I didn't expect this at all when I signed up to read Bridges. I knew it would be a passionate, torrid affair that spanned four days. But the passion in the prose! The straightforward yet poetic nature of the story. A single, clashing love caught in four days?
Waller manages it, without slipping into `telling.' He weaves between the viewpoint of quiet, confident National Geographic writer-photographer Robert Kincaid as he arrives in the south Iowa countryside in 1965 in his old Chevrolet pick-up truck, and the bold but unremarkable farm-wife (and Italian war bride) Francesca Johnson, who falls deeply in love with Robert while her husband and children are away at the Iowa State Fair.
The Madison County setting with its rustic bridges adds to the romance in this novel. I remember hearing about it as a child, but in those days I believed `literature' meant boring. If the lit critics were raving over The Bridges of Madison County, and the women were swooning over it, it must either be stuffy or cheap.
Neither! So much life in this one. What I appreciated most about the novel was the gentleness with which Waller penned it. He could have gone high-drama and excessive romanticism. Instead he opted for sincerity in dialogue and quiet elegance. A true and honest love story told frankly, sensually, tragically. An intense affair coupled with tender conversation and honest emotion. An entire life lived in four days; a story framed in the early 1990s and told through Francesca's children, her letters, journals, photographs - and of course, Robert and Francesca.
Highly recommended. It's a summer night in a rain shower.
 don't be so harsh May 30, 2010
kt (Ocean Shores, WA USA)
Wow, I tend to agree with the other reviewer that people who are so extreamly harsh with their reviews must be terribly miserable people with perhaps, seriously unhappy lives, void of satisfying love or the ability to feel romance.
I am a reader of non-fiction history and never read a romance novel so I do not know anything about their content, but I chose to read this book after seeing the movie and found it a bit "poetic", but refreshing and I certainly didn't have the need to "throw it against the wall". Wow, what a reaction!
Sometimes you need a "walk down the lane of love" that apparently, few people never experience. Yes, middle age passion can happen, whether it does as passiontly as in this book, who knows. But it is a refreshing to read. So, lighten up and make a date with romance and enjoy the book for what it is. The sequel is an interesting trip too, a bit over-kill, but interesting.
 I threw the book across the room .,, May 20, 2010
TXRed (next to Lake LBJ in Texas)
I read this when it first came out and everyone was talking about it. I feel compelled to write a review now because I just came upon a list on the internet of The Worst Books Ever; in my memory, this by far is the worst book I've ever read -- a true time-waster, based on character development and likeability of main characters, writing style (horrendous), story development, emotions generated. This book was so bad, when I got about 3/4 of the way through, I hurled the book across the room and yelled, "Pap!", then I quickly ran to see if I'd damaged the library's book I had just thrown -- and to think I had been on a waiting list to read this book. This guy cannot write. And as a romantic story, it's cheesey and shallow. Other 1-star reviewers have pegged this for what makes it awful. As for me, this is the only book I've ever had such a strongly negative reaction that I literally tossed it. I'm pleased to see more people here voted this as a 1-star book than any other rating. Who says modern readers can't spot pap when they read it?
 Simplicity Can Be A Satisfactory Choice March 28, 2010
Russell de Ville (El Paso County, CO)
Just a few weeks ago, I spent some profitable time viewing Clint Eastwood's film version of The Bridges of Madison County. I've since written a Film Review for Amazon. It then seemed logical to read the book - which I've now done twice - and make a few remarks about it.
I quite like Mr Waller's book. I like its simplicity, the lack of clutter, and the conscious choice to impress the reader with a shorter story well told. It would have been OK to have added characters and tangential story-lines, fleshed out the detail, and told us more of Iowa and covered bridges and Summer vegetables. And too, I would have been pleased with more description regarding disparate mind-sets and life experience and local color. Mr Waller didn't seem to want to do all that. TBoMC is what it is.
One might suggest that denser material such as that of Tom Clancy and Stephen King is quality work within their respective genres, and that person would be correct. But then, so is just about any volume in the `Nancy Drew' series. And is anything more profound than Dr Seuss's The Butter Battle Book?
I've come to appreciate such simplicity in my middling years. I don't believe this `thinness' to which some take exception of necessity diminishes the quality of the writing or the satisfaction to be gained by its reading. Neither should it minimize the stature of the author.
If I had been editor, I might have advised Mr Waller to publish without the chapters: `The Beginning,' the `Postscript,' or the `Interview with "Nighthawk" Cummings.' These are not necessary, are actually somewhat distracting, and don't quite measure up in quality to the core of the book. Bets are even they were actually added last. TBoMC would have been a wonderful novella without those pages.
Ehhh, but it's all just my opinion anyway.
Four Stars is entirely appropriate though. This is a fine piece of writing and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Russell de Ville
27 March 2010
TERRIBLE. February 21, 2010
J. Morgan
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Everyone in my family read this book. We kept passing it to one another with the intro, "you have to read this. It's TERRIBLE." Because we really wanted someone else in the house with whom we could discuss who TERRIBLE it was. And once we all read it, we spent many enjoyable meals talking about how much we hated it. So at least it fostered family unity. But the movie is much much better -- how often can you say that?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 397
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