The Bridge Over the River Kwai [Paperback]

The charges are set against the pilings. The British commandoes lay hidden in the bush. The train is coming 'round the bend. Just then, a British colonel, a POW, takes a final walk over the bridge he helped build for his enemy and looks over the parapet. His blue eyes narrow. Something is wrong...

Those of you who think you know what will happen next, from seeing the Oscar-winning film adaptation of this novel, may be in for a surprise or two. Author Pierre Boulle's point seems less about the folly of war and of racialism (as was the case in the movie) and more about how a blind work ethic can make one betray the very things one holds dear, without knowing it.

It's tempting to look at this book and think of it as a literary dig at the proper, orderly Brits by a typically relativistic French author. But Boulle, a World War II French resistance fighter who was captured by the Vichy in the Far East, apparently wanted to use the real-life building of the bridge (in reality, there were two) by British POWs as an examination of how warfare tilts moral scales and turns lawfully-minded leaders into traitors.

It's an interesting position, presented here more in the form of a quasi-fable, or more to the point, two short stories joined together. In the first, we see British Col. Nicholson face off against Japanese Col. Saito, who expects the British to resign themselves to servitude, officers included. In the second, we watch a trio of British green berets prepare their attack on the bridge.

One of the movie's main characters, the one played by William Holden, is not in the novel, which is fine with me. I found the guy annoying. But the other characters don't come into greater focus for his absence.

Instead, they are rather colorless, especially Saito, presented here as a brutal drunkard with none of the panache that director David Lean and actor Sessue Hayakawa bestow on the character in the movie. It's especially hard to like Nicholson when Alec Guinness isn't giving us a spoonful of sugar with all that thematic medicine. He's more of a martinet here, dense to the point of ridiculousness, like when a subordinate suggests they paint the bridge after building it.

"The most we could do would be to give it a coating of lime - and a fine target that would make for the planes, wouldn't it," Nicholson counters. "You seem to forget there's a war on!"

That's about as close as the book comes to humor. It is tense at times, but slow-moving, and like other reviewers here I found the book lacking in narrative detail that would have made it feel more alive. It's a quick read, worth reading especially if you enjoyed the movie. But I missed the Nicholson Guinness played in the movie, and if you were a fan of the film, so will you.

This is not one of those cover-all-the-details-of-a-battle or expose-the-brutality-of-war books. Instead of focusing on battles between men, this book focuses on battles within men. My brain joined the characters as they grappled with believable and conflicting issues like:
- honor vs. survival
- useful work that preserves dignity but helps the enemy vs. sabotage that undermines the enemy's plans and as well as personal dignity
- pride of workmanship vs. the best interests of one's country

- mission/orders vs. the value of human life

These and other issues get attention at varied intensity levels. They're all seen from the eyes of soldiers in a war zone, and it's not easy to determine the right thing to do. I got a window into the minds of the soldiers and enough detail to enable me to fully understand their dilemmas.

This book is well-written, and the action is spread out such that I wanted to keep turning the pages. I'm glad read it, but I'm also glad I didn't have to live it.

Very different in many ways from the Academy Award winning film, the short book is well worth reading in its own right. It's somehow bleaker and more disheartening, sort of a war noir. Interestingly enough Boulle also wrote "Planet of the Apes."

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