Revisiting 'The Bridges of Madison County'
THIS WEEK’S WINNER
MANILA, Philippines - May Navarro, 37, is a psychology graduate of De La Salle University, a wife and mother. She is also an entrepreneur. “In the near future, I would like to actively help non-profit organizations like the St. Rita orphanage in Sucat and the Autism Society of the Philippines.” She has a food blog called pinayfoodie.blogspot.com. “The Filipino writers I admire include Kerima Polotan, Lualhati Bautista, F. Sionil Jose and Butch Dalisay.”
I remember crying when I first read this book on a jeepney. I was so absorbed with the story, I forgot I was riding public transportation. But I doubt if anyone noticed. The other passengers were either fanning themselves or complaining about the traffic. Some were lost in their own daydreams. I read this book in college when I was single and enjoying the wanderlust of youth, far removed from the characters’ inner upheavals. I reread it again after almost two decades, confident that I was over my melodramatic phase but, surprisingly, it still moved me to tears.
Bridges of Madison County is the story of Robert Kincaid, a photographer, and Francesca Johnson, a housewife in Iowa. They met while her family was away at a state fair and fell into a whirlwind romance. It was so intense that Robert wanted to bring Francesca with him but she refused because the scandal would ruin her husband and kids in their small town. How they communicated their love from afar was heartbreaking and the ending unexpected. It is a small book crafted with emotionally riveting prose. Seeped in unabashed sentimentality, it shines from the inundation of books praised for technical excellence and plots of callous mind games on love and romance. Like its character Robert Kincaid, who calls himself the Last Cowboy, this book may be the last of its kind, too.
Bridges stands on my bookshelf beside The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And despite my inner protestations that I’m no longer the romantic type, maybe I still am. Because despite the rigors of marriage and motherhood, I still get affected by grandiose displays of love and stirring romantic dialogues. Though it’s easy to dismiss it as one of the mediocre romance novels read by bored housewives or love-deprived spinsters, the book definitely stands on its own. Its audacity to let you inside someone’s turbulent emotional landscape is a little unnerving. Its heartfelt descriptions of longing reels you in, its searing thirst of wanting lingers in your thoughts. The writer envelops you in a mist of melancholia then brings you into subtle poignancy with the story’s bittersweet ending. Reading it again still made me wipe my eyes. Because I understood the characters better, why Francesca cannot run away with Robert and leave her husband and kids, why she had to let him go and be free to be himself, why her responsibilities to her husband and children are intertwined within her and most importantly, why pursuing her happiness at their expense would not make her the woman Robert loved in the long run.
No longer brimming with the false expectations of love and romantic fantasies of youth, I didn’t expect to be affected by this book again. Though there are lines that felt a little cheesy now that I’m older and a little cynical, the sum of it is still a lyrical masterpiece. I love its unrestrained eloquence, the surprising confessions and touching highlights that grips you then lets you go bruised and wondering. I like that kind of storytelling, direct and devoid of cluttered descriptions of irrelevant things. I also like that the characters are boldly unmasked. I don’t have to read behind their gestures, their nuances. I know how they feel. So really, hats off to the writer. It’s not easy to write with refreshing simplicity adorned with textured feelings especially in a subject that has been re-formulated a thousand times. He risked unleashing acerbic critics used to complicated plots and sleep-inducing narratives. I’m glad that the public’s appreciation was louder than any biting reviews and the writer was rewarded for his honest efforts and raw delivery. It’s just too bad Hollywood transformed it into a movie that seriously disappointed me.
The book centers on the rapture of forbidden love and the slow agony of its loss. But it is also the triumph of another form of love, the love of a wife for her husband and her children, the sacrifice of one’s imagined happiness for one’s family. And with the advent of separations, divorces, I wonder if this kind of sacrifice still exists. It is becoming convenient to run to the arms of another man and let the courts do their thing, to let the children face the consequences of their parents’ separation. I wonder if the choice of Francesca Johnson to forsake her happiness for her family is starting to be passé, is it starting to be greeted by incredulity by a more liberal crowd? But lest I sound like a bothersome holier-than-thou preacher, it is only a matter of observation of the changing times. I believe that there are still women like Francesca who will give up their illusion of romantic adventures to stand by their husband and children. Because she knows that after all the exhilarating moments has slowed down, marital-like routines and responsibilities will dampen their quivering excitement in time. It will alter the primal appeal of the man she was instantly attracted to and in the end the dripping guilt of leaving her family will warp her. The happiness they aspired to will slowly slip by and all parties, even the children, will have their share of misery.
It’s funny how a book can be looked upon in a different way in different moments of your life. Reading it as a college student, the silent euphoria of new love and the creeping sadness of loss attracted me to it. And reading it now as an older woman with a more realistic view on love and loss and a full appreciation of the family, the book still draws me. Its well-crafted prose still clings to me. Robert James Waller’s quiet rhetoric on love and longing will always unnerve me. And even if I’m reading more memoirs now than romantic novels, it will continue to haunt me. Its filmy quality will stay with me in decades more and it will keep me company when I feel detached, unfeeling about the world, offering me a momentary escape I can immerse myself in and another chance to wander the lustrous world of the Bridges of Madison County.
