Monday
I write from memory today about Pierre Boulle’s Bridge on the River Kwai (1952), Unfortunately, I’ll not be able to quote from it since Sewanee’s library doesn’t have a copy, but episodes have been going through my head ever since I heard about the partial destruction of the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with Crimea. I’ve even found myself whistling the memorable tune from the 1957 movie version.
It’s important to distinguish novel from film, however, because they have very different endings. In my view, the destruction of the Kerch Bridge is closer to the movie than to the novel.
As I say, I’m operating from memory but the French author, writing in the heyday of existentialism (the 1950s and 60s) appears to have written a novel that at once conveys an existential message and a parody of existentialism. In the story, the Japanese want their British captives to build a railway bridge. Obsessed with showing that the British are superior to the Japanese, Colonel Nicholson sets out to build a magnificent bridge. The irony, of course, is that this goal turns him into a collaborator.
We see how far he has lost perspective when, at the end, he prevents British saboteurs from blowing up “his” bridge. He has too much invested in it to allow it to be destroyed.
As I recall, a key difference between film and book is that, in the film, although he appears to have thwarted the saboteurs, he falls on the plunger as he is shot. As a result, the bridge comes down after all.
I say that the novel is existential because of how it shows Nicholson finding a sense of purpose in a meaningless universe. One theme of existential writers, from Dashiell Hammett to Ernest Hemingway to Albert Camus, is that the universe is absurd and that the only way we can find meaning is to adhere to a personal code, no matter how small it seems. As Sam Spade says in Hammett’s Maltese Falcon,
Listen. This isn’t a damned bit of good. You’ll never understand me, but I’ll try once more and then we’ll give it up. Listen. When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it.
Another famous example is Camus’s “Myth of Sisyphus,” where the absurdity of eternally rolling a rock up a hill—the gods have arranged it so that it rolls back down every time—is counteracted by the devotion to the task itself. As Camus concludes his essay, “The struggle itself … is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Put another way, we must find meaning in the task itself since there is no ultimate or transcendent meaning.
So it appears that Nicholson has found meaning in the task itself. As he says at one point, “We shouldn’t hesitate to adopt a principle of the enemy’s if it happens to be a good one.”
I say that the novel is a parody of existentialism, however, because there is a self-evident higher purpose in this particular situation. After all, the drama is a clearcut battle of good against evil, heroic Brits against villainous Japs. Higher meaning is achieved if you sacrifice everything for that good, including your own ego. Nicholson wants to be an existential hero whereas the war situation calls for him to be a conventional hero. What he should do is attempt to sabotage the bridge project, perhaps in subtle ways.
Now, existential war stories do exist. My favorite is Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, where the game is rigged to make sure that the common serviceman always loses. The bad guys are those in charge of the rules, and the only chance one has is to opt out of the game altogether. Bouille has not set up that such a theme in Bridge on the River Kwai, however.
Nor is the Russo-Ukraine war an existential narrative. When a fascist who appears to have overwhelming force attempts to annex a smaller country, with his troops committing mass atrocities in the process, moral purpose is very clear: one must do all one can to repel the invaders. In fact, Putin would like nothing better than for people to declare the situation absurd and and walk away as that would allow him to get his way.
In the movie of Bridge on the River Kwai, the bridge comes down, giving the good guys a meaningful victory. If the downing of the Kerch Bridge helps the Ukrainians expel the Russians, there will be nothing absurd about it.