The Bridge in the Jungle

$100 · Offered by Book Collector Inc

Author: B. Traven (1882-1969) Year: 1940 Publisher: Jonathan Cape Place: London Description: 267 pages. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's grey cloth with blue lettering to spine in original jacket.. In the B Traven collected works series. First British edition. The Bridge in the Jungle is a novel about the tragic death of Carlos, an 8 or 9 year old hyperactive Mexican boy, and the aftermath of his mother's overwhelming grief for him, sometime in the early 20th Century in a very poor village deep in the jungle. The narrator is an American man staying in the village while looking for alligator skins and bird feathers to sell in the U.S.. He observes the little boy's brother, who works in the oil industry in Texas and has just returned for the weekend, give his little brother brand new shoes. Carlos is overjoyed to wear them since all the villagers but the pump master's wife wear threadbare rags for clothes. This is the little boy's first pair of shoes, much less shiny new American ones. While sitting outside in the village with his host, both waiting for an outdoor party, the narrator hears an ominous splash that is Carlos falling to his death off the treacherous bridge, a bridge that has no railings. The remainder of the novel depicts the grief of the young mother - a grief that reaches the suffocating proportions of Greek tragedy - and her villagers' genuine support. Like American authors Thomas Pynchon and J. D. Salinger, the reclusive Traven delig

• Binding: Hardcover

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