Customer Reviews

Bridge Across Forever

5 star:		(94)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I used to love Richard Bach's books -- 'Illusions' and 'JLS' were both wonderful and had a huge impact on me as a child. I even enjoyed this book when it first came out in hardcover -- I was an idealistic teenager (and much more forgiving). But now as a 30something woman, in repurchasing the paperback again recently, I was really surprised at how terribly Richard Bach comes off as a character in his own book -- he's simply awful. Narcissistic, rude, smug, complacent, womanizing, and frankly just a ginormous jerk who's way too proud of his own 'humility' and 'growth.' I could barely get through the book this time out, I was so appalled at his behavior.

As others have commented, I was however equally reminded of what an amazing person Leslie Parrish seems to be. What's sad to me in re-reading it this past year, with all my own illusions a bit more dented by adulthood (and with the knowledge that Bach left his beautiful and intelligent 'soulmate' after twenty years of marriage because she wanted to live a grownup life and he didn't), is how obvious it is that Bach didn't learn from his own story, his own lessons -- even while congratulating himself nonstop on his 'evolution'.

While I once bought a lot more of his books (and ideas) than I do now, with their pretty words and ideas and metaphors, the fact is that Bach is writing books on how to live when he has no idea how to do it himself. This is a man who left his first wife and six children without a backward glance, and womanizes his way through the next decade or two, finally (and undeservedly) ends up with a fantastic person in Leslie Parrish -- only to leave her as well and move along to the next young cutie.

So it's kind of creepy to know this, then to read 'Bridge' -- his big epiphany, his big learning experience -- and realize that the man barely mentions his kids at all. They just don't seem to exist to him. So in this book, for YEARS, he's flying planes, bedding women, spending money, yet he seems to have no ties at all to people, friends, family, children, loved ones, etc. beyond the often anonymous sex -- and using cutesy poetic Yoda-isms and smarmy New Age language to do so ('So beautiful, you are' etc), as if that will make the situations any less skeevy or manipulative.

I know many fans are angry at Bach for his seeming betrayal of the very 'soulmate' values he preached, and frankly I don't blame them. Not because I'm personally invested in celebrity relationships (LOL), but because I really do feel that if he is putting himself out there as a character, saying, 'Learn from me, live like me,' that he should be willing to put his money where his mouth is. In other words, if as he later admitted in an interview that 'everything in [Bridge Across Forever] might be wrong,' then maybe we shouldn't buy it at all. (Note: Ironically, it's evident from Parrish's very moving and poignant early goodbye letter to Bach, mid-book, that she herself had already learned all those lessons. So skip this drivel on soulmates and save your dollars for when Leslie finally writes a book. At least it would be written by someone who did what they said, and practiced what they preached.)

Sorry to rant. But even a cursory review of this man's life reveals that Bach's love of flight begins to look a lot less like a metaphor than fact, and is nothing people should learn from: He seems to leave everything he loves eventually, even while constantly preaching treacly 'soulmate' and 'eternal love' concepts at us to get our cash. It's very sad to me. I once took this book very literally -- now I realize the one person who needed to learn from its lessons was the author himself. Sad to hear he didn't.

Leslie Parrish nails it when she writes, "Obviously, the development section is anathema to you. For it is where you may discover that all you have is a collection of severely limited ideas." Richard Bach's books "simply state and restate and restate themselves." He tends to seek magical solutions outside of himself, rather than plow within himself to unearth new and deep truths.

The best part of "The Bridge Across Forever," well worth the price of the book, is Leslie's letter to Richard. Is it a treasure to which I have returned many times over the years. And it is no wonder that Leslie and Richard are divorced, for Leslie nailed it right the first time.

"The Bridge Across Forever" is well worth reading for Leslie's perceptive analysis of the state of their relationship. It is interesting to read Richard's response to her insight, and at the same time tragic, for ultimately, he never gets it. He returns to his same old habits of denial and wishful thinking. "You are one of the most selfish people I have ever known," Leslie says. "I've needed my anger to keep you from trampling right over me, to let both of us know when enough is enough ... It is by NOT always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might someday be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be lonely and searching and lost."

"Richard, how do you get someone to look around the corner when he hasn't reached it yet? I'd give anything if you could see what's there for us ... But if it's out of sight for you, I guess it doesn't exist, does it? Even if I'm looking at it, it's not really there."

"The Bridge Across Forever" is a story of both hope and, ultimately, despair. "We have both had a vision of something wonderful that awaits us," Leslie writes. "Yet we cannot get there from here. I am faced with a solid wall of defenses and you have the need to build still more. I long for the richness and fullness of further development, and you will search for ways t avoid it as long as we're together. Both of us are frustrated; you unable to go back, I unable to go forward, in a constant state of struggle, with clouds and dark shadows over the limited time you allow us."

Leslie's insight is a great gift. It is inspiring to witness her face her fear of flying, and despairing to watch Richard pride himself in being her flying instructor, yet never use her courage to support his own fear of flying in relationships. He tries, he gets off the ground, but he can't sustain the flight. Well worth the read, however, as a lesson in dysfunctional relationships founded on wishful and blithe thinking as opposed to courage and mutual commitment toward growth.

Not being a consistant reader,very few topics peak my interest. When the often overused word "soulmate" comes up though I often follow. Having experienced meeting a soulmate once (so far)in my 41 years is by far a gift. Before reading this book I did read the reveiws and that Richard had indeed divorced his soulmate. Not passing judgement I read with eager anticipation of past experiences of love deeper than any words could describe. I was not happy that when shopping for the book ,it was in the fiction area. I would want to hear truths and facts not opinion's of how it should be,after all I have been there. The book was a slow start and I waited to be awakened to that wonderful place deeper than the heart and harder to find than bigfoot! I did not find this in a well written but rather vanilla book about the faults and convictions of love between two people. I am not faulting Richard for the later divorce as life is a constant reminder of stress and balence. Its not easy for anyone. I did catch a deep appreciation of preserverance from Leslie and a rather immature Richard throughout there romance. There are no answers when it comes to "the five ways to find your soulmate" if there was we would all be happy and there. This book lacked the deepness that I felt in a relationship with my soulmate. I understand we are all different,that my story can not be his. Perhaps another read will give me more food for thought? I will give it a try. Good luck finding your soulmate he/she does exsist,often there are meny people that could be in ones life time. Good luck to Richard and Leslie.........peace

I'm still amazed at the power of this simple autobiographical narrative to inspire vitriolic rhetoric among the chronically disappointed. I've read dozens of reviews of "Bridge..." that begin with the confession that the reviewer has never met Richard Bach--and knows little or nothing about him beyond his own description of himself--that then proceed with a string of indictments of his character, morals, philosophy, personal integrity, personal history, and his supposed lack of intellectual and literary prowess. Since they are based on little more than Bach's own narrative, it seems to me that these indictments reveal more about the reviewer than the one being reviewed.

I, too, re-read it after a nearly 20-year hiatus, and I agree that Mr. Bach doesn't come off all that well in the book. But remember, this is a SELF-portrait. It is, in fact, one of the most brutally honest portraits of personal frailty and vanity I have ever read. Remember, too, that everything we know about the "beautiful and intelligent" Leslie comes from Richard's own description of her--in contrast to himself. Who among us would be willing to reveal as much of his/her own frailty? The fact that he is willing to portray himself this way in front of the whole world actually gives me hope--in a perverse sort of way. If a guy who did all the things Richard Bach has been accused of doing can still find love and make it work for 20 years--well, then there's still hope for the rest of us.

I don't care a fig that it didn't work out in the long run for the real-life Richard and Leslie. (And I'd like to know Ms. Mitchell's source for her assertion that Richard Bach "left his beautiful and intelligent 'soulmate' after twenty years of marriage because she wanted to live a grownup life and he didn't." As far as I know, Bach simply confirms that they split up because they had different goals--no indication of who left whom, not that it matters, and not that it's anyone's business but theirs. I've never seen anything from Leslie Parrish on the subject. And I agree that we need to hear from Leslie pretty soon if she has anything to say on the subject of Love. She's over 70 years old now, and time is running out.) I don't see how their failure to "make it work" serves as a valid basis on which to dismiss the whole concept of true, abiding, heart-bursting romance.

Let me put it this way: Once upon a time, after much heartache, injury, and despair, someone came up with the idea of putting stop signs at busy intersections in order to prevent needless injury, death, and unhappiness. So, because people sometimes run stop signs, or because the author of the stop sign is killed at a marked intersection, we should yank out stop signs because stop signs don't work? Because WE sometimes fail to come to a complete stop, stop signs are a lie and a dangerous fantasy?

No. And I'll bet I'm every bit as "dented" by adulthood and its failures as Ms. Mitchell is. After all, I've got at least 20 years on her. Nevertheless, I refuse to give up. I'd rather die. We live in a cynical age that warns us to throw away every soaring passion, and every heart's desire. It is WE who are "smug and narcissistic and complacent" in our condemnation of those who refuse to settle for half-a-love, or who fight for a love they know is true--in spite of personal shortcomings.

Richard Bach dared to write a book about soul-smashing love at a time when no one wanted to talk about it, or even acknowledge that such a thing exists. The very fact that we're still talking about it 20 years later is testimony to his courage, insight, and prescience, even in the midst of his personal frailty. What's needed now isn't a bunch of pompous rhetoric about Richard Bach and his supposed failings as a human being. What's needed now is a book about how to pick up the pieces of shipwrecked idealism and hold onto something that raises it's head above this manure pile that passes for "values" in the first decade of the 21st Century.

This book is as much about Leslie's fight for her love as it is about Richard's vanity and narcissism. And I submit to you, and to everyone reading this lonely message-in-a-bottle, that what we need in this dried-up world of cynicism and self-protection is more--not less--of the honesty and radical idealism of people who want to build bridges "across forever."

Like several other reviewers in this forum, I found this to be one of the most annoying, inspid, flakey books I've ever read. I too picked it up as it came much too highly recommended by a good friend. I loved Jonathon Livingston Seagull when I was just a kid but alas, it seems as though Richard Bach still hasn't grown up while the rest of us have. The character of Leslie Parrish nailed it with the long letter she wrote him and he would have done well to heed her words of warning. He has to be one of the most self-absorbed, confused, cloying lotharios in literature. I too found myself skimming through entire sections combing for the meat of the story, which is simply about the relationship he was constantly threatening to undermine with the much more enlightened Ms. Parrish. Underneath it all I kept thinking that while on the surface Mr. Bach was talking about silly astral projection and such, he must have been going to sleep at night thinking what a real ladies man he was. There was this sense of him feeling very sanctimonious and superior about himself and his views. Awful stuff. The story doesn't actually begin until Chapter 30 with Leslie's poignant letter to him, skip all the pseudo-spirituality and overly-long airplane tangents at the beginning of the book if you can. All along the way, Mr. Bach consistantly breaks one of the cardinal rules of writing over and over again: "show, don't tell". In any case, Richard Bach never got out of playing house and make-believe with the much more realistic, giving and pragmatic Leslie, what a loss. I've never in my life not finished a book but with three more chapters to go I finally had to pitch the book in the trash lest it somehow jump off on me like an unwanted strain of intellectual bacteria. I want to believe that soulmates are out there but Bach's book didn't do it for me. Is it any wonder his marriage to the woman ended in divorce? This is not the kind of destiny I welcome. I hope this man will someday mature and write another book that will convince us. Eventually I found my solace in the love story of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which was like spending time with a dear, old friend.

I have read many books that call themselves love stories or memoirs, but morph into self help manuals, presuming to help ME find greater meaning and/or love in my life. The thing I most enjoyed about Richard Bach's story is that, although he tells in detail what worked and what didn't work for him in his search for a soulmate, he does not suggest that this is what will work for everyone. I also enjoy the fact that Bach does not idealize himself in this work. He is a wonderfully flawed human being, and this comes through, even in his own words. He may idealize his mate, but after all, that is his right. And who knows? Maybe she is that perfect, after all. Either way, as a hopeless romantic, this book inspires me that perhaps one day, I'll find someone who thinks I'm as perfect as Bach's Leslie. Bach's adventures into new age religion are interesting. I enjoy the fact that here also, Bach does not preach. He shares his experiences and discoveries matter of factly, admitting that he finds them confusing at times. I find it an act of bravery that he shares such intimate details of his romantic and spiritual lives.

Richard Bach may be one of those authors which one either loves dearly, or loathes unconditionally; he can occasionally come across as overly-hokey and melodramatic, but his stories are well-crafted and deeply personal.

_The Bridge Across Forever_ may be the best book he's written yet, and is an excellent way to expose oneself to his style of writing; it was the first book of his which I read, and it caused me to run right out and snatch up all the others I could find. I haven't yet found one that surpasses this one, but almost all of them contain wonderful gems and insights.

_Bridge_ is a rich, warm story about slightly metaphysical connections in life, through time, space, and personal growth. As he writes of his future wife, Leslie, the absolute love he feels for her is crystal-clear, and may at times bring tears to the reader's eyes. His love of flying is beautifully-portrayed as well, and he does a wonderful job of introducing the reader to the absolute joy and freedom of being airborne. In fact, Bach's descriptions of nearly everything are alive and vibrant, putting the reader Right There in that moment with him.

It's easy to recognize Truth when we see it - this book is full of truths that we perhaps always knew, but didn't quite *know* that we knew - it's that kind of book. I really recommend this to anyone who doesn't absolutely detest probing books with a real soul.

This is a marvelous narrative of the inner workings of a man's struggle in the conflict between his spirit and his ego for control of his life. Sensitively told, and retrospectively insightful even about his lack of insight, it is a human tale of Richard's spiritual development over many years, concluding with a soulmate marriage.

I have noticed that many readers have expressed doubt as to the veracity or true nature of Richard's spiritual growth and maturity as his long soulmate marriage has ended in divorce. This, I believe, arises from a misunderstanding of what soulmates are and how they relate. Do soulmates ever divorce? Is there more than one soulmate for each of us? Do soulmates ever fight bitterly? What happens if your soulmate dies? How can you recognize if someone is really your soulmate? What if your soulmate fails to recognize you, or leaves you? Are soulmates always happy together?

After 22 years of romantic ignorance on my part, I found the answers to these questions, and, of course, what I needed to change in myself to find my soulmate, in a book recently written by psychologist Carolyn Miller, called "Soulmates: Following Inner Guidance to the Relationship of Your Dreams". It's available on amazon.com. Check it out.

From the perspective of Dr. Miller's book, Richard Bach stands as a fine spiritual warrior engaged in a winning battle over his ego as he continues into the latter years of his life.

If ever there was a book that I wish I'd have written, it would have to be "The bridge across forever". Richard Bach is a very gifted writer, who can take his readers on a ride through love and other emotions. I read this book for the first time in New Delhi after borrowing it from a hostel-mate. After completing it, i went out and bought my own copy and have since read it two more times!

Love is a very difficult emotion to put into words, but richard bach makes a very good attempt at trying to do so. The journey he takes us through while in search of his soul-mate is the story of everyone of us in one way or the other. Every person on this earth is in search of his/her soul-mate. The bridge across forever is a book about each one of us, whether we be in search of our soul-mate or have already found them.

The words with which Richard Bach describes his love are very meaningful and worth reading over and over.

I suggest this book as a definite read for all.

The term soulmate has been thrown around so loosely that it has lost most of it's meaning now a days. This book shows by example what a loveing careing and nurtureing realtionship is and what you sometimes go through to get there. If you think your in love now, read this book and look at yourself. Look at the person your in a relationship with. Look at the people around you. On the subway, in line at the movie theather. After a while and if you do find your soulmate (and nobody promises you will at first so never settle in the meantime) You will look at them and yourself differetly. You will notice what was there all the time but the walls have fallen and you know who's in love and whose settled. Do yourself and your partner a favor. Never settle. Never, never, never. It's nice for a while but when they find there soulmate you'll want to know where your's is. Won't you?

Thank you Richard and Leslie.

Paul