Connell’s structure mimics this compartmentalization and circumvention. Bridge compartmentalizes her life, checking off both the big and small events with equal regard like one of those daily housekeeping schedules that were so popular with women of her era. Bridge, a woman who circumvents any kind of holistic reflection and instead focuses on appearances and order. Nowadays, Merriam-Webster defines a vignette as “a short descriptive literary sketch” or, in relation to photographs, “a picture that shades off gradually into the surrounding paper.” All three definitions are appropriate in thinking about Connell’s story of Mrs. Vignes first appeared in the literary world during the late thirteen century, when they were drawn like garland on the borders of early manuscripts they increased a book’s value, added to its beauty, and, in many cases, proved illustrative, enhancing a reader’s understanding of the text. The word vignette comes from the Old French diminutive of vigne, meaning little vine.

These neat, linear images function in several ways: as a social critique of the era’s lust for conformity, as an aesthetic choice representing the psychology of his protagonist, and as an attempt to explicate time’s relationship to a forward-looking, consumptive lifestyle-all of which make the book interesting and relevant today, over sixty years later. Connell wrote 117 vignettes, which are presented chronologically. In lieu of the classic chapters-based format, however, author Evan S. Bridge, published in 1959, is a classic American novel about the misunderstandings and alienation of an incurious housewife living in Kansas City during the interwar years.

Mrs bridge book review