The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

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

This is may favorite book by Richard Bach. You may have fallen in and out of love, maybe you still feel the pain of losing the love of someone you thought was your soulmate, but if that person is not with you, maybe you're just hanging on to something that's just keeping you from meeting your true love.Sometimes it's easier to hold on to the old pain than to risk opening your heart again. It's not about searching everywhere you go, your soulmate will show when you least expect it, maybe he/she is someone you already know. This book gives us that little sun light we need when we have almost given up. It's not only a beautiful love story, it tells us things we know and believe, but sometimes forget...so don't because your soulmate is right there...somewhere...

This is the sort of novel Richard Rorty might write if he weren't so bright; for Bach adumbrates, in popular form, some of the same romantic polytheism, trendy Prometheanism, egoism, etc., that has been developing in Rorty (and in our culture) for decades. The novel is bad for divers reasons: its ideas are adolescent, the plot is visibly idealized; indeed Bach's folly in the first half of the book is a "straw man" to be knocked down all too easily in the second half. Bach's self-absorption, his selfishness: who can take them seriously? Probably too many. Withal, Bach, in the end, is a self-rightous purveyor of cultish nonsense. Astral projection, immortality. Indeed. Bach's only saving grace is that for a while he listens to the sane voice of Leslie; and we may take a modicum of comfort in this temporary--he's always GROWING, you know!--rapprochement. Very convenient, too, that children are never mentioned in all this soul-mate blather!

This book was recommended to me by a close friend, and as I really enjoyed Illusions, I thought I would try it. While it was good.. I found it just under the radar screen of being great. It had a few moments.. but not sustaining enough to keep me fully engaged. While bored in some places, I found myself reading on, hoping to be inspired by something on the next page. It didn't really happen.... though after reading the entire book.. I did feel that something quite subtle had occurred in that I did 'get it'.. I understood overall where he was coming from and what he was trying to share with the reader.. So, thinking positively, I've already started reading "One".. will let you know..

After reading "Bridge.." in 92 my outlook on life and love completely changed. It opened me up and made me aware of my decisions and "circumstances". Richard Bach so keenly tells his journey to meet the woman of his dreams that we are barely aware of our own dream mate creeping into our subconcious during the reading. Once finished, your soulmate will be living in your mind waiting for you to discover. Go find him or her but be aware that the harder you try the more difficult your search will be. Believe me, I know. I also have met and married my soulmate as a result of this book. I lived this book, re-read it many times since and have given copies to friends. If you read one book in a year, make this the one.

I love this book.. A girlfriend and I had broken up recently. She took her stuff back, but had left this book by mistake. I am reading this book now. I absolutely love it! It is the only "love story" I own.. most of my books are computer related books :) Definately read this book, and explore yourself and your dreams.

In this book, the author takes us deep inside himself when he is tring to find his 'perfect woman', and then his life once he found her.
We can very easily relate to the author because it s a very real story, and it is very interesting to see the evolution of the author throughout the book.

Being raised on Richard's writings I have been well exposed to his views on the soul and its status here on earth. This novel about his personal experiences during the dark years of his income tax problems sheds light on how some of life's greatest blessings are given during the darkest of times. His reluctance to give over himself and his freedom to the idea that he had really found The Big Love reflects the decision everyone must make in this circumstance. This personal account of the choices one makes when finding his soulmate gives a fresh perspective on the obstacles we must all overcome to find joy and acceptance of the most precious parts of ourselves.

Another deliciously uplifting Richard Bach creation about soul mates, the meaning of life and the ultimate search for true love. Thought provoking about how our destiny unfolds at the appropriate place and time. A must read.
Arlene Millman
author of BOOMERANG - A MIRACLE TRILOGY

Light reading with a heavy message....brilliant book!

The underlying philosophies: the love you are "searching for" may be right next to you; in love and life value a true friend as there are so few; be yourself in life and the happiness will follow; are all life's messages worth internalizing and using in life.

I recommend it highly for those confident enough to look in the mirror at themselves, their lives and truly evaluate all facets of their lives.

I waited for my soulmate after this story convinced me that he was out there. I found him. I also read One and I am astounded. The writing is beautiful and brings me to tears. Thank you, Richard and Leslie for your visions and truth

Thanx to Bach...He has helped me discover what true love was and to top it my true love.This was the first gift Dany gave me.He taught me ...true love wasthe easiest thing to believe in,live for....and fall in love with.

This is the most mystical magical enchanting love story I have ever read! I first read this when I was seventeen and have been looking for my soulmate since.
I have been fortunate enough to have finally met him and we were married in our new backyard on Saturday. I even had the one of my other wishes come true and rode up in my lace wedding dress on my new paint horse.
I "thank you" Richard and Leslie Bach for helping me believe in magic!!!
P.S. "Never settle for leass than the best!"

Nice romantic novel, kitchy but nice. But than comes the end, and that is one stupid ending. The last chapters of the book are a disgrace to the human intelligence.
Don't read it. Richard Bach as a man is one who lives in a fantasy world without any knowledge of modern psychology.

My experience of this book is that it explains many truths you know, but never thought about when it comes to love and relationships. It is a great help if you are feeling lost in a long relationship and feel like getting out - it can give you the answers you need to stay and fight on for the sake of your love.

I read this book three years ago after reading illusions and Jonathan; wich were both great. I really liked Bridge Accross Forever but I consider it useless as an inspirational read if Richard himself says that while writing the book he saw that the relationship was not going to work out.Why was he writing the book then? Simply to make money? I recomend Jonathan and Illusions; there is no point reading his later books now.

I finished the book yesterday, I have read the Seagull and Illusions. Both of the books are very moving. I love the quotes in the books. He is one of the authors that you read over and over again. He allows us to believe in true love and the hope not to give up.

Richard Bach is an incredible writer. The good of his books is that they are autobiographical novels. In this one he tells incredibly well the story of his serach for the ideal woman. If you love airplanes, life, philosophy you'll love this book!

I think sometimes we forget that every breath we take and every decision we make is infused with so much magic...even when it's difficult. If you ever forget who you are or why you're here, read this book.

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.

A sadly undereducated woman I lived with for a short time (thanks be) urged me to read this....thing. I already knew Bach was a writer of garbage, so I protested that the book would probably be precisely the sort of sloppy, gushy junk that this very bad writer had been writing all his life. I can't give you a technically "fair" review, because it didn't take me very many pages to feel something akin to a diabetic coma coming on from this perfectly awful overdose of over-sweet goo; his books are shameless slosh, and the cloying sweetness should attract only ignorant readers and flies. I felt disappointed that my companion understood so little about good writing, and about me.

Sorry, folks, but I do not read very far into any book that continually insults the reader's intelligence. Now there will be -- well, there already are -- many reviewers here who will blame the reviewer for the bad review, instead recognize that Bach is the literary equivalent of a ham. This is a book that entirely indulges the writer and insults the intelligence of the reader. Bach is a hack writer whose chief interest is strictly focused on himself, rather than on anything of value. The only love affair in this book is the one the author has with his own gormless babbling. This guy is the sort of boor you meet every so often -- a bumptious, ego-maniacal, sentimental boor without so much as a single idea worth putting on paper. He is just bilking the sentimental and the insipid with this and other stupendously bad books. He is the proof of H.L. Mencken's comment, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." Or of any readers. anywhere.

Anyone who has read any of his books and likes them, clearly has a deficiency of good taste, as well of any comprehension whatsoever of what makes good writing or good story-telling. So, please, don't blame me for Bach's embarrassingly goofy writing nor for your own lack of taste and judgement with respect to literature. Those who like him, and who are represented heavily in the majority vote here, write about him as if he had actually impressed anyone who is not grossly sentimental, and, in terms of literature, utterly ignorant. He is in a class with the schlocky Rod McKuen, grinding out unspeakable garbage for unspeakable Philistines.

"Bad taste is the only sin." (Voltaire)