Georgia Wood Pangborn's "Bixby's Bridge"

commentary by rbadac

   

My local library has bound copies of Harper's Magazine (yours might too; have you asked?), & Jessica's article on Georgia Wood Pangborn provides month & year information, so I was able to read "Bixby's Bridge" in situ, so to speak, & to photocopy it, just so I could get a foretaste of the volume she has done, before The Wind at Midnight was published.

It's really a treat to look at these old periodicals. This particular bound group spanned a period from December 1916 through the early months of 1917, & also has stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Wilbur Daniel Steele, Richard Le Gallienne, & Ellen Glasgow (the ghost story "Dare's Gift," in fact), as well as another Pangborn story, "The Return," a traditional Christmas number of memories in an old family house. There are also several poignant & interesting bits on the Great War in progress (including photographs), & of course some stunningly beautiful illustrations, both line drawings & color paintings, to accompany the stories. Anthologists do have more fun. We won't see the like of these publications ever again.

If "Bixby's Bridge" is any indication ( & of course it must be), this new compilation is an important literary service. Georgia Wood Pangborn is a damn good writer. Her prose has the mellifluousness of Henry James, without that writer's sometimes ponderous density, and contains passages of real poetic breadth. There is an undercurrent, though, which is hinted at in the setup to this story.

It concerns a young man, John Bixby, who lives on his back in his bed, unable to see or move, in the attic of his mother's boarding house. In an incredible & tragic series of events, he has gone blind, because a girl he met awakened in him the ambition to work his way through college studying mechanical engineering. Nothing wrong with that, you say? One wouldn't think. But Bixby's mother, who is relating these details to Pangborn's "I," describes the girl as "a little chit in lace," & seems to blame what follows on her having instilled these ill-fated ambitions in her son.

A bout with pneumonia necessitates John's having to do extra studying to keep up. Because his mother "needs his help around the house" by day, he has to do this at night. Unfortunately, his mother keeps the gas jets low at night to conserve costly fuel, & John goes blind trying to read by inadequate light!

On top of this, John contracts severe rheumatism, & is rendered completely immobile. He becomes the talk of the town, the "ossified" man in his mother's attic, slowly turning to stone. His mother persists in her view of things, in an aside which might have almost sounded normal back in the deprivation times of 1917, & which indeed has little to do with the story proper (what John does to escape in his mind is the main thrust of the tale), but which gave this reader a chill:

If it hadn't been for the borders, she explained to me, with a high note of pathos, she could have moved him downstairs; but she could not give up her bread-and-butter, so he had to keep his attic room, though, indeed, it made her many weary steps; and, to be sure, it did get hot in summer & she couldn't seem to keep the flies out...

John eventually hits upon what is cautiously viewed by those around him as a theraputic activity — he imagines he is working, the architect on the site of a railroad bridge in some unspecified desert location. His supposed fantasy, however, is unusually detailed, "down to the every nubbin of cactus & the wind-marks in the sand," & contains one unbelievably un-PC observation: "there's a lot of niggery Spanish Indians in my gang, & a red-headed Irishman to cuss them out" — I'm sure in 1917 that went down without a murmur, probably without even a laugh, more likely a knowingly racist nod — his mother is first alarmed, & sends for the minister:

'The minister listened silently for a while, observing the happiness of the unconscious face, & no doubt its youth appealed to his own youth. He turned away, rather scared at a sudden realization of the largeness of the things he did not know, & reassured the mother somewhat brusquely as to the morality of her son's spending his time that way.

So John Bixby built bridges in this manner for five years...

Pangborn's narrator visits John in his room & gains his confidence. He tells her of his engineering projects, & she is drawn into his other world, with the growing realization that his fantasy has more substance than anyone can imagine.

I'm looking forward to checking out "Cara," "The Substitute," & "The Intruder" in other issues of Harper's, & hopefully to pick up a copy of this significant collection down the line. It looks to be well worth Jessica's heroic efforts to save this body of her work from obscurity. Before Georgia Pangborn's apparent descent into mental illness, she was possessed of a great talent, and it is a triumph she deserves to be remembered for.

copyright © 2001, all rights reserved

   

"Bixby's Bridge" is now available in
The Wind at Midnight:
Complete Ghost Stories of Georgia Wood Pangborn
available from Violet Books autographed by the editor.
See discription & price in the
Catalog of Vintage Weird Fictions For Sale

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