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Editorial Review Book Description
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Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the head of Chestnut Street, looking about him with the pleased air of a man of taste who does not very often get to Boston. He had lived there as a student, but for twenty years and more, since he had been Professor of Philosophy in a Western university, he had seldom come East except to take a steamer for some foreign port. Wilson was standing quite still, contemplating with a whimsical smile the slanting street, with its worn paving, its irregular, gravely colored houses, and the row of naked trees on which the thin sunlight was still shining. The gleam of the river at the foot of the hill made him blink a little, not so much because it was too bright as because he found it so pleasant. The few passers-by glanced at him unconcernedly, and even the children who hurried along with their school-bags under their arms seemed to find it perfectly natural that a tall brown gentleman should be standing there, looking up through his glasses at the gray housetops. ... Read more Customer Reviews (5) 
Alexander's Bridges
This is an amazing story about a successful engineer and his simultaneous romantic relationships with two brilliant and capable women.Originally published in 1912, it must have been scandalous, creating sympathetic portrayals of each of the three main characters:Bartley Alexander, a leading bridge building engineer;Winifried Alexander, his intelligent, enabling, supportive, and capable wife;and Hilda Burgoyne, Alexander's mistress, a talented and spirited British stage actress.
This is not a perfect book.And in the preface written by Willa Cather in 1922, ten years after it's original publication, it seems Cather almost apologizes for some of the choices she made in telling her original story - conceding it was not truly a story she understood from personal history, but rather a young writer's attempt to tell a story similar to the stories told by authors she admired.
It is not a long novel, so I was able to read it for the first time over the last few weeks.I enjoyed it very much.
The title "Alexander's Bridge" refers to several primary metaphors, including:
a)The story is about Alexander's attempt to bridge his life between two great loves, the two amazing and unique women in his life.
b)"Alexander's Bridge" is also a metaphor for the institution of marriage, a "singular span" that is capable of bearing conventional loads, but that may not be the safest or most facilitative structure to handle the demands of some modern expanses, loads, and conditions.
c)And "Alexander's Bridge" refers to the Alexander's repeated and unavoidable attempts to bridge his current life and responsibilities with the passions, memories, and goals of his youth.
Alexander, for many good reasons, not only loves Hilda (his current mistress and first love), but maybe as importantly he also loves the person he was in his youth when he was around her chemistry and environments.And he regularly struggles with his present life, where his marriage, career, and all the related societal and work obligations have taken over almost all his time and concerns.Throughout the story, he is consciously, and unconsciously in his sleeping dreams, struggling with the relentless memories of the past.
While I love the insight and universal perspectives in this book, unfortunately, my two least favorite sentences are the last sentence of Chapter X, and the last sentence of the Epilogue.It appears Cather was torn with what summarily should be said about Alexander's choices, because the Epilogue is in notorious conflict with the last sentence of Chapter X.
The whole book is an intelligent exploration of morality, ethics, and dualities - it seems unnecessarily disarmed with such an overriding negative spin as is suggested in the final sentence of Chapter X.I understand Cather must have been under a great deal of social pressure in 1912 to identify Alexander's behaviors as destructive, but almost the entire rest of the book is one big long wink to savvy readers that she was under pressure to put such a pat moral perspective on the totality of his actions.
In later books, like My Ãntonia, Cather created a male narrator that does not identify his undying loves as destructive.My Ãntonia, as a book, is one man taking the time to recollect and share his fond memories of one of his first love's (Ãntonia).A beautiful aspect of My Ãntonia is a concession by the narrator that his love for Ãntonia never died, even though she married and lived a life separate from him.
Alexander's Bridge, in almost every other part of the book, suggests that Alexander was not intent on being self-destructive;but rather, he had excellent reasons for loving both women and for pursuing so many hard to achieve simultaneous business goals.Both women are drawn lovingly (as Cather is so capable of doing).
Cather was brilliant.Notice that Alexander does not die because his bridge crushes him, or because its weight and undertow drown him.He does not die of hubris.He does not die because he is arrogant and ignores the engineering data.As soon as he receives data suggesting the one bridge cannot meet all the demands placed on it, he immediately changes directions and makes best efforts to get everyone off the bridge.He does not die because he is not self-sufficient or because he is unable to swim.He dies because fearful people around him panic, and they pull him under the water as they drown.
The book is an exploration of this important question:Is it possible for good and moral people to have a healthy extra-marital affair?And in 1912, seriously and carefully examining that question in a mainstream and literate novel had to be controversial.The book suggests that when people are faced with more than one great love, whether or not they choose to pursue only one of those loves (and therefore exclude the other), the conflicts inherent in those decisions continue the rest of their life, regardless of whether they choose to love only one or both.
I recommend people read this book to read the internal dialogues of all the main characters.The book challenges common presumptions, and it questions its own presumptions.Buy a version that includes Cather's 1922 preface.
When Alexander sees that one bridge (one relationship) will not safely support the load, he is not a fool.He doesn't stand idly and sink with the ship (the bridge).He makes best efforts to save himself and as many others as possible by letting them know that his one bridge will no longer keep them safe.And he personally goes back out onto the unsafe bridge and tries to save as many of the other men as possible.
The book is not simply a critique of the traditional love relationship formula.Rather, it is more intent on being illustrative of circumstances that might merit something other than simple Victorian guilt as a response to non-singular love relationships.It compassionately shows how one man had separate and distinctly beautiful relationships with two unbelievably good women.It shows how the social constructs of that era led good men and women to live with self-inflicted and sometimes crushing guilt.Each character loves deeply and genuinely.But in that era, they were forced to choose only one. The book considerately examines the inherent negative consequences that often arise out of the traditional marital contract.
Cather's first novel
Willa Cather's first novel, it concerns the life of engineer Bartley Alexander, the bridge he's building across the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, and the triangular relationship he has with his wife and mistress. The bridge becomes a symbol for his failures: the great bridge he's building collapses (causing his death) at the same time his affair with Hilda collapses. Cather had only published short stories before this, and was reluctant (though resigned) to writing a novel. It's a short work, and Cather herself thought it was shallow and trite (she almost disowned it). Her next work, O PIONEERS, would be much better.
An ersatz Edith Wharton masquerading as Willa Cather
Light on plot, heavy on symbolism, and a little predictable, Cather's first novel (a novella, actually) still contains moments of brilliance, especially in its strong characterizations and occasional flashes of wit. The story concerns a Boston architect who is contendedly married but suddenly embarks on an affair in London with an old flame from his youth. He soon becomes tormented over his double life but finds himself unable to resolve his conflicted feelings. Heavily indebted to the Gilded Age novelists, "Alexander's Bridge" reads like a typical first novel from a writer who shows a lot of promise. Later in life, Cather wrote an essay entitled "My First Novels (There Were Two)," as close to an apology for a first novel as most writers ever make. She admitted that most of the "younger writers" in her peer group followed the manner of Henry James and Edith Wharton, "without having their qualifications"; she "thought a book should be made out of 'interesting material.'" Only while writing her next novel, "O Pioneers!," did she realize that "taking a ride through a familiar country"--the rural Nebraska of her youth--was "a much more absorbing process." Nevertheless, "Alexander's Bridge" hints at the virtuoso novelist she was later to become, and it's certainly better than many writers achieve in an entire lifetime.
A Bridge to Her Better Work
This was Willa Cather's first novel, and, while showing glimpses of her later talent, is mostly disappointing.The metaphor of the bridge--the conduit to both the past and the future--figures prominently in this story of a Boston architect torn between his ongoing "mid-life" crisis and his energetic, passion-filled past. The story contains some heavy-handed symbolism (e.g., the bridge), melodramatic action ("With one [hand] he threw down the window and with the other--still standing behind her--he drew her back against him), and awkward phrasing: "'He was simply the most tremendous response to stimuli I have ever known.'" Still, the story moves along well, and there is an interesting Henry James-like contrast of Europe and America.The beginning nicely portrays the Boston upper class, and the dramatic conclusion includes passages of great strength and imagination.It is in this last chapter, especially, that her skills are most evident.Willa Cather is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "O Pioneers!" "My Antonia," and other great works.Definitely recommended for those with an interest in her work.
Clearly not her best...
I'll make this review brief:
Cather didn't know how to write very wellwhen she put this novel together.I have read iher style here as beingcomparable to Henry James... no way.This novel is too short, too abrupt,and too lacking in the details needed to pull off decent charactermotivation, somethng I find vital to novels dealing with infidelity andlove. The scenes read as disjuncted and they do not develop very well. Ifyou want a short Cather novel that is better and want to avoid thecommonplace Death Comes for the Archbishop, then try "My MortalEnemy"This shows Cather off at the better end of her career.
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Marriage woes