Alexander’s Bridge was Willa Cather’s first novel and one of her best. Bartley Alexander
was the world’s leading bridge builder, something that was considered an
awesome skill in the early twentieth century. Alexander has the strength and
regret that weave throughout Cather’s male characters much as they do through
those of her contemporary authors, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dreiser, Anderson,
Lewis, and others. Mrs. Alexander has the strength and forbearance of Cather’s
female characters, shown off most clearly after the great bridge collapses
along with Alexander himself.
The novel bathes
its locations in a glow reminiscent of a lovely Impressionist painting, full of
light and luminosity. Boston has never appeared more glorious than in her
descriptions, as one example. The novel starts with great strength but with a
forbidding air. It ends as a great Greek drama with the collapse of the hero
and the literal collapse of his great work. This is the Cather novel to start
with.
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