Theodore Sturgeon: "Bright Segment," "Shadow, Shadow on the Wall," and "Twink"

Let's read three more stories from my now worn copy of 1955's Caviar, a collection of stories by Theodore Sturgeon with an abstract Richard Powers on the front cover and an ad for Sturgeon's More than Human on its back cover; the 1970s American paperback has a pretty literal Darrel K. Sweet cover, and the numerous foreign editions run the gamut. Today's stories all first saw print in the 1950s.

"Bright Segment" (1955)

This one made its debut right here in Caviar, and went on to be reprinted many times beyond this collection, including in the horror magazine Shock in 1960 and the horror magazine Night Cry in 1985, where Sturgeon is promoted as one of the "high priests of horror."  "Bright Segment" was even chosen to be the title story of Volume VIII of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.  It appears we have every reason to expect that "Bright Segment" represents ol' Ted at the top of his game, and I hope it lives up to the hype, because I feel like I've been pretty nitpicky lately, and it would be nice to praise a story without reservation.

We are in luck!  This is a strange story, but the strangeness is one reason "Bright Segment" is so memorable and engaging.  Sturgeon also runs the risk of being monotonous or repetitive as he provides long detailed descriptions of a man's handiwork (remember when I noted how detailed were Sturgeon's descriptions of the operation of a bulldozer in "Killdozer!"?), but the work Sturgeon is describing here in "Bright Segment" is emotionally affecting, somewhat disturbing as well as heartwarming, if you can believe it, generating tension which keeps the reader from getting bored.  Sturgeon is an able writer and keeps a grip on the reader not only with his vivid and at times squirm-inducing descriptions but also with his smooth and moving style, little mysteries, and a compelling psychological portrait of a man in some ways pathetic and other ways admirable.  The story is also well-structured and has a twist ending that works.  Thumbs up for "Bright Segment," a disturbing and memorable examination of Sturgeon's characteristic topic--different forms of human love and their irresistible power.

The plot.  A janitor, a huge ugly man who has never had a woman or a friend, carries a young woman into his apartment--she is severely wounded in the chest, groin and head, and is bleeding all over the place.  For a while we readers may wonder if she is dead and the janitor murdered her, but then Sturgeon spends page after page describing how the janitor deftly treats her wounds and then her fever.  Through flashbacks we learn that this unattractive guy, rejected again and again throughout his life, has always had a desire to be needed and this helpless woman is his chance to achieve his lifelong dream.  We learn he is very strong and has very dexterous hands--he makes jewelry and makes his own pasta and so forth.  The woman begins to recover, and we eventually find out how she was so badly injured and what sort of person she is.  What kind of relationship can these two people have?  We get a twist ending of the best kind, surprising but also in keeping with all that has gone before.

A good start to today's blog post!      

"Shadow, Shadow on the Wall" (1951)

"Shadow, Shadow on the Wall," after its debut in Imagination, would go on to be reprinted many times, including in one of those Alfred Hitchcock-branded anthologies for juveniles.  And sure enough, the protagonist of the story is a kid who must contend with that staple villain of the fairy-tale, the evil step-mother!

Bobby's father remarried a woman with what sounds like a good body but a bad attitude, Gwen.  Dad sounds awesome, making Bobby toys out of pipe cleaners and forgiving Bobby when the kid accidentally breaks a window and that sort of thing, but Gwen is resentful of Bobby and treats him cruelly.  As the story begins, Dad is away and Gwen, ostensibly as punishment for that whole window caper, confines Bobby to his room and takes away his toys.  Bobby has a vivid imagination and loves to do that shadow puppet thing where you make a bird or whatever appear in the light on the wall from the sun or a lamp.  Bobby, in fact, has concocted in his mind a whole dream world behind the wall upon which the sunbeams lands, and sometimes wishes he could go there to escape Gwen.  Most of the creatures that appear on the wall are the product of Bobby's nimble fingers, but there is one vague and dim shadow that seems to have a life of its own.

Gwen keeps abusing Bobby psychologically, and she gets her comeuppance when Bobby innocently energizes that mysterious shadow and it pulls Gwen into the shadow world behind the wall forever.

I can moderately recommend "Shadow, Shadow on the Wall."  It is well-written, even if the plot is kind of obvious, and there is some uncomfortable sexual tension with all the talk of Gwen's narrow waist and broad shoulders and wide hips and how she searches Bobby's body for concealed toys that adds a layer of emotion and interest.

"Twink" (1955)

It looks like "Twink," which debuted in Galaxy, has only ever been reprinted in Sturgeon collections.  Still, I have hopes it will provide us the opportunity to put up a 100% "good" blog post!

We have here a dense story with quite a lot going on, much of it unsubtle and sort of over the top, with people yelling and weeping and gesticulating wildly, some of it allusive and a little mysterious, Sturgeon hinting at things and expecting us to get the hints, leading us to believe things and then making us question those beliefs.  The main theme of "Twink" is human isolation, alienation, which is cast into relief by the depiction of a uniquely close human connection.

Our narrator works in an office building for a charitable guy who goes out of his way to hire misfits who have trouble fitting in and finding work, like a guy crippled in some war in Asia (the story takes place in the high tech future of 1973 and presumably this is a war defending Taiwan against the Chines Communist Party), an ex-con, and a black person.  Our narrator, we eventually learn, is a misfit because he is (moderately) famous for having psychic powers, and before he got this position he had trouble keeping a job because his colleagues felt uncomfortable around him, fearing he could read their minds.  As well as startling revelations, "Twink" is a story that is full of paradoxes and ironies.  For example, the narrator resents his boss for his charity, I guess because by hiring people because they are disabled or otherwise different, he is reducing their identities to their disabilities or distinctiveness, making it impossible for them to overcome or put aside their differences from others and build an identity independent of those differences.  Or something like that.  Another irony is that the narrator can't really read minds, he is just uniquely good at those Rhine card tests, scoring the best on the tests of anyone in history, and so people's fears he can read their minds, the fears that made our hero unemployable, are spurious.

The narrator has a little girl, Twink, with his wife, Doris.  Twink is in terrible shape because the narrator is a reckless driver and got in a crash while Doris and Twink were with him in the car; Twink is in a coma and has suffered all manner of injury so that it seems likely she will remain a "basket-case" who can't see or hear or walk.  Much of the story's word count is devoted to examining the narrator's psychology, how he feels all alone because he has this problem that almost no other person can identify with, how he isn't sure if he wants Twink to live as a "basket-case" or to die, whether his desire that Twink die is based on sympathy for Twink or guilt and selfishness.  There's a sidelight that offers an illuminating contrast to the narrator's feelings about Twink--while Twink's case is not very famous, another sick little kid's case is front page news; that boy has cancer and is doomed, and the narrator envies the certainty of that kid's fate, but is glad Twink hasn't received the publicity the little boy has.

We were told that the narrator can't read minds, but it turns out that since the car wreck the narrator can communicate telepathically with the stricken Twink.  One of the confusing mysteries of the story is how Sturgeon indicates that this telepathic link began as a result of the car wreck, but then offers reasons for us to believe this link has existed longer, even since she was still in the womb.    

The first half or so of the story follows the narrator as he leaves work early to go attend the surgery that may or may not fix all of Twink's innumerable problems.  The second half of the story is about how the world expert on psychic powers is on hand and insists in no uncertain terms that the narrator support the delicate surgery on his daughter by communicating with Twink during the risky procedures--I guess the idea is that for the surgery to succeed, little Twink must maintain her will to live, and the narrator can make sure that will endures despite the pain of the operation by continually telling his daughter telepathically that he loves her and that even if what the doctors are doing is painful it is to help her.  The operation is a success and Twink will live a normal life, though doubt is cast upon whether the narrator's telepathic link was essential to that success or not--was the parapsychologist just running an experiment on Twink and her father?

Then comes the big bombshell.  At first I thought the last page or so of the story included flashback scenes to the day Twink was born, but then I realized that Sturgeon had tricked me--Twink was born today during the same procedure that repaired her injuries!  I thought Twink was a little child during the car wreck that triggered the psychic connection between father and daughter, but she was in fact still in her pregnant mother's belly.     

As the story ends it is brought home to us that, ironically, the man who felt like an isolated and alienated misfit at the start of the story will enjoy a less isolated life than any man in history, as he will be in constant telepathic communication with his daughter, sharing all her emotions and experiences.  His wife Doris cries from jealousy, as she won't be able to share this intimacy with her husband and daughter.     

I am willing to say "Twink" is good even though it feels a little confusing and tricky.  The story is ambitious, for one thing, and Ted, an emotional guy who always speaks his mind, writes with  conviction.  The style is good, and all the characters behave in believable ways, if loudly and extravagantly.  The trick ending took me by surprise, but when I reread the story it seemed that Sturgeon was playing fair, so I only have myself to blame for falling into the trap.  For today's readers, what with the politics around abortion and euthanasia throughout my own 54-year lifetime, it is also interesting how Sturgeon presents Twink, who is in the womb and in a coma throughout almost the entire story, as a full human being and a locus of life-changing love and not some clump of cells that should be treated by the able-bodied as nothing more than an obstacle to be casually brushed aside.  There is also the implicit criticism of what after 1961 we would call affirmative action programs.  And women may find it annoying that a story about a powerful connection between a parent and child chooses to depict a daughter who is closer to her father than to her mother and even show Mom envying that connection.  "Twink" is a challenging story on multiple levels.  

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Alright, three good stories, happy day.  "Shadow, Shadow on the Wall" is a well-done conventional horror story/wish fulfillment fantasy that is easy to understand and the least of today's stories, though certainly better than hundreds of stories we have read over the long busy years of this blog's life.  "Twink" is challenging and ambitious, a little harder to digest and full of surprise and big emotions and big statements.  The best of the three, in my opinion at least, is "Bright Segment," as unusual as "Twink" but easier to grasp, a smoothly functioning and compelling piece of work.

Next time we meet, three stories from the recent past--the 1980s!  Cross your fingers in hopes we get another blog post about three genuinely good stories!