THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #47: A review of "Bianca's Hands" by Theodore Sturgeon

A hearty welcome to yet another powerhouse, even though Sturgeon was more recognizable in the SF field. He was a man who took pleasure in breaking taboos (he was the first writer to depict vampires drinking menstrual blood), and was also a nudist. One wonders what it would have been like to see him hanging out with, say, Robert A. Heinlein.



“Bianca’s Hands” has long been considered a classic of horror, and it deserves the attention. It’s the highly unusual story of young Ran, who one day encounters Bianca and her mother at a store. Bianca is kind of a beastly looking thing, “squat and small, with dank hair and rotten teeth” and a crooked mouth that constantly drools. She’s obviously retarded (or, as they said back then, she was an imbecile and an idiot), but there’s just one thing that makes her stand out from the rest of her ilk: she has perfect hands. Beautiful hands. Ran suddenly finds himself becoming obsessed with them, so much that he finds out where Bianca lives and asks her mother if he can move in.


Of course, people talk, but Ran doesn’t care. He’s too taken in with Bianca’s hands, and they seem to have a mind of their own. They don’t move across a table, they crawl, like spiders. It’s like they’re not even a part of her body.


Driven by his obsession, one day he tries to touch her hands. They evade him in a very creepy way. While the rest of her is blank, and even her arms are limp and unmoving, her hands are energetic and strong, and they fight back. Ran even gets hurt a little by one of them. Yet after they drag the rest of Bianca’s body away, they sneak back to get a look at him. He sees them playing with each other while Bianca stares into space, oblivious.


By this point in the history of the genre, there hasn’t been a story like this. Not a single tale resembles it. The closest we come is “The Smoking Leg,” but really, not even that qualifies. Bianca’s hands aren’t haunted or cursed; they’re sentient creatures. Alive. Later, Clive Barker would imitate this story with “The Inhuman Condition,” and would then bring it to the next logical step (ie. the body turning against itself). But in 1947? This was mind-blowing stuff.


There’s more. SPOILER ALERT: Ran asks Bianca’s mother for Bianca’s hand in marriage, and she relents, even though she warns him not to go down this path. Soon, Ran and Bianca are married, and he revels in the idea that he now owns those hands with which he is so obsessed. He can touch them whenever he wants. He goes home to do just that, and sure enough, at first her hands cradle one of his own, playing with his fingers, entwining with them. He’s just as happy as can be.


And then, her hands creep up to his throat and start squeezing the life out of him. Sturgeon, who had unusual ideas for his time, is telling us about his disgust with the accepted way of things. The traditional marriage, for example. Back then, when a man married a woman, he essentially owned her and could do whatever he wanted to her. Back then, for example, it wasn’t possible to rape your own wife. The husband owned his wife’s pussy, so how could he violate it? This is Sturgeon pointing out how this is not just a foolish notion, but truly impossible. The wife can always strike back. In Bianca’s case, she doesn’t even get punished for it. The authorities find her mother crying over the body, so they assume she did it. In the meantime, it looks like Bianca’s hands have taken their final journey; Sturgeon ends by telling us that her “hands were quite dead, drooping like brown leaves from her wrists.” END OF SPOILERS.


Chances are, if you’re reading this review, you’ve also read this story. On the off chance you haven’t, this is required reading. Get on it.

 
[This story first appeared in ARGOSY, and while it can't be read online at this time, it can be heard (read by Spider Robinson, no less) here.]