{"id":13780,"date":"2014-11-09T06:11:26","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T03:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=13780"},"modified":"2014-11-09T06:11:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T03:11:26","slug":"pushing-through-the-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2014\/11\/09\/pushing-through-the-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"“Pushing through the ice…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The theme of Lovecraft’s New York story “Cool Air” was strong prompted by his own fear of cold and need for heat, and by his friend Leeds’s precursor story. But I wonder if the following historical snippet might be relevant to the slight stress that Lovecraft places on the increasing demands of Dr. Munoz for more cold and ever more ice…<\/p>\n

At the peak of the trade in the 1870s, cargoes of New England ice worth hundreds of thousands of dollars went south annually from Charleston to Calcutta … ice was cut in winter [for export around the world] on every pond and river in the region” (from Reflections in Bullough’s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England<\/em>, University Press of New England, 2000)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So could there be a slight touch of historical satire in “Cool Air”, only to be picked up on by those aware of the role of the ice trade<\/a> in New England history? I hasten to add that I’m not the first to make a suggestion along these lines, as S.T. Joshi has pointed to the possibility of a few deftly humorous touches in the story…<\/p>\n

“There is, to be sure, a perhaps deliberate undercurrent of the comic in the whole story, especially when Munoz, now holed up in a bathtub full of ice, cries through his bathroom door, \u201cMore—more!\u201d (A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft<\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"more_ice\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme of Lovecraft’s New York story “Cool Air” was strong prompted by his own fear of cold and need …<\/p>\n

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