First, a technical question: When an author attempts to render a character’s reaction to the cold by having that character say, “Brrrrr,” how many “r’s” are required to convey bone-clamping, eyeball-clenching cold? Three seems a tad too few; four, a smidgen too many. Five is just showing off.
When it comes to writing about cold, few contemporary authors can hold a fluttering, sputtering, wind-whipped candle to their predecessors. Sure, today’s writers occasionally attempt to convey a situation in which a wee chill infests the air, in which a dab of Blistex would be just the thing. But to illustrate cold — actual, honest-to-goodness, subzero misery — we usually must turn to scribes of earlier eras.
Perhaps technology is to blame. Because of central heating and snowblowers, many of us have lost touch with the real ambience of winter. We’re insulated, literally and figuratively, from the consequences of extreme weather in ways that even wealthy folks of times gone by could not hope to be.
Judge for yourself. Here are excerpts from various authors’ wizardly renditions of the world in winter’s grip.
From “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair (1906):
“Home was not a very attractive place — at least not this winter. They had only been able to buy one stove, and this was a small one, and proved not big enough to warm even the kitchen in the bitterest weather. This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all day, and for the children when they could not get to school. At night they would sit huddled around this stove, while they ate their supper off their laps; and then Jurgis and Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they would all crawl into their beds to get warm, after putting out the fire to save the coal. Then they would have some frightful experiences with the cold. They would sleep with al their clothes on, including their overcoats, and put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they owned; the children would sleep all crowded in one bed, and yet even so they could not keep warm. The outside ones would be shivering and sobbing, crawling over the others and trying to get down into the center, and causing a fight . . . [T]he cold which came upon them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the room. . . . They could feel the cold as it crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them with its icy, death-dealing fingers, and they would crouch and cower, and try to hide from it, all in vain. It would come, and it would come; a grisly thing, a specter born in the black caverns of terror; a power primeval, cosmic, shadowing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos and destruction. It was cruel, iron-hard; and hour after hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone.”
From the poem, “Letter Back to Oregon,” by Albert Goldbarth (1972):
More Top Picks Ratings
” . . . It’s worst at night.
Ira, Chicago prepares for winter.
We slide for love on the icy line
that separates scares from strangulation.
We look to sparrows for how to survive.
What could I say that a sparrow hasn’t
told the world with a single shrill crack
in the language of milkbottles
left on the stoop? My breath
is already white with that word.
It clatters in the pan.
We look to sparrows, to the alley-dogs.
We bury the best bones
deep in our flesh. How huge must we be
for the lake to freeze,
but the heart in the fish-ribs
keep warm at bottom? Where
to cache that one wet drop?
Ira, we walked on the lakeshore last night
and though she held my hand, the thighbones
chattered in our thighs.
It is Chicago winter; and, too cold
to swallow or even part the lips, our teeth
turn against us,
still needing meat . . . “
From “Kitchen” by Banana Yoshimoto (1988):
“The endless sea was shrouded in darkness. I could see the shadowy forms of gigantic, rugged crags against which the waves were crashing. While watching them, I felt a strange, sweet sadness. In the biting air I told myself, there will be so much pleasure, so much suffering. With or without Yuichi.
“The beacon of the faraway lighthouse revolved. It turned to me, then it turned away, forming a pathway of light on the waves.”
From “One of Ours” by Willa Cather (1922):
“He rose and went to look out, but the west windows were so plastered with snow that they were opaque. Even from the one on the south he could see nothing for a moment; then Mahailey must have carried her lamp to the kitchen window beneath, for all at once a broad yellow beam shone out into the choked air, and down it millions of snowflakes hurried like armies, an unceasing progression, moving as close as they could without forming a solid mass. Claude struck the frozen window-frame with his fist, lifted the lower sash, and thrusting out his head tried to look abroad into the engulfed night. There was a solemnity about a storm of such magnitude; it gave one a feeling of infinity. The myriads of white particles that crossed the rays of lamplight seemed to have a quiet purpose, to be hurrying toward a definite end. A faint purity, like a fragrance almost too fine for human senses, exhaled from them as they clustered about his head and shoulders.”
From “Plain City” by Virginia Hamilton (1993):
“She tramped in the snow until she had to stop to get her breath. Then, she got down on her knees. Brushed the powdery snow away and smoothed her gloved hands on the ice. She stretched out on her stomach and stared down into the under ice, to see what she could see.
“Hunh. It’s all black ice in there, seems like. Fishes, living down there, I’ll bet, while everything up here is freezing. She thought she saw shapes way deep down there. Eyes and noses. She lay like that for a while, feeling the cold all around, pressing down on her from the trees hanging over her. She had her nose flattened against the ice, wondering if her skin would stick there. She hoped to see — she didn’t know what.”
From “Native Son” by Richard Wright (1940):
More Top Picks Laundry Basket
“He lowered his head against the driving snow and tramped through the icy streets with clenched fists. Although his hands were almost frozen, he did not want to put them in his pockets, for that would have made him feel that he would not have been ready to defend himself were the police to accost him suddenly. He went on past street lamps covered with thick coatings of snow, gleaming like huge frosted moons above his head. His face ached from the sub-zero cold and the wind cut into his wet body like a long sharp knife going to the heart of him with pain.”
From the journal of Father Jacques Marquette, S.J. (1674):
“December 4 — We started with a favoring wind, and reached the river of the portage [later known as the Chicago Portage], which was frozen to the depth of half a foot; there was more snow there than elsewhere, as well as more tracks of animals and Turkeys.
“Navigation on the lake is fairly good from one portage to the other, for there is no crossing to be made, and one can land anywhere, unless one persist in going on when the waves are high and the wind is strong. The land bordering it is of no value, except on the prairies.
“14 — Having encamped near the portage [near what is now Damen Avenue and the South Branch of the Chicago River], 2 leagues up the river, we resolved to winter there, as it was impossible to go farther, since we were too much hindered and my ailment did not permit me to give myself much fatigue . . . .”
From “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” by Sam Greenlee (1969):
“It had been a harsh winter, with subzero temperatures a regular thing. There would be an occasional respite while the big, soft snow covered the city and for a short time covered the grime and dirt and ugliness of Chicago with its virginal whiteness, but within hours after the last flake fell, the virginal snow would be a greasy, dirt-grimed whorelike snow and then the temperature would drop and film the streets with mirrorlike glaze, turning the city snow into something that crunched underfoot like an old cereal in a new box labeled super and all-new.”
From “Off Keck Road” by Mona Simpson (2000):
“Winter was the longest season where they lived. At dusk, there were depths in the banks of snow, curves upon curves, a frozen sea, blue and more blue receding out the long plains, with no edges. The snow softened roofs and silos, blunting trees, shearing particulars as far as you could see.
“If you were outside, you were apt to be alone. There was the poignance of ending and faint yellow lights in the distance.
“Somewhere else, women were cooking in kitchens. Miles from here, men sat stiff-armed, driving their cars.
“You could see: The world would freeze again before it melted.”
From “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” by Peter Hoeg (1992):
“And it gets colder, and I’m happy because I know that now the frost has gained momentum; now the ice will stay, now the crystals have formed bridges and enclosed the salt water in pockets that have a structure like the veins of a tree through which the liquid slowly seeps; not many who look over toward Holmen think about this, but it’s one reason for believing that ice and life are related in many ways.”
From “The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (1888):
“[Returning to Chicago in 1825], I thought I could go on horseback to the mouth of the Iroquis and there swim the Kankakee, and as two Indians were bound for that point, I decided to accompany them. It had frozen during the night, and the morning was very cold. We progressed very pleasantly until we reached a small stream on the prairie which had overflowed its banks, and upon which a new covering of ice had formed during the night, leaving running water between the two coverings of ice. The upper ice was not strong enough for a man to walk on, but the Indians laid down and slid themselves across with little difficulty. I rode my horse to the stream, and reaching forward with my tomahawk broke the ice ahead of him, he walking on the under ice until he reached the middle of the stream, when his hind feet broke through, the girth gave away, and the saddle slipped off behind carrying me with it. I fell into the water and was carried by the current rapidly down the stream between the upper and lower coverings of ice. I made two attempts to gain my feet, but the current was so swift and the space so narrow I could not break through the ice.
“I had about given up all hope, when my hand struck a willow bush near the bank and thus arrested my rapid progress. At the same time I stood up and bumping the ice with my head broke through. The Indians were much astonished to see me come up through the ice, and gave utterance to their surprise by a peculiar exclamation. I recovered my horse and saddle and returned to my trading house, with no worse result than wet clothing and a slightly bruised head.”
From “On the Shore” by Albert Halper (1934):
“But now it’s winter, good old winter in Chicago. The wind howls and snow is whirled into drifts back in the alleys. A strong boat goes up the Chicago River, breaking the ice, keeping the way clear. And every Saturday afternoon races are held in the parks, the bands play on platforms, a few cops on skates keep the crowds back, and sometimes the favorite falls on the last lap and the people feel sorry for him. The wide oval pond glitters dully under the sun and the wind blows fine snow over the ice. People stamp to keep warm, some slap their sides. . . .
“Cold air blows over the frozen lagoons, whirls thin fine snow toward the pavilion, and out on the ice a small man wearing a fur cap tries to perform fancy turns on dull skates.”
From “Dangling Man” by Saul Bellow (1944):
“When the frosts began, the house was underheated. We could not bathe at night; in December we had to go to bed at nine, when the radiators turned cold. Then, during one week in January, the furnace broke down. Mr. Gesell was an electrician himself; to save money, he undertook the repairs. But he had his job to attend to, so he worked at the furnace evenings and Sundays . . . . We ate supper with our sweaters on.
“The gas stove in the kitchen, which was now our only source of heat, began to give us headaches. We lived with Myron for a week, the three of us in one bed . . . I caught Mr. Gesell at last, when he was airing the dog. He joked about the cold . . . He began to relate how near [he and his wife] had come to freezing, during the Depression, in a bare studio on Lake Park Avenue. They burned orange crates while waiting for the Relief to deliver coal. They took down the curtains and stuffed them in cracks against the wind.”