“The Iceman”
by Emma Cline
from the August 23, 2021 issue of The New Yorker
I haven’t read one of her novels, yet, but from her stories I can say that I never quite know what to expect from Emma Cline. Her last story to appear in the magazine was “White Noise,” a strange but rather captivating story about Harvey (clearly Harvey Weinstein) thinking he could make a come back by adapting Don DeLillo’s famous book. This is quite different from what we got in “Son of Friedman” and “What Can You Do with a General.” What is clear is that Cline is not afraid to take on big people and big events, often getting us uncomfortably close.
I write all of the above having not read a word of or about “The Iceman,” and at this moment I’m very excited to see what Cline does here. I simply don’t know what is in store, but I’m interested in seeing where she takes me.
Let’s start this together — here is the first little bit:
First, he readied the King and the Queen.
A quick pass with a Lysol wipe around their molded-plastic surfaces before returning the pieces to their proper place on the oversized chessboard. Each piece came up to his knee. Sam had never seen a hotel guest actually play chess on this huge board. He had seen guests pose for photos, though, cradling the pieces in their arms or pretending to be mid-move, faces frozen in faux contemplation. Once, Valeria politely chased after a bachelor party that had absconded with a pawn; she found it in the hallway of the North building, abandoned among all the stinking room-service trays.
Okay. I still have no idea where we will be going or just whom we’re dealing with, but I of course have seen plenty of these chess sets never being used.
I have moved on and read the next few paragraphs, so I know we’re following a man named Sam and that Sam works at some hotel or resort. Nothing about Sam makes me want to keep reading, but somehow Cline has got me interested nonetheless.
I hope you’ll share your thoughts below when you finish the story!
Hi, Trevor —
I’m using this space to ask for a favor. I just read the title story of Alice Munro’s collection, “Open Secrets”. I find the story a bit puzzling. Can you connect me to your and Betsy’s discussions of that story? Thanks.
Hi William, not sure we will help, but here you go!
Hmmm, that’s not working. I will see if I can fix it when I’m at my laptop.
Okay — I fixed the link in my comment above — sorry for the time it took!
Sorry, Trevor. It still says the site can’t be reached. Don’t worry about it. You have better things to do.
Weird! It is working for me. I do have an index at the top of the page, if you can find it, and there you can go to the Ms and get links — assuming they work! — to the Munro stuff we’ve covered.
i found it thru th einbdex. now i know how to use the index!
I was not immediately grabbed by this story, and I began to fear the usual cliches of “lockdown lit” would begin to surface (it really is a tightrope of self-awareness when writing about the current times, and wondering what to avoid and what to indulge). Luckily, the story succeeds in side-stepping this stuff without any cringe and I would actually compare it enthusiastically to John Updike’s A & P. It could almost be served alongside as a companion piece for comparison, and I even wonder if Cline had it in mind as she wrote. Young guy on the job – menial tasks slightly below his intellect – coworkers/mentors adding some color – scene invaded by disruptive outsiders who cause alarm – story ends with coming of age epiphany as we are locked inside the ruminations of a male juvenile who grapples with testosterone fluctuations. Well written, fun, and a good riff on Updike. Cline is a chameleon. I hadn’t realized she’d written White Noise, which I thought was okay.
This story is quite reminiscent of the just-completed HBO limited series “The White Lotus” which is about guests and staff at a Hawaiian luxury resort. Both are good at showing the perspective of the staff who are forced into being both permissive and solicitous yet must enforce some modicum of control. Cline’s tone here is quite sardonic and amusing. I wouldn’t quite compare this to A&P because it didn’t seem Sam had a major revelation here unless it’s to realize that he’s swapped out one routine (his job) for another (devoting himself to an exercise guru). Does Sam’s revelation lead him to do anything? Isn’t it possible he’s had the revelation before? Certainly, though, it seemed a pointed way to end and focus the story for the reader.
Trevor —
I read Betsy’s analysis of “Open Secrets”. I6’s a model of how to approach a critique of a short story.
So many good things in this story. Good simple narrative language. No weirdnesses like in some other stories – e.g., a magic medal accidentally found on a mountain or characters described in run-on sentences as a series of superficial traits. .
Also it incorporates COVID seamlessly as part of the atmosphere.
It starts right in with its theme:
“First, he readied the King and the Queen.”
“Sam had never seen a hotel guest actually play chess on this huge board.”
We don’t know it yet but these antiseptic, ignored chess pieces foreshadow their opposite – a couple who are totally undignified and polluted. And the opposite to Sam – who maintains scrupulous order, both around the pool and in his personal life. These two sets of values will clash dramatically.
While the drugging couple most strongly exemplify lack of discipline, most of the hedonistic vacationers are slack – they don’t play chess or use the table tennis set. They don’t even swim in the pool.
More contrast: “People on vacation did not observe a drinking schedule other than the lack of one.” Sam, on the other hand, cleans up after them.
The counterpoint to the vacationers is Wim:
“You could get used to most anything was Wim Hof’s philosophy. You could train yourself to get used to it. Sam had been deep in a Wim Hof hole lately, the YouTube videos, the podcasts. Wim Hof had once run a marathon in Namibia without drinking any water. Wim Hof had set a world record for the longest swim under ice. Wim Hof had attempted to climb Mt. Everest in shorts. This was all part of the Iceman way. Endurance. Conditioning.”
Sam had been the opposite, more like the people around the pool: “Sam was nineteen when he moved in with Joris. Just out of an unsuccessful stint at junior college. Sam was, at the time, perhaps too into having fun.”
Now Sam has adopted Wim Hof’s approach:
“He’d got back into running after work, high-intensity interval training. No more evening beers, no more vaping. His body felt compact and close to the bone.”
Sam’s roommate Joris takes the middle way:
“Joris approved. He was a vegan, too, though less concerned than Sam about monitoring protein intake, and repulsed by the vegan snack foods that Sam brought home, the dairy-free ice cream that tasted waxy and took forever to melt.” Also Joris thinks Sam’s exercise regimen is too intense.
And Joris is not taken in by Wim Hof:
‘Joris didn’t even bother to look up. “What’s the point of that?” he said. “I mean, if a girl is touching your dick, why on earth would you not want to get hard?”’
So Wim Hof is a fake, but an attractive fake to a young man like Sam who has no drive or purpose of his own and who is surrounded by the unappetizing hordes of pleasure-seeking rich folks who come to the resort.
Sam reminds me of the young girl in Terry Southern’s satire “Candy” who believes the guru’s claim that he can withhold his sperm during ejaculation. Of course, she gets pregnant.
He also reminds me of the 9-year-old kids in the ‘50s who sent away for muscle-building kits to ads in the back of comic books that appealed to “97-pound weaklings”,
Sam is the Ice Man in three ways. First, he is trying to be like Wim Hof. Second, he serves people ice:
“Sam filled plastic cups with ice water and arranged them on a yellow tray. The ice crackled audibly.”
Third, Sam is trying to control his desires and his body.
As the story says at one point:
The Iceman.
Iceman.
Ice. Man.
The story proper starts when the young but unattractive couple cone to the pool. You can almost feel it happen:
“The young couple came in around 2 P.M. The man was probably thirty. The girl was maybe younger. Maybe Sam’s age. He knew, without knowing how, exactly, that they had come from L.A.”
As is the way in Southern California, someone thinks the man is a celebrity:
“Isn’t that the guy from the show?” Anthony said, when Sam dumped their dirty dishes.”
Which introduces the concept of mistaken identities and fakes – both the young man and – by implication — Wim Hof. And of course just the possibility that the young man might be from a TV show makes people, including Sam, treat him specially – like not calling security.
The young man is more closely associated with Wim when he gives his name:
“—M-A-N,” the man finished, “as in ‘man.’ ” It could be Goodman or Waterman – or Ice Man.
Good detailed description of Sam taking them to their room
Now Cline directly contrasts Wim vs. the druggies:
“What would Wim Hof make of these people?”
“Everything they did was about being more comfortable, grabbing more pleasure. They could use a bracing, ice-cold shower. A few moments of self-discipline, self-denial.”
We might ask why Sam has to judge them through Wim’s eyes rather than his own. He is immature and has given control of his life to this probably fake online guru.
Then the climax:
‘The girl patted the bed. “Come here,” she said. “Both of you.”’
Sam can’t make up his mind, because he has no intrinsic values.
“Maybe he should go over to the bed. What was the worst thing that could happen?”
“Should he hate them? He was probably supposed to. [emphasis mine]
“He tried to muster hatred, but it didn’t come.”
He moves out of the moment and his own mind into Wim Hof’s mind and world:
“His heart was pounding.
“Wim Hof could control his heart rate.
“Wim Hof ate one meal a day.
“Ice Man.”
That “one meal a day” is a nice piece of droll humor and mockery.
Finally, the girl calls Sam “him”. The fact that he’s nothing and no one to them distances him and he leaves. Which is an OK way to make a decision – at least it comes from his heart.
But Sam isn’t firm in his decision:
“Sam should have gone over to the bed. Seen what would happen. Maybe nothing. But maybe something. And who would ever give him a medal for refusing? Tell him he had done the right thing?”
“It was good to exert self-control, Wim Hof would say. Wasn’t that what separated Sam from the couple in the bed? But what, exactly, was the point, again?”
He’s following someone else’s rules. He can never be at peace that way.
So Sam will do his extreme workout.
”And then: again.”
Right now, that’s all he has.