PARTISAN REVIEW
317
entombed man of Thule," an ancient, dead hunter perfectly preserved in
the glacial ice near Thule, Greenland -- now a tourist attraction. "No
one knows who he was or how long he has been there.... He wears
winter clothes, perhaps the skins of animals he trapped before he was
trapped himself. His face is tan and his eyes are open ... he looks more
astonished than dead." The fantasy of the entombed man is less a focus
of self-pity for the narrator than of numbness, amazement, and horror,
in spite of the fact that he finds a hopeful omen in the morning:
his
electricity is still working. Determined to hold himself steady, he goes
out to the barbershop. No, he is not electrocuted or run over by a
snowplow. Later, his nextdoor neighbor prosaically asks permission to
tap into the current in his cellar to start his oil furnace. But that night, as
the wind comes up and branches begin to collapse under the weight of
ice, the strained wires in the narrator's yard snap also and he awakens,
frightened and depressed, in the cold house.
"The Entombed Man of Thule" is a simple, quiet story of loss,
where weather and external chaos mirror the emotional condition of the
character - - nothing new in that - - but Weaver handles it so smoothly
and tactfully that one experiences a sense of relief and gratitude, and
also a sense of having lived, for a short duration, another person's life. I
The 1930's witnessed a remarkable confluence of polio
tics and theatre. analyzed with revealing thoroughness
in Malcolm Goldstein's new work. Clifford Odets.
Irwin Shaw. Lillian Hellman. Maxwell Anderson.
George S. Kaufman: the Theatre Guild. the
Mercury Theater. the Federal Theater - these are
among the individuals and organizations included
in "the best account of the American theater of
the thirties." - Evert Sprinchorn. Vassar College.
With 32 pages of photographs. S13.95
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
2(K) Madison Ave .. New York. N.Y. IOOlb
