The original Zelig

The History of the Snowman is a tonguein-
cheek look at a character that has been
around since the dawn of civilization

by JULIET WATERS

In the movie Elf, just before Buddy sets out on a voyage to find his father he gets a little pep talk from the Snowman. “Buddy, I’ve been around the world many times, when I was a young cumulus nimbus cloud. It’s a wondrous place filled with wondrous creatures, except dogs.” No idle boast, according to Bob Eckstein’s The History of the Snowman. The Snowman has definitely been around the world. Though difficult to prove, he’s probably also been around since the origins of civilization—or at least since the invention of mittens.

The Snowman has been on the cover of The New Yorker more than any other figure. He is burned as a holiday ritual in Switzerland every year. It’s believed he stood guard, albeit not effectively, at the Schenectady massacre of 1690, when a troop of Indians and French soldiers set out from Montreal and killed sixty Dutch settlers. (Sorry Schenectady.)

The Snowman’s history is also the history of postcards, advertising, magazines and family photography. We find him in Renaissance painting, literature and of course film. A sculpted naked snow woman was a symbol for the French Revolution—to paraphrase Flaubert, Le Snowman, C’est nous. Especially true, given that we are 80 per cent water. The Snowman is the original Zelig.

I wasn’t drawn to Eckstein’s book, however, out of any fascination with the Snowman. I could have easily overlooked it like, apparently, everyone else in North America. Then I read Eckstein’s hilarious but true pre-Christmas blog post, “The Sad State of Publishing: My Disastrous Holiday Book Tour.” And suddenly The Snowman transformed into a symbol of another, increasingly fragile art form—the book. Looking over some of the more beautiful examples of early 20th century postcards, and often exquisitely illustrated ads, you can’t help wonder how long it’s going to be before a future generation peruses more pictures of books than actual books.

Eckstein is a sort of chilled-out Bill Bryson who started his career as a cartoonist. He’s funny, but the book has its serious side. The Snowman is the original sad clown. There’s a sincere and touching memoir on Salon.com by the son of comedian Jackie Vernon, the voice of Frosty in the animated special. He and his sister were traumatized the first time they saw their father melt into a puddle. Assurances that dad was alive, just doing a show at the Playboy Club was, reportedly, no consolation.

The Snowman has been, throughout the history of media, a symbol for everything wholesome, of family values, of asexual, non-denominational jolliness. This has backlashed of course into his perversion. Ergo, the chapter on the Snowman’s White Trash years, and his roles in ’90s slasher movies as a both killer and rapist. Eckstein makes a convincing case that the earliest representation of the snowman in human history is his appearance as an anti-Semitic doodle in the margin of a medieval manuscript.

Some very minor quibbles: Does the Pillsbury doughboy really qualify as a snowman? Also, Eckstein needs a better translator. Historiettes Amusantes does not translate “appropriately” into “A History of Amusements.” It translates more accurately into “Fun Fables.”

The History of the Snowman is very much that, a fun, but instructive fable for our era. My guess is that over time it will do much better than Eckstein expects. Book sales last Christmas hit record lows in the U.S. (though, for some reason, they’re actually on the increase in Canada). However the history of the book resolves itself, the tradition of holiday book giving will be around for a while.

Even after everyone in your family has received their first Amazon Kindle, how are you going to wrap an e-book? Hopefully this intelligent, very funny, thought-provoking book will be a no-fail Christmas gift for many years to come.

THE HISTORY OF THE SNOWMAN BY
BOB ECKSTEIN, SIMON & SCHUSTER,
HC, 177 PP. $21