From the Bookshelf of Books Almost Nobody Reads (But Should)…

Ice

Anna Kavan

Start date: July 1, 2020

Finish date: August 1, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Reads

Why we're reading this: 2020 July Binge--Dana Kavan!
[close] 2020 July Binge--Dana Kavan!

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2020 Reads

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last updated Feb 03, 2021 11:48PM

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What Members Thought

May 05, 2018 Robin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, english, horror, 2018, novella

I was going to start off by describing this as dream-like, but it's actually a nightmare.

The Earth is rapidly covering with ice, a death sentence for its inhabitants. Meanwhile, our unnamed male narrator in an unnamed country has an obsession with a woman from his past. He feels compelled to save her, not only from the ice, but also from her rather jerky husband, then later from the more sinister "warden".

What I assumed would be a relatively simple plot in relatively few pages, is actually diso I was going to start off by describing this as dream-like, but it's actually a nightmare.

The Earth is rapidly covering with ice, a death sentence for its inhabitants. Meanwhile, our unnamed male narrator in an unnamed country has an obsession with a woman from his past. He feels compelled to save her, not only from the ice, but also from her rather jerky husband, then later from the more sinister "warden".

What I assumed would be a relatively simple plot in relatively few pages, is actually disorienting. Just when you think you know what's going on, you don't. The narrator says something about himself, and then a few paragraphs later you realise you're reading about something surreal happening to the woman that the narrator couldn't possibly know. She might be encased in ice, she might be alone, trapped in a room. Then you jump to another scene, maybe another place or time, maybe a dream. The narrator admittedly has a loose grip on reality. This has the effect of keeping the reader off balance, on slippery ground.

We never understand why the narrator is so hell-bent on following the woman around. It's certainly not for her personality (she has none that I could discern). All we learn of her is that she is the eternal victim. She is child-like, passive, with a history of being bullied and abused. And she's very white and very thin with sparkling hair.

About 20 pages in, I was scratching my head. While the descriptions of ice were kaleidoscopic in their refracting beauty, I felt like I was playing a bad version of pin the tail on the donkey. Someone had blindfolded me, spun me around till I was good and dizzy, and sent me walking with the ass-tail in hand, towards the edge of a jagged cliff.

I started to think about Anna Kavan. A lifelong heroin addict, her tennis coach introduced her to the drug to improve her game (??) in her mid twenties. She lived until the age of 67. That's 40 years using heroin, which goes against everything I think I know about heroin use (obviously I don't know much!). Kavan, who lived through many tragedies, was in and out of mental institutions for the last 30+ years of her life - for depression, for addiction, and attempted suicide.

The book started to make a lot more sense to me once I began reading it through more of a biographical lens. The detachment, the alienation, the encroaching ice. The sense of confusion and paranoia, of the weak woman running from oppressive abusers. The padded, soundproof rooms.

And then it occurred to me, what if Kavan's pale lady is splintered and fragmented into pieces of herself. What if the narrator is actually the part of her trying to act as protector, and the warden is the part that punishes and controls. If this is the case, the poor lady spends all her time in a nightmare world, chasing herself, saving herself, hating herself, escaping herself, and occasionally, through the haze, trying to keep it together long enough to feel at peace.

While her life experience had a huge impact on this work, I'm not suggesting that Kavan simply wrote this about herself. There's so much going on here. It's a complex and experimental post-modern novel. It has been described as apocalyptic, Kafka-esque, science fiction, and feminist. It's all those things, as well as a bewildering, frosty look, deep into the unblinking eye of death.

And I haven't even mentioned the lemurs. What a book! ...more

110 likes · Like · see review

Jul 21, 2020 Emmeline rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: england, france

2.5 stars

I finished this several days ago and have been thinking about how best to review it, but the answer is not presenting itself and the book is starting to fade in my memory.

So briefly: I can see why this book has some hardcore fans. It rushes along in a dazzling, breakneck way, and it hints at being about all sorts of things: climate change, nuclear war, heroin addiction, trauma and abuse. Perhaps the book’s refusal to settle on being an allegory for only one thing is the source of its po ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Mar 01, 2013 Jen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: atw-globetrotter, favorites, unreliable-narrator, 2014-reads

A short book that packs enormous punch.

This book gives a glimpse into Kavan's psyche, and it is a dark and suffocating place. Reading it reminded me of the Choose Your Own Adventure series I enjoyed as a kid - but a nightmarish, Kafkaesque version. The writing is wonderful. The content...quite terrifying.

It was totally haunting read and I know it will stick with me for a very long time. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 08, 2020 LindaJ^ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, kindle, apocalyptic

While there is an apocalyptic event that is turning the world to ice, this did not feel like science fiction to me. The best description of the book can be found in the book itself when the narrator of the story says -- "I had a curious feeling that I was living on several planes simultaneously; the overlapping of these planes was confusing." That is exactly how I felt for the first 2/3s of the book. I was gritting my teeth and urging myself to read faster. But suddenly I got sucked into the flo ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 18, 2020 Matthew rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, banrbs-2020-summer-anna-kavan, eco-fiction

This book is bonkers, in a good way. Kavan's final novel is part sci-fi allegory and part apocalyptic adventure story, structured as a recurring nightmare of obsession and addiction. It also has some meta-fictional elements in its examination of fractured identity.

It feels like ICE was written rather quickly, so for me it was more effective to read it quickly as well, and not get too caught up in strange punctuation and word choices in the writing.

...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 20, 2021 Davis rated it it was amazing

My goodness. Not a good commute read, unless you like your commutes peppered with a sense of desolation. For three nights straight I kept on getting off the train, walking amongst masses of people, completely enraptured by this book, thinking only: there is no hope, the ice is coming, all this is destined for the whiteness of a cold death.

But what a great book. I can see why someone might think this pulp: it works with the simplest number of elements possible, and refuses to explain itself, as ...more

1 like · Like · see review