Ice (Peter Owen Modern Classic) Paperback – July 1, 2006

Nightmares super-imposed upon a bitter and terrifying reality, in which the world is about to be obliterated by rapid-onset ice age...or so it seems. Someone has accidentally set off some kind of extinction level event that involves glaciers, but also possibly mutants and monsters. Ultimately, the tale of a stalker, successful, against a backdrop of immediate global annihilation? Interesting read, all in all. A nightmarish unreality to it all; kind of gets into your head. Brrrrr! A bit creepy, quite surreal. Not overly long. Worth reading.

I started reading this quite a while ago and ended up putting it aside because I couldn't "gel" with it. I came back to it two days ago and ended up "falling" into this haunting, desolate and surreal story. The picture of a bleak and fragmented apocalyptic world is vivid and uncompromising, but it is the relationship between the unstable narrator, the sinister "warden and the waif like and ethereal "girl" which is fascinating and compelling reading ..........and then there is the ice.The novel itself is written with a sense of urgency, pervading doom. I can't give this novel any higher accolades, except to say that 5 stars doesn't seem enough. A story that will haunt your peace of mind.

Note: This review contains spoilers.The good:Ice by Anna Kavan is written in a superb style that makes virtually any New York Times bestseller look like a mediocre freshman paper. This is the only reason I gave the book two stars.The bad:The book is rife with unnecessary descriptions and distractions that can be quite tedious. The narration can be confusing because the protagonist daydreams, and his visions are weaved into the storyline in a stream-of- consciousness style. At times, the reader is left wondering whether certain events are actually happening or being imagined. The characters are unreal and uninteresting. The protagonist is torn apart by inexplicable passions. There's an annoying warden who keeps popping up randomly throughout the book. It's unclear what it all means.The ugly:The storyline is at best flimsy and at worst nonexistent. The title and the beginning of the book are misleading in that they imply it’s about an ice storm of cataclysmic proportions. However, the bulk of the book is about a noble-hearted man looking for a frail and miserable woman who had escaped from a very difficult marriage. The story drags on for too many pages without much happening and the impending ice storm never materializes. The protagonist simply says in the end of the final chapter that he “knew there was no escape from the ice.” What a bummer! If you’re expecting a suspenseful and exciting read about a devastating natural disaster or a science fiction thriller, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

This is a dark tale of obsession told against the backdrop of war and the apocalyptic encroachment of snow and ice. We are not directly told the cause of these disasters, and it doesn't matter. Rather, the story is told through the determined, and sometimes hallucinatory eyes of a man on a fevered and quasi-erotic mission to possess the recalcitrant young woman of his obsession. It is here, amid a teetering psychology which mirrors that of the collapsing world order, that the meaningful action of this short novel takes place.Throughout Kavan masterfully conveys a feeling of dread and naked will amidst absurdity. This is not feel good story, yet the writing is intriguing enough to keep the reader engaged. It transcends categorisation. It is worth your time but, if you're like me, you'll be glad when it's over.

A year ago I would have enjoyed this story but not totally believed or recognized its relevance. In today’s ecologically myopic, COVid-riddled world I can see how a civilization can come to this. The book may have been written to tell the story of a man’s obsession, but the world created to house his obsession is strangely right on target with the direction our society seems to be heading. I’m hoping a lesson can be learned.

Detailed, The Warden is a layered villain. The narrator at first seems not much different from his rival at times. The girl is fragile and a tsundere with an abusive backstory.Ending is abrupt, had imagined the ending being more fantastic. The post ending details which parts of The narrator’s tellings we should hold in skepticism. The character’s are layered and the ELE Ice closing in make the novel more exciting.

Wonderfully surrealistic in the strange loopy plot, but at the same time disturbingly realistic in describing a worldwide cataclysm that really could happen and also how political potentates really operate.

It epitomized the loneliness of being an individual in a thought provoking way.In as much a we all want to be a part of something other than ourselves, we are all trapped in our own minds.

I came close to giving it one star. The intermingling of the factual story with the dream-like sequences was confusing, in fact, at times I thought I'd turned over two pages or that my kindle copy was corrupted. I didn't care for her style either. At first I thought it was beautifully descriptive , rather like The Light Between Oceans or Cider with Rosie, but as I read on her choice of vocabulary irritated me and made me wonder if English was her first language. Here's an example: The main character is walking along a corridor passing the trap doors to some oubliettes. She writes: "The walls of these hutches were running with water, with some noisome exudation." A hutch is an animal cage normally made of wire or at least something you can see through; an oubliette is an underground dungeon so you can't see the walls at all. As for noisome exudation, after a lot of research I think she meant an unpleasant smell but exudation is usually a medical term and it normally refers to seeping liquids or perhaps pus. You can write a great story without writing particularly well, you can produce a great work of literature without any plot but this is just a lot of words on paper. Having said all that, I thought the ending was quite clever.

A tale of obsession and destruction, which Kavan imbues with atmospheric touches throughout this novella. However, the dreamlike sequences rather than a cohesive storyline makes for an exhausting read. The narrator’s state of mind, which seems to reflect the author’s, is in a constant state of confusion over his object of obsession, a helpless girl with silvery hair, whom he is not sure if he wants to rescue from her captor and abuser, the Warden, or to inflict his sadistic desires. In fact there are many times in the text that show us that the narrator seems to see a mirror image of himself in the Warden.He pursues her across the borders of war zones, by land and sea, against the encroaching ice and devastation from social, political and environmental fallout. I suppose this is meant to be a parallel to his fleeing from his baser self and his heart being “iced-out”. There is little indication that what goes on in his mind has any link to what is actually happening, and whether the omniscience exhibited is the writer’s or the character’s. The disjointed sequences of pursuit and violence make it all the harder for the reader to make connections between them and attribute more significance to them than disparate mood pieces within a larger whole. In the end the impression I had was that the product was a reflection of the writer’s own state of mind, having read about her experiences that preceded her writing of this book.

A powerful story set in an imaginary post nuclear world where nothing is ever what it seems. Through a landscape that is increasing in walls of ice and devastation, a man is looking for a girl who despite her fragility manages to escape the men she is running from. A surreal, compelling and unnerving read. Very original!

Probably my favourite book of all time. Anna Kavan's work in general is truly breathtaking, ICE crosses genres - superb. I hope Hollywood never get hold of this book and destroy the vivid imagery Anna creates.

... but try reading it from a women perspective. Not exactly the end of the world is the main theme.