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Ice

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About this listen

A classic and innovative work of feminist science-fiction and a definitive novel in the slipstream genre.

In Ice, Anna Kavan's haunting and surreal novel, the narrator and a man known as 'the warden' search for an elusive girl in a frozen, seemingly post-nuclear, apocalyptic landscape. The country has been invaded and is being governed by a secret organisation. There is destruction everywhere; great walls of ice overrun the world. Together with the narrator, the reader is swept into a hallucinatory quest for this strange and fragile creature with albino hair.

'There is nothing else like it ... This ice is not psychological ice or metaphysical ice; here the loneliness of childhood has been magicked into a physical reality as hallucinatory as the Ancient Mariner's.'—Doris Lessing

'Ice is Kavan's best novel: a sustained and extended metaphor for the descent into, and traverse of, the ice-laden world of the addict ... a marvel of descriptive, chilling writing, rich in action and introspection.'—Christopher Priest, novelist and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner

©1967 Anna Kavan (P)2024 W. F. Howes Ltd. Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
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I’m glad this fascinating novel has finally been released as an audiobook. From the description a reader could be expecting a traditional sci-fi/apocalyptic story, but when listening something far stranger and unique emerges. Surreal yet somehow grounded in harsh reality, Ice is a haunting and disjointed work that can be difficult to follow for those expecting a linear and logical plot, but its glacial imagery and bleak emotional weight are their own rewards. It is these images and impressions that remain once the book is finished, making the novel something to be experienced more than understood.
I would compare this book to another work to give a better idea of what it is like, but none come to mind. It really is one of a kind.

Surreal and powerful

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….but worth it.

Ice (1967) by Anna Kavan is, according to the introduction, Slipstream Fiction. A genre that blends elements of literary fiction with speculative fiction often blurring the lines between reality and the surreal. Characterised by its dreamlike or uncanny atmosphere, challenging readers to question their perceptions of reality and the nature of storytelling itself.

That pretty much sums up Ice which is a descent into a dreamlike world where the external apocalypse mirrors the internal struggles of its characters.
A spectacularly unreliable narrative inserts dreams, hallucinations, and shifts in perception.

The reader, like the narrator, is left to question what is real and what is a product of a disturbed mind, or perhaps a world so broken that reality itself has fractured. There's no remotely conventional plot structure here, just an all pervasive sense of ambiguity.
Ice is also an exploration of obsessive desire and control. The narrator's unhealthy fixation on the girl and his desire to "rescue" her often seems indistinguishable from a desire to possess or destroy her. The relationship between the girl, the narrator, & the Warden is a disturbing portrayal of a gender power imbalance. I shudder to think what might have happened to Anna Kavan to inspire such a nightmarish narrative.

Anna Kavan's unique voice and unflinching exploration of dark psychological landscapes make this a powerful work and well worth a read.

Discombobulating…

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