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Ice
In this 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 organization. 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. Acclaimed upon its 1967publicationas the best science fiction book of the year, this extraordinary and innovative novel has subsequently been recognized as a major work of literature in its own right.
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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28.2k people want to read
About the author
Anna Kavan
40books433followersAnna Kavan was born "Helen Woods" in France on April 10, 1901 to wealthy expatriate British parents.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
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January 4, 2025
�I was afraid the dream might turn out to be real�. Something in her demanded victimization and terror, so she corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another.
Stunningly surreal and chilling, Anna Kavan’s final novel, Ice, is a frightening plunge into the icy darkness of the human mind and heart. Written with a fitful urgency, the reader flows on the glimmering prose across swirling imagery of desolate landscapes beset by an impending apocalypse, as the narrator continuously pursues a woman known only as ‘the girl� while struggling to anchor himself to the elusive, ever-deteriorating reality. Through spiraling hallucinations and indefinite descriptions, reality becomes nothing but a translucent veil giving shape to the real violent and grim truths that exist only in abstraction. The blurring of reality and unreality that occurs gives these sinister abstractions a staging ground to take form within in order to explore the otherwise unspeakable darkness that leads people to make victims of one another.
Nothing in Ice is ever certain or concrete. Characters are not given names and reality is only tasted in fleeting moments, �but only as on might recall and incident from a dream.� Told through the tormented mind of a narrator who—within the first 10 pages—openly admits to suffering from daytime hallucinations, the reader is forced to be led by the hand through this menacing novel by someone they cannot fully trust. Poe’s and his use of the unreliable narrator immediately come to mind through this narrators vague descriptions and elusive explanations to his afflictions, much like the intentionally unspecified �thousand injuries� in Poe. There is, for instance his explanation of the girl: �Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings�. It made no difference, in any case she could not escape.� ¹ Despite being alluded that it was a cruel, obdurate mother that inflicted such psychological injury, there is nothing to ground this to reality and justify his claims. We have only his observations of the girl, much of which may be distorted and our own impression is further distorted as we observe her already believing it to be true and using our glimpses to justify our pre-disposed conclusion instead of constructing our own. The same goes for the slowly creeping apocalypse, a wall of ice �marching in relentless order across the world, crushing, obliterating, destroying everything in their path�, the consequence of constant world wars which lead to this new ice age. However, the science behind the ice is only vaguely surmised, more as if playing at a guess, and the reader is occasionally reminded that �no reliable source of information existed�. Kavan uses repetition to its glorious, full potential, constantly reminding us of the vague premises to reinforce their believability and tricking us to perceive something formless as concrete.
The elusive nature of the novel serves a secondary purpose beyond misdirection, as it allows the reader to experience the story and settings exactly as the narrator sees and comprehends them. The landscapes and the narrative are co-dependent metaphors of one another.
Brick by brick, Kavan builds only one certainty in this novel � the destructive powers of man. �An insane impatience for death was driving mankind to a second suicide, even before the full effect of the first had been felt.. Each scene and setting is beleaguered by references to wars past and present, �everywhere the ubiquitous ruins, decayed fortifications, evidences of a warlike bloodthirsty past�, and the encroaching ice and it is always at the forefront of the mind that the world is in a perpetual state of violence. This violence is said to be the cause of the icy apocalypse, a world collapsing both figuratively and literally due to mans �collective death-wish, the fatal impulse to self-destruction�. Even the response to destruction is more destruction as wars rage on in increasing intensity to match coming end. �By making war we asserted the fact that we were alive and opposed the icy death creeping over the globe,� we are told, the narrator not missing out on the obvious ironies. He looks at the actions of those around him with disgust and dismay, saddened when encountering a violent brute of a man as being �the kind of man who was wanted now� and placing himself in league with a civilized, admirable man that is brutally murdered for no reason saying he �was my sort of man, we were not like that rabble� to distance himself from the bleak violence. Yet, he knows he cannot escape it and is constantly drawn towards the fighting, joining the army for a time believing he �was involved with the fate of the planet, I had to take an active part in whatever was going on�. The narrator’s method of misdirection leads one to wonder where his loyalty and morality really lies*.
The war-torn, doomed world is a mere backdrop for the evils that play out within arms reach of the narrator as he embarks on his crusade for the girl. �I was totally absorbed in that obsessional need, as for a lost, essential portion of my own being,� he admits, �Everything else in the world seemed immaterial�. The real heart of this novel is the relationship with the girl, and the narrator freely declares the world around him as questionable, as a mere veil of reality where he must conduct his search. While the universal message of destruction and more powerful groups such as the warring armies victimizing one another is chilling, Kavan directs us to the more poignant and disturbing victimization one person can inflict upon another, especially one they love. The interplay between the male characters of the husband, the warden, the narrator and their experiences with the girl show an alarming portrait of obsessive, sadistic possession. The girl ceases to be considered an equal human and becomes nothing more than chattel.
was known for these startling perspectives on humanity. Her own life is a fascinating story. Born Helen Woods in what was assumed to be Cannes in 1901, she changed her name to Anna Kavan while institutionalized after a nervous breakdown following the end of her second marriage. The name Anna Kavan, the protagonist of her 1930 novel , brought with it a new personality and writing style. Beyond suffering from mental illness, she was a lifelong heroin addict³. She died in 1968 of heart failure not long after this novel was published, but before dying she burnt all her diaries, correspondence and other links into her private life to ensure that she would become ‘one of the world’s best-kept secrets�. This fascinating woman had an incredible knack for prose and a sharp, disturbing insight into human nature. For readers interested in further insight into Kavan herself, they will be pleased to know that many of her books contain thinly-fictionalized biographical elements. Books like cover her mental states and time spent in the asylum, hints at her sorrowful childhood, and her addiction to heroin and her open disgust of humanity is unapologetically broadcast in her short story collection .
This novel is one of the most unique and engrossing literary events I have encountered. To give it a genre would cheapen the novel, as it both is and isn’t science fiction and horror, being a work of literature as elusive as its own narrative. The prose will surround and penetrate your heart much like the wall of ice in the novel as it builds the gorgeously surreal images to dazzle your mind. The subject matter, and the tone, is bleak and chilling, and exposes a violently disturbing vision of humanity, yet it is a book that you want to hug tightly as you race through the streets yelling to everyone that they should read it. As menacing as a nightmare, yet as soothing as a pleasant daydream, this book scratches an itch that few other books have been able to reach.
4.5/5
�I was oppressed by the sense of universal strangeness, by the chill of approaching catastrophe, the menace of ruins suspended above; and also by the enormity of what had been done, the weight of collective guilt. A frightful crime had been committed, against nature, against the universe, against life. By rejecting life, man had destroyed the immemorial order, destroyed the world; now everything was about to crash down in ruins.�
¹ The girl, �forced since childhood into a victim’s patter of thought and behavior�, is here further victimized by her lack of name. Although ‘woman� would be a more age-appropriate term for her, the usage of ‘girl� is delivered with an extremely negative connotation that implies her as weak, a fragile and innocent �glass girl� with no will of her own. Her physical appearance, pale and frail, is also used to highlight her weak and innocent nature, making the narrators own personal �indescribable pleasure from seeing her suffer� all the more sadistic despite his own assertion that �I disapproved of my own callousness, but there it was. Various factors had combined to produce it, though they were not extenuating circumstances�. It would appear the narrator is trying to be upfront (this admission coming right at the beginning of the novel) to gloss over his sadism, but reflection on his word choices reveals the residue of the disturbing truths he is attempting to misdirect the reader from.
²
³ ’s introduction discussed that many critics have unsuccessfully attempted to view the ice as a metaphor for Anna Kavan’s own heroin addiction. This overly self-conscious footnote serves more as an excuse for awkwardly placing the biographical information at the end of the review. The novel is best served by being examined on its own, as the details of the authors life are so engrossing that they easily lead towards the disservice of the Intentional Fallacy, as Priest discusses with the heroin-as-ice metaphor. That said, other novels of hers, particularly or , have been interpreted as being highly-autobiographical. The ice, like much of the symbolism, seems to be reflective of many different ideas, but a corner stone to it's meaning may be
Stunningly surreal and chilling, Anna Kavan’s final novel, Ice, is a frightening plunge into the icy darkness of the human mind and heart. Written with a fitful urgency, the reader flows on the glimmering prose across swirling imagery of desolate landscapes beset by an impending apocalypse, as the narrator continuously pursues a woman known only as ‘the girl� while struggling to anchor himself to the elusive, ever-deteriorating reality. Through spiraling hallucinations and indefinite descriptions, reality becomes nothing but a translucent veil giving shape to the real violent and grim truths that exist only in abstraction. The blurring of reality and unreality that occurs gives these sinister abstractions a staging ground to take form within in order to explore the otherwise unspeakable darkness that leads people to make victims of one another.
Nothing in Ice is ever certain or concrete. Characters are not given names and reality is only tasted in fleeting moments, �but only as on might recall and incident from a dream.� Told through the tormented mind of a narrator who—within the first 10 pages—openly admits to suffering from daytime hallucinations, the reader is forced to be led by the hand through this menacing novel by someone they cannot fully trust. Poe’s and his use of the unreliable narrator immediately come to mind through this narrators vague descriptions and elusive explanations to his afflictions, much like the intentionally unspecified �thousand injuries� in Poe. There is, for instance his explanation of the girl: �Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings�. It made no difference, in any case she could not escape.� ¹ Despite being alluded that it was a cruel, obdurate mother that inflicted such psychological injury, there is nothing to ground this to reality and justify his claims. We have only his observations of the girl, much of which may be distorted and our own impression is further distorted as we observe her already believing it to be true and using our glimpses to justify our pre-disposed conclusion instead of constructing our own. The same goes for the slowly creeping apocalypse, a wall of ice �marching in relentless order across the world, crushing, obliterating, destroying everything in their path�, the consequence of constant world wars which lead to this new ice age. However, the science behind the ice is only vaguely surmised, more as if playing at a guess, and the reader is occasionally reminded that �no reliable source of information existed�. Kavan uses repetition to its glorious, full potential, constantly reminding us of the vague premises to reinforce their believability and tricking us to perceive something formless as concrete.
The elusive nature of the novel serves a secondary purpose beyond misdirection, as it allows the reader to experience the story and settings exactly as the narrator sees and comprehends them. The landscapes and the narrative are co-dependent metaphors of one another.
�There were many small islands, some of which floated up and became clouds, while formations of cloud or mist descended and anchored themselves in the sea. The white snowy landscape below, and above the canopy of misty white light, the effect of an oriental painting, nothing solid about it. The town appeared to consist of ruins, collapsing on one another in shapeless disorder, a town of sandcastles, wrecked by the tide�The narrators own fractured mind controls our sense of time and reality, and often, and without warning, we are sent into some unreality, some brief fantasy and then dropped back into the plot as if nothing had occurred. �The hallucination of one moment did not fit the reality of the next,� our narrator reflects, �I had a curious feeling that I was living on several planes simultaneously; the overlapping was confusing�. As the novel progresses the seamless hallucination sequences aren’t as obvious, and the novel suddenly drives forward at break-neck pace taking us through spy-dramas, courtroom scenes, war-stories and other edge-of-your-seat escape stories that we must ingest whole and wonder where the fantasy and reality may have blurred. Tiny hints of obvious unreality present themselves occasionally, such as producing a ‘foreign automatic weapon� when one wasn’t present earlier, however, the all we can truly do is hold on tight and enjoy the thrill-ride. Time itself is subject to the narrators own distorted mind, as events are mentioned that he once observed that could not have occurred within the boundaries of time presented in the scenes, and the positioning of the opening scenes is a bit cumbersome to place along the timeline. The narrative almost feels cyclical at times. There are many different methods of addressing these incongruities depending on how the reader interprets the novel, yet it would appear that nothing in the book aims towards one certain conclusion or meaning. Instead, Kavan seems to write to give a wide interpretability because the real issues at play are very abstract and intangible, and it appears she would prefer to keep them that way in order to allot them their full force. Ultimately, depriving the reader of lucidness and conclusiveness brings the uncomfortable, uncertain tone of the novel to life. The surrealist qualities are elevated to near maddening proportions by taking any safe-guards away from the reader and forcing them to grasp desperately at the intangibles.
Brick by brick, Kavan builds only one certainty in this novel � the destructive powers of man. �An insane impatience for death was driving mankind to a second suicide, even before the full effect of the first had been felt.. Each scene and setting is beleaguered by references to wars past and present, �everywhere the ubiquitous ruins, decayed fortifications, evidences of a warlike bloodthirsty past�, and the encroaching ice and it is always at the forefront of the mind that the world is in a perpetual state of violence. This violence is said to be the cause of the icy apocalypse, a world collapsing both figuratively and literally due to mans �collective death-wish, the fatal impulse to self-destruction�. Even the response to destruction is more destruction as wars rage on in increasing intensity to match coming end. �By making war we asserted the fact that we were alive and opposed the icy death creeping over the globe,� we are told, the narrator not missing out on the obvious ironies. He looks at the actions of those around him with disgust and dismay, saddened when encountering a violent brute of a man as being �the kind of man who was wanted now� and placing himself in league with a civilized, admirable man that is brutally murdered for no reason saying he �was my sort of man, we were not like that rabble� to distance himself from the bleak violence. Yet, he knows he cannot escape it and is constantly drawn towards the fighting, joining the army for a time believing he �was involved with the fate of the planet, I had to take an active part in whatever was going on�. The narrator’s method of misdirection leads one to wonder where his loyalty and morality really lies*.
The war-torn, doomed world is a mere backdrop for the evils that play out within arms reach of the narrator as he embarks on his crusade for the girl. �I was totally absorbed in that obsessional need, as for a lost, essential portion of my own being,� he admits, �Everything else in the world seemed immaterial�. The real heart of this novel is the relationship with the girl, and the narrator freely declares the world around him as questionable, as a mere veil of reality where he must conduct his search. While the universal message of destruction and more powerful groups such as the warring armies victimizing one another is chilling, Kavan directs us to the more poignant and disturbing victimization one person can inflict upon another, especially one they love. The interplay between the male characters of the husband, the warden, the narrator and their experiences with the girl show an alarming portrait of obsessive, sadistic possession. The girl ceases to be considered an equal human and becomes nothing more than chattel.
�It was clear that he regarded her as his property. I considered that she belonged to me. Between the two of us she was reduced to nothing her only function might have been to link us together.�These malignant pleasures of victimization are at the core of each scene, real or unreal, and illustrated through the vibrant imagery of each stark landscape which Kavan paints with her words. �All of this was happening, but with a quality of the unreal; it was reality happening in quite a different way.� The surreal plotline becomes a place for her abstract ideas to flicker in and out of physical form but their malevolent nature is too poisonous to exist in glaring reality so reality must fold up and falter in order for them to truly rear their ugly heads. Hallucinations occur so we can look them in the face and make sense out of non-sense, horrific ideas are structured in a way to make them tangible enough to process. The narrator himself cannot even fathom his own depravity, and suffers from unrealities, or projects them onto others because he cannot face the blinding truth². Kavan presents a humanity that deserves the destruction that it receives, and this is the most horrific aspect of the novel. It makes one wonder if they are blind to their own moral deformities, conditioned to accept them as normal because we are so able to rationalize and gloss over the troubling aspects of ourselves. One must question if they are actually some damnable beast writhing in their own bile yet thinking it smells of roses and projecting onto society and those around them their own personal iniquity. What else is truly alarming is the way the victims become conditioned to accept these monstrosities, playing right into the degredation and violence. Kavan seems to admonish this behavior, creating a borderless world of victimization that damns both parties.
�In the delirium of the dance, it was impossible to distinguish between the violent and the victims. Anyway, distinction no longer mattered in a dance of death, where all dancers spun on the edge of nothingness.�It isn’t so much an attack on the victim, as it is an attack on the ways it is so easy to succumb to behavior that can make oneself into a villain.
was known for these startling perspectives on humanity. Her own life is a fascinating story. Born Helen Woods in what was assumed to be Cannes in 1901, she changed her name to Anna Kavan while institutionalized after a nervous breakdown following the end of her second marriage. The name Anna Kavan, the protagonist of her 1930 novel , brought with it a new personality and writing style. Beyond suffering from mental illness, she was a lifelong heroin addict³. She died in 1968 of heart failure not long after this novel was published, but before dying she burnt all her diaries, correspondence and other links into her private life to ensure that she would become ‘one of the world’s best-kept secrets�. This fascinating woman had an incredible knack for prose and a sharp, disturbing insight into human nature. For readers interested in further insight into Kavan herself, they will be pleased to know that many of her books contain thinly-fictionalized biographical elements. Books like cover her mental states and time spent in the asylum, hints at her sorrowful childhood, and her addiction to heroin and her open disgust of humanity is unapologetically broadcast in her short story collection .
This novel is one of the most unique and engrossing literary events I have encountered. To give it a genre would cheapen the novel, as it both is and isn’t science fiction and horror, being a work of literature as elusive as its own narrative. The prose will surround and penetrate your heart much like the wall of ice in the novel as it builds the gorgeously surreal images to dazzle your mind. The subject matter, and the tone, is bleak and chilling, and exposes a violently disturbing vision of humanity, yet it is a book that you want to hug tightly as you race through the streets yelling to everyone that they should read it. As menacing as a nightmare, yet as soothing as a pleasant daydream, this book scratches an itch that few other books have been able to reach.
4.5/5
�I was oppressed by the sense of universal strangeness, by the chill of approaching catastrophe, the menace of ruins suspended above; and also by the enormity of what had been done, the weight of collective guilt. A frightful crime had been committed, against nature, against the universe, against life. By rejecting life, man had destroyed the immemorial order, destroyed the world; now everything was about to crash down in ruins.�
¹ The girl, �forced since childhood into a victim’s patter of thought and behavior�, is here further victimized by her lack of name. Although ‘woman� would be a more age-appropriate term for her, the usage of ‘girl� is delivered with an extremely negative connotation that implies her as weak, a fragile and innocent �glass girl� with no will of her own. Her physical appearance, pale and frail, is also used to highlight her weak and innocent nature, making the narrators own personal �indescribable pleasure from seeing her suffer� all the more sadistic despite his own assertion that �I disapproved of my own callousness, but there it was. Various factors had combined to produce it, though they were not extenuating circumstances�. It would appear the narrator is trying to be upfront (this admission coming right at the beginning of the novel) to gloss over his sadism, but reflection on his word choices reveals the residue of the disturbing truths he is attempting to misdirect the reader from.
²
³ ’s introduction discussed that many critics have unsuccessfully attempted to view the ice as a metaphor for Anna Kavan’s own heroin addiction. This overly self-conscious footnote serves more as an excuse for awkwardly placing the biographical information at the end of the review. The novel is best served by being examined on its own, as the details of the authors life are so engrossing that they easily lead towards the disservice of the Intentional Fallacy, as Priest discusses with the heroin-as-ice metaphor. That said, other novels of hers, particularly or , have been interpreted as being highly-autobiographical. The ice, like much of the symbolism, seems to be reflective of many different ideas, but a corner stone to it's meaning may be
February 29, 2020
“As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of the world.�
Her hair was a blizzard, a shimmering cascade of pale luminous moonlight. She was fragile as if made of glass and crystal, built like a waif with pallid skin and bruised eyes. She is an ice sculpture carved out of a glacier that is shattered and reassembled time and time again. He needs her, desires her, craves her. He wants to clench the slender bones of her wrist and grip the gaunt thrust of her hip.
He finds her as the world is ending.
She belongs to another, but then he realizes that she is discontented. ”While she was happy I had dissociated myself, been outside the situation. Now I felt implicated, involved with her again.�
HE?
The unreliable narrator of this tale is suffering from daytime apparitions and nighttime terrors. The lurid concoctions of his agitated mind bleed certainty into the fantastical fooling, not only himself, but also this reader. He has seized his own deceptions and sees them for what they are, but understanding and containing them are two very different things. ”The hallucination of one moment did not fit the reality of the next.�
Ice is advancing across the Earth. He has the means to save her or at least put off the inevitable.
He is chasing a wraith. He loses her and finds her again only to have her turn to smoke in his hands. He knows she is real though everything must be questioned. She hates him. She misses him. She expects him to save her as she bashes him with her animosity. When he dreams of her, she is dead.
”I felt I had been defrauded: I was the only person entitled to inflict wounds. I leaned forward and touched her cold skin.�
He has a rival.
A doppleganger.
The split half of himself who is assertive, brutal, and obsessively possessive, The Narrator refers to him as The Warden, but it is unclear exactly who he is. I have lingering doubts about The Warden’s identity. Is he separate from The Narrator or is he merely just another personality that he jumps to when he needs to be someone else? Someone who can control the girl. The one who can remind her of who she is.
”Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings, people or fjords and forests; it made no difference, in any case she could not escape. The irreparable damage inflicted had long ago rendered her fate inevitable.�
She is a victim, but he is starting to understand that he is a victim too. In her presence, sometimes he becomes someone unacceptable. Her very delicacy, her fracturability makes him want to hurt her, makes him need to hurt her.
Kindness is something he learns too late.
The world is so disturbing because he knows it comes from within his own mind.
Bruce Sterling termed the phrase slipstream to describe this type of writing long after this novel was published. He wrote: "...this is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility." I knew after reading only a few pages that I was going to have to read this novel quickly, feverishly, if I had any chance of staying in the boat as I swirled without paddles through the mind of Anna Kavan. I put Franz Kafka in the boat with me, but he too is a fragile soul, and became sea sick with the changing directions of this twisted plot. There are Kafka moments, especially when The Narrator is dealing with a government bureaucracy that is becoming more and more detached as the world becomes smaller.
Anna Kavan was also a painter. This is her self-portrait.
Anna Kavan, AKA Helen Emily Woods, AKA Helen Ferguson, suffered from depression and heroin addiction. She was in and out of treatment centers her whole life. She attempted suicide, but survived each attempt. Many people believed that she passed away from an overdose in 1968, but she actually died from a heart attack. She burned all of her correspondence and her diaries before she died. This is truly unfortunate because I have a feeling that to most of us her diaries would be like trying to read Cumbric, but to a select few it would be like finding an extension of their own brain.
I can’t help thinking The Girl in this story is Anna Kavan. A fragile woman herself whom both men and women found to be attractive. Ultimately, The Girl in the story accepts her fate, and I tend to think that Kavan reached the same conclusions with her own life. She lived in seclusion. Though venerated by many writers, most of her work was published after her death. She was a lost girl who became a lost woman, incapable of escaping the ebb and flow of a mind that obviously saw the world differently. Like The Narrator, the barrier that most of us have between real life and fanciful thoughts must have been breached for her. Everything was real, and everything was imaginary. The disparity between one or the other is a hair's difference.
This novel is bleak and beautiful. Anna is so crafty and so lost; yet, so desperate to be found. I can already tell that I will never completely shake this novel off. I will remember the starkness of the trees, the desperate searching, the walls of ice, the escaping to be repossessed, and the nameless characters who together might form one being.
I purchased a first American hardcover edition of this book from .
You can find more of my writing on my blog at .
Her hair was a blizzard, a shimmering cascade of pale luminous moonlight. She was fragile as if made of glass and crystal, built like a waif with pallid skin and bruised eyes. She is an ice sculpture carved out of a glacier that is shattered and reassembled time and time again. He needs her, desires her, craves her. He wants to clench the slender bones of her wrist and grip the gaunt thrust of her hip.
He finds her as the world is ending.
She belongs to another, but then he realizes that she is discontented. ”While she was happy I had dissociated myself, been outside the situation. Now I felt implicated, involved with her again.�
HE?
The unreliable narrator of this tale is suffering from daytime apparitions and nighttime terrors. The lurid concoctions of his agitated mind bleed certainty into the fantastical fooling, not only himself, but also this reader. He has seized his own deceptions and sees them for what they are, but understanding and containing them are two very different things. ”The hallucination of one moment did not fit the reality of the next.�
Ice is advancing across the Earth. He has the means to save her or at least put off the inevitable.
He is chasing a wraith. He loses her and finds her again only to have her turn to smoke in his hands. He knows she is real though everything must be questioned. She hates him. She misses him. She expects him to save her as she bashes him with her animosity. When he dreams of her, she is dead.
”I felt I had been defrauded: I was the only person entitled to inflict wounds. I leaned forward and touched her cold skin.�
He has a rival.
A doppleganger.
The split half of himself who is assertive, brutal, and obsessively possessive, The Narrator refers to him as The Warden, but it is unclear exactly who he is. I have lingering doubts about The Warden’s identity. Is he separate from The Narrator or is he merely just another personality that he jumps to when he needs to be someone else? Someone who can control the girl. The one who can remind her of who she is.
”Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings, people or fjords and forests; it made no difference, in any case she could not escape. The irreparable damage inflicted had long ago rendered her fate inevitable.�
She is a victim, but he is starting to understand that he is a victim too. In her presence, sometimes he becomes someone unacceptable. Her very delicacy, her fracturability makes him want to hurt her, makes him need to hurt her.
Kindness is something he learns too late.
The world is so disturbing because he knows it comes from within his own mind.
Bruce Sterling termed the phrase slipstream to describe this type of writing long after this novel was published. He wrote: "...this is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility." I knew after reading only a few pages that I was going to have to read this novel quickly, feverishly, if I had any chance of staying in the boat as I swirled without paddles through the mind of Anna Kavan. I put Franz Kafka in the boat with me, but he too is a fragile soul, and became sea sick with the changing directions of this twisted plot. There are Kafka moments, especially when The Narrator is dealing with a government bureaucracy that is becoming more and more detached as the world becomes smaller.
Anna Kavan was also a painter. This is her self-portrait.
Anna Kavan, AKA Helen Emily Woods, AKA Helen Ferguson, suffered from depression and heroin addiction. She was in and out of treatment centers her whole life. She attempted suicide, but survived each attempt. Many people believed that she passed away from an overdose in 1968, but she actually died from a heart attack. She burned all of her correspondence and her diaries before she died. This is truly unfortunate because I have a feeling that to most of us her diaries would be like trying to read Cumbric, but to a select few it would be like finding an extension of their own brain.
I can’t help thinking The Girl in this story is Anna Kavan. A fragile woman herself whom both men and women found to be attractive. Ultimately, The Girl in the story accepts her fate, and I tend to think that Kavan reached the same conclusions with her own life. She lived in seclusion. Though venerated by many writers, most of her work was published after her death. She was a lost girl who became a lost woman, incapable of escaping the ebb and flow of a mind that obviously saw the world differently. Like The Narrator, the barrier that most of us have between real life and fanciful thoughts must have been breached for her. Everything was real, and everything was imaginary. The disparity between one or the other is a hair's difference.
This novel is bleak and beautiful. Anna is so crafty and so lost; yet, so desperate to be found. I can already tell that I will never completely shake this novel off. I will remember the starkness of the trees, the desperate searching, the walls of ice, the escaping to be repossessed, and the nameless characters who together might form one being.
I purchased a first American hardcover edition of this book from .
You can find more of my writing on my blog at .
December 11, 2018
If I lived forever, I would read this book 200 times, each time more slowly, bathing in every sentence and unearthing all the glorious subtext which must lie beneath its icebergs. As it is, with so many books and so little time, I still feel compelled to immediately dive back in.
Ice is the only easy read that's also a hard read. The writing is poetic, but simple and crisp. Never hard to understand. Actions are clear, the imagery ever-present. It reads, in many ways, like a movie--a dream-movie. The characters are all nameless shadows swirling around in a context that shape-shifts as often as it remains constant. We see their movements and glimpse their motivations, but they remain enigmas.
I often regret picking up novels that describe themselves as a "fever dream." This inevitably means a poorly-edited potpourri of sketches that lack clarity. Ice, however, is literally, actually, like a dream. The dream ends--you wake up--and the afterimages stick around long enough to make you fantasize of returning to that whirlwind storyline, to put the pieces together, and experience the magic once more. This is exactly how I feel having finished the book. I didn't always comprehend why or how everything was happening, but I felt it all--and I want to feel it again. Next time, deeper.
Ice is the only easy read that's also a hard read. The writing is poetic, but simple and crisp. Never hard to understand. Actions are clear, the imagery ever-present. It reads, in many ways, like a movie--a dream-movie. The characters are all nameless shadows swirling around in a context that shape-shifts as often as it remains constant. We see their movements and glimpse their motivations, but they remain enigmas.
I often regret picking up novels that describe themselves as a "fever dream." This inevitably means a poorly-edited potpourri of sketches that lack clarity. Ice, however, is literally, actually, like a dream. The dream ends--you wake up--and the afterimages stick around long enough to make you fantasize of returning to that whirlwind storyline, to put the pieces together, and experience the magic once more. This is exactly how I feel having finished the book. I didn't always comprehend why or how everything was happening, but I felt it all--and I want to feel it again. Next time, deeper.
March 11, 2022
Ice, Anna Kavan
Ice is a novel by Anna Kavan, published in 1967. Ice was Kavan's last work to be published before her death, the first to land her mainstream success, and remains her most well-known work.
Ice is set during an apocalypse in which a massive, monolithic ice shelf, caused by nuclear war, is engulfing the earth. The male protagonist, and narrator of the story, spends the narrative feverishly pursuing a young, nameless woman, and contemplating the overwhelming but conflicting feelings he has for her, that slowly end up being intruded by the worsening atmosphere of the setting. He frequently faces opposition from the Warden, the girl's husband and captor. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه می سال2017میلادی
عنوان: یخپاره؛ نویسنده: آنا کاوان؛ مترجم: محمد مومنی؛ تهران، نیماژ، سال1395؛ در220ص؛ شابک9786003672468؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده20م
در این اثر سه شخصیت بی نام هستند، گویی از یک دنیای گمشده، و از رویا و خوابی شبانه آمده� باشند؛ نخستین آنها راوی داستان که قهرمان و ناجی نیز هست، دومی رئیسی که به نظر ضد قهرمان و شخصیتی ناخوشایند است، و سومین آنها دخترکی که به نظر قربانی هر دوی آنهاست؛ نویسنده ی این کتاب «آننا کاوان» در زمان زندگیا� مورد توجه قرار نگرفت، و هنگامی که از این دنیا رفتند، شناخته شدند؛ ایشان یک نقاش حرفه� ای و طراح داخلی نامدار بودند؛ او در روزهای پایانی زندگی� خویش، خانه� های کهنسال را در «لندن» میخریدند� تعمیر میکردن� و به فروش میرساندند� عاشق اتومبیل و مسابقه اتومبیلران� بودند؛ و در داستانها� خویش شخصیته� بیشتر با اتومبیلها� پرتوان میرانند� همچنان که در این اثر نیز چنان است
نقل از متن: (زمانی عاشقش بودم؛ تصمیم داشتم با او ازدواج کنم؛ از قضا هدفم این بود که از او در مقابل سنگدلی دنیایی که در آن زیست میکنیم� حفاظت کنم؛ ترس و ظرافتش او را به� نظر آسیبپذی� میکرد� او به� شدت حساس بود و رک، و از زندگی و مردم میترسید� شخصیتش به وسیله� ی مادر سادیسمی� اش، که مدام در حالت ترس و تسلیم قرارش داده بود، نابود شده بود؛ اولین کاری که باید انجام میداد� این بود که اعتمادش را جلب کنم؛ بنابراین، همیشه با او مهربان بودم و سعی میکرد� در بیان احساساتم دقت کنم...)؛
نقل از متن: (گم شده بودم؛ هنگام غروب بود؛ بعد از ساعته� رانندگی، عملا بنزین تمام کرده بودم؛ فکر اینکه در این کوچ��� های تاریک، تنها و سرگردان هستم، آزارم میداد� و برای همین وقتی یک تابلوی راهنمایی، و سپس ساحل، و بعد یک پمپ بنزین را دیدم، از خوشحالی تقریبا ذوق مرگ شدم)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/02/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/12/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Ice is a novel by Anna Kavan, published in 1967. Ice was Kavan's last work to be published before her death, the first to land her mainstream success, and remains her most well-known work.
Ice is set during an apocalypse in which a massive, monolithic ice shelf, caused by nuclear war, is engulfing the earth. The male protagonist, and narrator of the story, spends the narrative feverishly pursuing a young, nameless woman, and contemplating the overwhelming but conflicting feelings he has for her, that slowly end up being intruded by the worsening atmosphere of the setting. He frequently faces opposition from the Warden, the girl's husband and captor. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه می سال2017میلادی
عنوان: یخپاره؛ نویسنده: آنا کاوان؛ مترجم: محمد مومنی؛ تهران، نیماژ، سال1395؛ در220ص؛ شابک9786003672468؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده20م
در این اثر سه شخصیت بی نام هستند، گویی از یک دنیای گمشده، و از رویا و خوابی شبانه آمده� باشند؛ نخستین آنها راوی داستان که قهرمان و ناجی نیز هست، دومی رئیسی که به نظر ضد قهرمان و شخصیتی ناخوشایند است، و سومین آنها دخترکی که به نظر قربانی هر دوی آنهاست؛ نویسنده ی این کتاب «آننا کاوان» در زمان زندگیا� مورد توجه قرار نگرفت، و هنگامی که از این دنیا رفتند، شناخته شدند؛ ایشان یک نقاش حرفه� ای و طراح داخلی نامدار بودند؛ او در روزهای پایانی زندگی� خویش، خانه� های کهنسال را در «لندن» میخریدند� تعمیر میکردن� و به فروش میرساندند� عاشق اتومبیل و مسابقه اتومبیلران� بودند؛ و در داستانها� خویش شخصیته� بیشتر با اتومبیلها� پرتوان میرانند� همچنان که در این اثر نیز چنان است
نقل از متن: (زمانی عاشقش بودم؛ تصمیم داشتم با او ازدواج کنم؛ از قضا هدفم این بود که از او در مقابل سنگدلی دنیایی که در آن زیست میکنیم� حفاظت کنم؛ ترس و ظرافتش او را به� نظر آسیبپذی� میکرد� او به� شدت حساس بود و رک، و از زندگی و مردم میترسید� شخصیتش به وسیله� ی مادر سادیسمی� اش، که مدام در حالت ترس و تسلیم قرارش داده بود، نابود شده بود؛ اولین کاری که باید انجام میداد� این بود که اعتمادش را جلب کنم؛ بنابراین، همیشه با او مهربان بودم و سعی میکرد� در بیان احساساتم دقت کنم...)؛
نقل از متن: (گم شده بودم؛ هنگام غروب بود؛ بعد از ساعته� رانندگی، عملا بنزین تمام کرده بودم؛ فکر اینکه در این کوچ��� های تاریک، تنها و سرگردان هستم، آزارم میداد� و برای همین وقتی یک تابلوی راهنمایی، و سپس ساحل، و بعد یک پمپ بنزین را دیدم، از خوشحالی تقریبا ذوق مرگ شدم)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/02/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/12/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
November 17, 2012
In this extraordinary novel, Anna Kavan captures the claustrophobic feeling of being caught in a nightmare. The nameless narrator relates a fragmented story of searching for a beautiful, very thin woman with silver hair, who is also under the control of a powerful man, sometimes called the warden. The setting is an unnamed country, in which informers hide in dark corners and people look anxiously over their shoulders for some unspecified threat. The narrator provides a fragmented depiction of an isolated country, relatively poor and embroiled in an unspecified global conflict. The characters are facing another danger as well -- an encroaching wall of ice that is threatening to obliterate all life:
Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all it creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.
There is beauty in Kavan's descriptions of this world, but it's a deadly beauty -- cold, fragmented, unrelenting. And adding to the sense of dislocation, transitions throughout are abrupt, throwing the reader from present to past to vision to dream and back again. Reading this novel is like being trapped in a labyrinthine nightmare, with no clear sense of what is real and what is a dead end. It's an astonishing accomplishment, and one which provides an apt backdrop for Kavan's examination of violence, fear, and cruelty on all levels, from personal to local to global.
Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all it creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.
There is beauty in Kavan's descriptions of this world, but it's a deadly beauty -- cold, fragmented, unrelenting. And adding to the sense of dislocation, transitions throughout are abrupt, throwing the reader from present to past to vision to dream and back again. Reading this novel is like being trapped in a labyrinthine nightmare, with no clear sense of what is real and what is a dead end. It's an astonishing accomplishment, and one which provides an apt backdrop for Kavan's examination of violence, fear, and cruelty on all levels, from personal to local to global.
August 7, 2023
It’s difficult to determine which parts of Ice are actually happening and which are hallucinated by our unnamed protagonist. Making it even more disorienting, the point-of-view dips away from first person occasionally, capturing events that happen (maybe?) when he isn’t present, only to snap right back to our protagonist’s perspective as if nothing happened. Although, maybe he was actually there the whole time, he’s not really sure himself. Sometimes, mid-book, his character takes on attributes and personas that are entirely new, (he is an invading military figure for a few paragraphs), only to suddenly not be anymore. There’s an almost omniscience to him that becomes rather disturbing. It feels highly metaphorical, but not quite so easily reducible to just that.
Ice becomes harder to label the more that you think about it. Not quite fantasy, not quite science fiction, not necessarily straightforward mimetic literature; it may be something new where those three converge. It perpetually defies classification.
I think says it best in his forward to the 50th anniversary Penguin Classics edition:
“The whole presentation is dreamlike, yet even that surface is riven by dream sequences, and by anomalous ruptures in point-of-view and narrative momentum.�
Amen to that. It’s definitely strange, but oddly, instead of coming across as abrasive and unrefined storytelling, these tactics work to draw the reader into a multifaceted, disturbing, kaleidoscopic, fever-dream that unfolds.
May 6, 2018
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!
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!
Read
March 8, 2017I was lost, it was already dusk, I had been driving for hours and was practically out of petrol. The idea of being stranded on these lonely hills in the dark appalled me, so I was glad to see a signpost, and coast down to a garage. When I opened a window to speak to the attendant, the air outside was so cold that I turned up my collar. While he was filling the tank he commented on the weather. ‘Never known such cold in this month. Forecast says we’re in for a real bad freeze-up.� Most of my life was spent abroad, soldiering, or exploring remote areas: but though I had just come from the tropics and freezing meant little to me, I was struck by the ominous sound of his words. Anxious to get on, I asked the way to the village I was making for. “You’ll never find it in the dark, it’s right off the beaten track. And those hill roads are dangerous when they’re iced up.� He seemed to imply that only a fool would drive on under present conditions, which rather annoyed me. So, cutting short his involved directions, I paid him and drove away, ignoring his last warning shout: ‘Look out for that ice!�
I was lost, it was already late December, I had been reading for hours and was practically out of time to finish this novel. The idea of not completing this book before the end of the year appalled me, so I was glad to see a glimmer of resolution, and coast down towards the conclusion. When I turned a page to hear a character actually speak, his words were so bitter that I shivered inside. While he was moving the story forward, he commented on the narrative. ‘Never known such numbing distortion described in a book before. Critics say it’s a chilling example of slip-stream.� Most of my life was spent reading mainstream writing, the classics, some post modern stuff: but though I had just come from reading William Trevor and post-apocalyptic scenarios meant little to me, I was struck by the compelling sound of his words. Anxious to get on, I flicked to the end to see how many pages were left to go. ‘You’ll never make it with that attitude, it’s right off the beaten track. And those gender stereotypes are dangerous when they’re hyped up.� He seemed to imply that only a fool would read on under present conditions, which rather annoyed me. So, cutting short his involved explanations, I turned the page and read on, ignoring his last warning shout: ‘Look out for that distorting lens device!�
I was lost, it was already late December, I had been reading for hours and was practically out of time to finish this novel. The idea of not completing this book before the end of the year appalled me, so I was glad to see a glimmer of resolution, and coast down towards the conclusion. When I turned a page to hear a character actually speak, his words were so bitter that I shivered inside. While he was moving the story forward, he commented on the narrative. ‘Never known such numbing distortion described in a book before. Critics say it’s a chilling example of slip-stream.� Most of my life was spent reading mainstream writing, the classics, some post modern stuff: but though I had just come from reading William Trevor and post-apocalyptic scenarios meant little to me, I was struck by the compelling sound of his words. Anxious to get on, I flicked to the end to see how many pages were left to go. ‘You’ll never make it with that attitude, it’s right off the beaten track. And those gender stereotypes are dangerous when they’re hyped up.� He seemed to imply that only a fool would read on under present conditions, which rather annoyed me. So, cutting short his involved explanations, I turned the page and read on, ignoring his last warning shout: ‘Look out for that distorting lens device!�
December 9, 2022
What does the future of the world hold for us little humans? Let us take a look.
The weapons of the atom deployed. The nations of men in battle. Borders and boundaries blurred, broken, crossed, lines drawn as if in the sand and just as easily erased. The small towns and villages suffer first, as always, but the cities and then countries will follow and fall. The world turns hot then cold, its people huddle and flee, the walls of ice encroach: a return to old forms, a slow domination by the world's true master. A new age shall begin: the wounds of the world healed with frost, its little parasites and their strange little ways finally eradicated. 'Tis the snowy season!
But what of the particular men that dominate this book, this world within Ice? That is their specific identity, these men: they dominate. They have dominated the world with their hot and cold wars and so they seek to dominate this woman. Our narrator is one such man, and his foe is another. His foe and his friend and his mirror reflection. Together they yearn to dominate the woman of Ice. Why is this so? Because their desires must be satisfied; they will travel the dying world to find this object of their desire.
But what of this woman of Ice, nameless as the men? Who is she?
Self Portrait, by Anna Kavan
First of all, as the author tells us, and tells us, and tells us, she is a victim. She is a victim. She is a victim. A victim of life, her mother made her into one. A victim of men, the men made her into one. A victim of the world, the world made her into one. A victim of herself, she made herself into one. She is a victim. She is a victim. She is a victim. She may deny it, but she is addicted to victimhood.
Second of all: she is the author. And she is not. She is the author and she is all women whose identity has been taken away by their family. And by men. And by the world. And by themselves. And by their addictions. And she is not. She is a blankness. There is no self-loathing because there is no self. Shall she reinvent herself? Can she even exist outside of the gaze of others? She'll never know, not this woman of Ice. She has only herself to blame, and everyone else.
But what of this author, Anna Kavan? This "Anna Kavan" did indeed reinvent herself: Helen Woods then Helen Ferguson took the name of one of her own characters, from her own novel. She changed who she was and yet was ever the same, struggling with mental health, with the toll of addiction, with the toll of life itself. Two of her children's lives ended early as she tried to end her own life early, again and again. And yet she lived as well! She loved and she traveled and she wrote and she made herself start again and again and again. A life of struggle but a life full of life as well.
But what of this book? It is about subjugation, addiction, and obsession. The relationships and the narrative are as unstable and alienated as the characters, as the writer herself. The book is culmination, excoriation, a book of waking dreams, a book of travel, a book of love, a book of death, a scourge that lashes the world of men, the world of men and women, the world of Anna Kavan.
Woman with a dish of fruit, by Anna Kavan
It is a painful book: do not read this if you are depressed. And yet I left the book invigorated: Kavan transformed her pain into something terrible and beautiful.
It is an angry book: anger at the world, at men, at the self.
It is a feminist book, a political book:
It is a hallucinatory book: do not read this if you are easily confused. And yet one must embrace the confusion, the dreams and dream logic and hallucinations and the stories and characters blending, bleeding into each other. It is a demanding book and yet the world of the book is so easy to enter, to slip into. They say that death in the snow is the easiest death of all.
It was her last book: Anna Kavan died a year after it was published. And yet a writer's brilliance may outlive their earthly torments.
It is a book that was easy for me to admire but hard for me to love. The book is 4.5 stars, rounded up. Something in me can't give it that trifling additional .5 - I can't make it a favorite. I can't. I can't. I can't. A book this bleak can't be a favorite. It can't. It can't. It can't.
Three nudes on plinths, by Anna Kavan
Does this book written in 1967 foretell our future, on this eve of our twenty-first year in this cold, angry, deadly new millennium? Let us take a look.
The weapons of the atom deployed. The nations of men in battle. Borders and boundaries blurred, broken, crossed, lines drawn as if in the sand and just as easily erased. The small towns and villages suffer first, as always, but the cities and then countries will follow and fall. The world turns hot then cold, its people huddle and flee, the walls of ice encroach: a return to old forms, a slow domination by the world's true master. A new age shall begin: the wounds of the world healed with frost, its little parasites and their strange little ways finally eradicated. 'Tis the snowy season!
But what of the particular men that dominate this book, this world within Ice? That is their specific identity, these men: they dominate. They have dominated the world with their hot and cold wars and so they seek to dominate this woman. Our narrator is one such man, and his foe is another. His foe and his friend and his mirror reflection. Together they yearn to dominate the woman of Ice. Why is this so? Because their desires must be satisfied; they will travel the dying world to find this object of their desire.
But what of this woman of Ice, nameless as the men? Who is she?
Self Portrait, by Anna Kavan
First of all, as the author tells us, and tells us, and tells us, she is a victim. She is a victim. She is a victim. A victim of life, her mother made her into one. A victim of men, the men made her into one. A victim of the world, the world made her into one. A victim of herself, she made herself into one. She is a victim. She is a victim. She is a victim. She may deny it, but she is addicted to victimhood.
Second of all: she is the author. And she is not. She is the author and she is all women whose identity has been taken away by their family. And by men. And by the world. And by themselves. And by their addictions. And she is not. She is a blankness. There is no self-loathing because there is no self. Shall she reinvent herself? Can she even exist outside of the gaze of others? She'll never know, not this woman of Ice. She has only herself to blame, and everyone else.
But what of this author, Anna Kavan? This "Anna Kavan" did indeed reinvent herself: Helen Woods then Helen Ferguson took the name of one of her own characters, from her own novel. She changed who she was and yet was ever the same, struggling with mental health, with the toll of addiction, with the toll of life itself. Two of her children's lives ended early as she tried to end her own life early, again and again. And yet she lived as well! She loved and she traveled and she wrote and she made herself start again and again and again. A life of struggle but a life full of life as well.
But what of this book? It is about subjugation, addiction, and obsession. The relationships and the narrative are as unstable and alienated as the characters, as the writer herself. The book is culmination, excoriation, a book of waking dreams, a book of travel, a book of love, a book of death, a scourge that lashes the world of men, the world of men and women, the world of Anna Kavan.
Woman with a dish of fruit, by Anna Kavan
It is a painful book: do not read this if you are depressed. And yet I left the book invigorated: Kavan transformed her pain into something terrible and beautiful.
It is an angry book: anger at the world, at men, at the self.
It is a feminist book, a political book:
It is a hallucinatory book: do not read this if you are easily confused. And yet one must embrace the confusion, the dreams and dream logic and hallucinations and the stories and characters blending, bleeding into each other. It is a demanding book and yet the world of the book is so easy to enter, to slip into. They say that death in the snow is the easiest death of all.
It was her last book: Anna Kavan died a year after it was published. And yet a writer's brilliance may outlive their earthly torments.
It is a book that was easy for me to admire but hard for me to love. The book is 4.5 stars, rounded up. Something in me can't give it that trifling additional .5 - I can't make it a favorite. I can't. I can't. I can't. A book this bleak can't be a favorite. It can't. It can't. It can't.
Three nudes on plinths, by Anna Kavan
Does this book written in 1967 foretell our future, on this eve of our twenty-first year in this cold, angry, deadly new millennium? Let us take a look.
February 2, 2022
"Gerçeklik benim için her zaman bilinmez nitelikte bir şey olmuştu. Zaman zaman rahatsız edici olabiliyordu bu."
(s.22)
Okurken dahi insanı üşüten, titreten bu kitap bir bulmaca! Bir labirent! Nasıl mı?
Açıkçası ben kitap hakkında daha önce yazılan yorumların çoğuna katılmıyorum. Yankı Enki'nin 19 Eylül 2014'te bu kitap hakkında yazdığı yorumda;
" [...] adını ya da nereden geldiğini bilmediğimiz gizemli bir kahramanın arayış ve yolculuk öyküsünü anlatıyor. Arayışının hedefindeyse bir şey değil, bir kişi var: Yine adını bilmediğimiz, gümüş beyazı saçlı bir kız. Üçüncü kahramanımızı da, şehrin en yüksek yerindeki kalede, Yüksek Ev’de yaşayan “muhafız� olarak tanıyoruz, [...]" (Sabitfikir Dergisi)
ve yine; A. Ömer Türkeş'in 11 Temmuz 2014'te Radikal Kitap'ta yazdığı:
" Anlıyoruz ki zamanın, mekânın ve insanların muğlaklaştığı, giderek aynılaştığı Kafkaesk bir dünyadayız. Ve artık biliyoruz ki bu dünya bizim dünyamız. Kıyamet ise kopmuş durumda... (Radikal) yorumunda; yine
7 Temmuz 2014'te Hürriyet'te isimsiz olarak çıkan:
"Everest Yayınları’ndan çıkan Buz gerçekdışılığın hüküm sürdüğü, düşlerle alegorilerin iç içe geçtiği marjinal bir bilimkurgu, “Kafka’nın kızkardeşi� olarak anılan Kavan’ın başyapıtı." (Hürriyet) kitap yorumunda; fazla 徱ı konuşmak istemiyorum ama kitabı anlamanın bence kıyısından ancak geçilmiş. Çünkü bu kitap bu cümlelerle özetlenemeyecek denli derin alt metinlere sahip.
Bu kitabın bilim kurgu ile ilişkilendirilmesini zorlama olarak gören Radikal'deki yazı dışında, hemen her yorumcu bu kitabı bence hataya düşerek bir bilim kurgu eseri olarak değerlendirmiş. Evet bilim kurgu öğeleri var fakat kitabın teması bütünüyle bilim kurgu değil.
Oysa Anna Kavan, dikkatli bir okurun gözüne batacak kadar iyi ipuçlarını kitabın her yerine yaymış. Okurun düştüğü yanılgı, kitabı lineer yani çizgisel okumaktan kaynaklanıyor. Bu kitapta zaman, doğrusal ilerlemiyor. Bu yönüyle bu kitap muhteşem bir başyapıt.
Peki bu ipuçları neler? Şimdi bunlara biraz göz atalım. Kitabı okumayanlar lütfen bu kısmı atlasın ve kendi ipuçlarını kendileri arasınlar.
"Bir anın sanrısı bir sonrakinin gerçekliğine uymuyordu." (s.157)
Belki kaçırdığım ipuçları, detaylar olmuştur. Bu nedenle henüz tamamen çözdüğümü söyleyemem bu bulmacayı. İkinci bir okuma şart bu kitap için. Hatta üçüncü, dördüncü.
Fakat bir sonraki okumamda bu bulmacayı çözmeye daha da yaklaşacağıma eminim. Şuna da eminim ki, bu kitap bütünüyle bir bilimkurgu, yahut da distopya değil. Okurken üşüyeceksiniz, kemiklerinize kadar!
M.B.
27.10.2017
Mersin
Okurken dahi insanı üşüten, titreten bu kitap bir bulmaca! Bir labirent! Nasıl mı?
Açıkçası ben kitap hakkında daha önce yazılan yorumların çoğuna katılmıyorum. Yankı Enki'nin 19 Eylül 2014'te bu kitap hakkında yazdığı yorumda;
" [...] adını ya da nereden geldiğini bilmediğimiz gizemli bir kahramanın arayış ve yolculuk öyküsünü anlatıyor. Arayışının hedefindeyse bir şey değil, bir kişi var: Yine adını bilmediğimiz, gümüş beyazı saçlı bir kız. Üçüncü kahramanımızı da, şehrin en yüksek yerindeki kalede, Yüksek Ev’de yaşayan “muhafız� olarak tanıyoruz, [...]" (Sabitfikir Dergisi)
ve yine; A. Ömer Türkeş'in 11 Temmuz 2014'te Radikal Kitap'ta yazdığı:
" Anlıyoruz ki zamanın, mekânın ve insanların muğlaklaştığı, giderek aynılaştığı Kafkaesk bir dünyadayız. Ve artık biliyoruz ki bu dünya bizim dünyamız. Kıyamet ise kopmuş durumda... (Radikal) yorumunda; yine
7 Temmuz 2014'te Hürriyet'te isimsiz olarak çıkan:
"Everest Yayınları’ndan çıkan Buz gerçekdışılığın hüküm sürdüğü, düşlerle alegorilerin iç içe geçtiği marjinal bir bilimkurgu, “Kafka’nın kızkardeşi� olarak anılan Kavan’ın başyapıtı." (Hürriyet) kitap yorumunda; fazla 徱ı konuşmak istemiyorum ama kitabı anlamanın bence kıyısından ancak geçilmiş. Çünkü bu kitap bu cümlelerle özetlenemeyecek denli derin alt metinlere sahip.
Bu kitabın bilim kurgu ile ilişkilendirilmesini zorlama olarak gören Radikal'deki yazı dışında, hemen her yorumcu bu kitabı bence hataya düşerek bir bilim kurgu eseri olarak değerlendirmiş. Evet bilim kurgu öğeleri var fakat kitabın teması bütünüyle bilim kurgu değil.
Oysa Anna Kavan, dikkatli bir okurun gözüne batacak kadar iyi ipuçlarını kitabın her yerine yaymış. Okurun düştüğü yanılgı, kitabı lineer yani çizgisel okumaktan kaynaklanıyor. Bu kitapta zaman, doğrusal ilerlemiyor. Bu yönüyle bu kitap muhteşem bir başyapıt.
Peki bu ipuçları neler? Şimdi bunlara biraz göz atalım. Kitabı okumayanlar lütfen bu kısmı atlasın ve kendi ipuçlarını kendileri arasınlar.
"Bir anın sanrısı bir sonrakinin gerçekliğine uymuyordu." (s.157)
Belki kaçırdığım ipuçları, detaylar olmuştur. Bu nedenle henüz tamamen çözdüğümü söyleyemem bu bulmacayı. İkinci bir okuma şart bu kitap için. Hatta üçüncü, dördüncü.
Fakat bir sonraki okumamda bu bulmacayı çözmeye daha da yaklaşacağıma eminim. Şuna da eminim ki, bu kitap bütünüyle bir bilimkurgu, yahut da distopya değil. Okurken üşüyeceksiniz, kemiklerinize kadar!
M.B.
27.10.2017
Mersin
January 16, 2019
Riveting, breathless, nightmarish prose, a stream of word-horror so intense it's hard to fathom, equally hard to look away from. The plot: a globetrotting rescue before ice-extinction sets in. Or is it a chase? Therein lies the rub: everything has a double-face, an ambiguity rooted in subjectivity and dreams, everything except the ice, which is ineluctable, a fact that no one can wish or dream away. A book like this is incredibly difficult to pull off, skirting on that razor's edge between brilliance and nonsense, but I found myself drawn in and never put off, in awe really of its power: not just a verbal power but a moral one, an urgent description of who we humans are and what we have wrought, both upon (and within) ourselves and upon this planet.
May 30, 2012
This book is insane. That is what needs to go on the back cover blurb, not some measly reference to ‘slipstream�. Christopher Priest, in the foreword, calls it slipstream and likens it to, among others, Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Talk about being wide off the mark. Memento is fragmented, sure, but its a jigsaw puzzle with crenulated edges that can be assembled in a post-mortem. This stuff: its a different league altogether.
I need to talk about how I dream, if I am to convey the essence here. I wonder how other people dream, too, but with me: its insane (that word again). First off, time-space continuum is non existent. One moment I’m talking to a bunch of people at a restaurant, the next moment I’m skiing down a slope escaping an avalanche and ski into a tropical ocean where sharks are out to get me, actually get me and tear me apart, but then I ‘teleport� into my high school classroom where I find out everyone graduated except for me, and finally, I end up being pursued and being, um, molested, by some syphilitic leper in a jail cell but when I look out the window I see myself below in an Italian piazza with my left leg severed above the knee. The worst part is that I can sense I’m dreaming, but can’t wake up. The horror of not being in control , of being propelled unknowingly from one disaster scene into another, the helplessness is terrifying. Dreams always, always distress me.
This is how this book reads. A nameless narrator chases a nameless anorexic victim-like girl halfway across the world. I can’t say how many times she dies in a particular scene, and resurrects in the next moment. One tableaux vivant plays out and the next one crashes on with no logical reference whatsoever. Its snowing, its a tropical blaze, she’s dead, she’s alive, the narrator is himself, then he’s actually the girl.
Absolutely mesmeric scenes reel off against a backdrop of some apocalyptic momentum: characters emerge with a qualia of present tense: no personal histories or attributes are divulged. There is an overarching sense of dread and despair which permeates the fibre of every nuance. The narrator pivets on his axis, buoyed by some bi-polar euphoria: he wants the girl, he doesn’t want her, he wants her again, informing his desire with implied Jekyll and Hyde morph: is he a saviour or a cruel tyrant? The girl herself shifts like an eel in a prism: she’s vulnerable and terrified, she’s an accomplished, heartless temptress the next moment.
All along there is a nebulous third character: the Warden. He seems to be a contender for the girl, but also a point of homoerotic focus for the narrator. Talk about the triple axis of evil.
This gruesome threesome make up the backbone of the tale. Everywhere the narrator goes, he stumbles upon the girl. Or the warden. There are many ways to skin this cat, but I’m imagining the Narrator superimposing: that is to say: he sees a stranger and projects onto her his object of desire: a Dulcinea at every port, so to speak. The Warden is most probably the woman’s husband in real life. Every time she vanishes, some real life person has escaped the psycho narrator, so he starts looking for another canvas (person) on which to project again. When he stays with her for a bit longer, he loses interest. Leaves. Or, she dies, and he leaves. Then starts the search again. This endless cycle of groundhog torturous repetition is the stuff of nightmares. The Narrator doesn’t really want the reality of being with the girl: he is transfixed and defined by the chase: perpetual motion so that no time is left to ruminate. About say, his connection with this woman.
She is brittle, waif thin, anorexic, psychologically tormented and albino fair to the point of being transparent, like the ice that surrounds her: in essence a see-through or non person. The narrator is probably transposing again. She may not even exist in such a form, in fact, she may not exist at all. She could be the compilation of all his hang-ups, the parts he hates about himself, a made up character whose visage he superimposes on every other woman he meets.
None of this makes cogent sense, but it has a definite wow feel factor. If one can bear to look at a Jackson Pollack painting and relish: this book will suit. If the squiggles are meaningless and defy aesthetic enjoyment: best stay clear of Kavan.
I need to talk about how I dream, if I am to convey the essence here. I wonder how other people dream, too, but with me: its insane (that word again). First off, time-space continuum is non existent. One moment I’m talking to a bunch of people at a restaurant, the next moment I’m skiing down a slope escaping an avalanche and ski into a tropical ocean where sharks are out to get me, actually get me and tear me apart, but then I ‘teleport� into my high school classroom where I find out everyone graduated except for me, and finally, I end up being pursued and being, um, molested, by some syphilitic leper in a jail cell but when I look out the window I see myself below in an Italian piazza with my left leg severed above the knee. The worst part is that I can sense I’m dreaming, but can’t wake up. The horror of not being in control , of being propelled unknowingly from one disaster scene into another, the helplessness is terrifying. Dreams always, always distress me.
This is how this book reads. A nameless narrator chases a nameless anorexic victim-like girl halfway across the world. I can’t say how many times she dies in a particular scene, and resurrects in the next moment. One tableaux vivant plays out and the next one crashes on with no logical reference whatsoever. Its snowing, its a tropical blaze, she’s dead, she’s alive, the narrator is himself, then he’s actually the girl.
Absolutely mesmeric scenes reel off against a backdrop of some apocalyptic momentum: characters emerge with a qualia of present tense: no personal histories or attributes are divulged. There is an overarching sense of dread and despair which permeates the fibre of every nuance. The narrator pivets on his axis, buoyed by some bi-polar euphoria: he wants the girl, he doesn’t want her, he wants her again, informing his desire with implied Jekyll and Hyde morph: is he a saviour or a cruel tyrant? The girl herself shifts like an eel in a prism: she’s vulnerable and terrified, she’s an accomplished, heartless temptress the next moment.
All along there is a nebulous third character: the Warden. He seems to be a contender for the girl, but also a point of homoerotic focus for the narrator. Talk about the triple axis of evil.
This gruesome threesome make up the backbone of the tale. Everywhere the narrator goes, he stumbles upon the girl. Or the warden. There are many ways to skin this cat, but I’m imagining the Narrator superimposing: that is to say: he sees a stranger and projects onto her his object of desire: a Dulcinea at every port, so to speak. The Warden is most probably the woman’s husband in real life. Every time she vanishes, some real life person has escaped the psycho narrator, so he starts looking for another canvas (person) on which to project again. When he stays with her for a bit longer, he loses interest. Leaves. Or, she dies, and he leaves. Then starts the search again. This endless cycle of groundhog torturous repetition is the stuff of nightmares. The Narrator doesn’t really want the reality of being with the girl: he is transfixed and defined by the chase: perpetual motion so that no time is left to ruminate. About say, his connection with this woman.
She is brittle, waif thin, anorexic, psychologically tormented and albino fair to the point of being transparent, like the ice that surrounds her: in essence a see-through or non person. The narrator is probably transposing again. She may not even exist in such a form, in fact, she may not exist at all. She could be the compilation of all his hang-ups, the parts he hates about himself, a made up character whose visage he superimposes on every other woman he meets.
None of this makes cogent sense, but it has a definite wow feel factor. If one can bear to look at a Jackson Pollack painting and relish: this book will suit. If the squiggles are meaningless and defy aesthetic enjoyment: best stay clear of Kavan.
July 6, 2023
I think I have read a few Kavan stories over the years but this is the first novel, I believe, that I have read from her, and it will not be the last, though it is grim, hallucinatory, surreal, dystopian. I could say it is a combination of mystery and misery. One of my last novels was Blindness by Jose Saramago, an allegory, and this might be described similarly.
It’s a short book, published in 1967, but you know, you might not need much more intensity than this length provides. The plot is not key; a male narrator is obsessed with an ethereal wraith of a woman with “albino� hair--
“Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight.�
--as ice steadily engulfs the planet. So what is ice, in this book, as blindness was in Saramago’s book? It is actually true, it is a climate disaster, but it is also emblematic of WWII just twenty years earlier and the advent of the Vietnam War, or even a possible nuclear winter. The encroaching ice is about anger and macho male military destruction of the planet. Ice is also a psychological state as the unnamed woman faces all of these controlling men in her life, smothering her, freezing her. She’s not really interested in our male narrator who wants to “take care� of her.
“Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings. . . It made no difference, in any case she could not escape.�
Ice is also about the very real bouts of madness that Kavan faced in her own life, having spent numerous times in asylums, hospitals, for suicidal depression and heroin addiction. And in spite of these challenges, she was able to produce more than seventeen books, most of them featuring a central, similar woman. Born Helen Woods, she married and divorced twice, had children, traveled a lot.
I listened to the fiftieth anniversary edition, with Kate Zambreno writing the Afterword, and Jonathan Lethem the Foreword, both terrific.
So it’s surreal, mysterious, scary, mad:
“Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me.�
Along the way I thought of these things:
*Ice woman as Snow Queen
*Ice as like Kafka’s The Castle
*I kept thinking of the elusively narrated film Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and similar books/films of the period
*Madness and Civilization (treating madness through incarceration, being held from movement, driven to conformity, societal expectations even when those expectations lead to social and cultural destruction)
*Feminism: (all these controlling men! But feminists have an uneasy relationship to Kavan, as she resisted connections to other feminist fiction writers)
*Nightmares--oh, this reads so much like a nightmare or series of them, and Kavan often wrote from her dreams and nightmares and personal traumas
*Climate Change, and the end of the human race
*JG Ballard and climate collapse
*War as correlative to sexual domination through patriarchy
*Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
*Anais Nin
*Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood
*Surrealism
*Sci-fi
*Ingmar Bergman's Persona and others. The Hour of the Wolf.
*Sylvia Plath
Such a picture of chaos descending, of alienation.
“My ideas were confused. In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.�
“So many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false: dreams like light imprisoned in bright mineral caves; hot, heavy dreams; ice-age dreams; dreams like machines in the head.�
“She was trying to become invisible in the snow. Sudden terror had seized her: the thought of the man whose ice-blue eyes had a magnetic power which could deprive her of will and thrust her down into hallucination and horror. The fear she lived with, always near her, close behind the world's normal façade, had become concentrated on him. And there was another connected with him, they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person." (So, though the man is the narrator, one of them may not be real. . .)
“The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes.�
“As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of the world.�
But if you are put off by the grimness of it, here’s some of the lyricism, the mystery it captures so well:
“Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.�
And one more punctuating devastating image, a punch to the gut:
“The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.�
It’s a short book, published in 1967, but you know, you might not need much more intensity than this length provides. The plot is not key; a male narrator is obsessed with an ethereal wraith of a woman with “albino� hair--
“Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight.�
--as ice steadily engulfs the planet. So what is ice, in this book, as blindness was in Saramago’s book? It is actually true, it is a climate disaster, but it is also emblematic of WWII just twenty years earlier and the advent of the Vietnam War, or even a possible nuclear winter. The encroaching ice is about anger and macho male military destruction of the planet. Ice is also a psychological state as the unnamed woman faces all of these controlling men in her life, smothering her, freezing her. She’s not really interested in our male narrator who wants to “take care� of her.
“Systematic bullying when she was most vulnerable had distorted the structure of her personality, made a victim of her, to be destroyed, either by things or by human beings. . . It made no difference, in any case she could not escape.�
Ice is also about the very real bouts of madness that Kavan faced in her own life, having spent numerous times in asylums, hospitals, for suicidal depression and heroin addiction. And in spite of these challenges, she was able to produce more than seventeen books, most of them featuring a central, similar woman. Born Helen Woods, she married and divorced twice, had children, traveled a lot.
I listened to the fiftieth anniversary edition, with Kate Zambreno writing the Afterword, and Jonathan Lethem the Foreword, both terrific.
So it’s surreal, mysterious, scary, mad:
“Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me.�
Along the way I thought of these things:
*Ice woman as Snow Queen
*Ice as like Kafka’s The Castle
*I kept thinking of the elusively narrated film Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and similar books/films of the period
*Madness and Civilization (treating madness through incarceration, being held from movement, driven to conformity, societal expectations even when those expectations lead to social and cultural destruction)
*Feminism: (all these controlling men! But feminists have an uneasy relationship to Kavan, as she resisted connections to other feminist fiction writers)
*Nightmares--oh, this reads so much like a nightmare or series of them, and Kavan often wrote from her dreams and nightmares and personal traumas
*Climate Change, and the end of the human race
*JG Ballard and climate collapse
*War as correlative to sexual domination through patriarchy
*Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
*Anais Nin
*Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood
*Surrealism
*Sci-fi
*Ingmar Bergman's Persona and others. The Hour of the Wolf.
*Sylvia Plath
Such a picture of chaos descending, of alienation.
“My ideas were confused. In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.�
“So many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false: dreams like light imprisoned in bright mineral caves; hot, heavy dreams; ice-age dreams; dreams like machines in the head.�
“She was trying to become invisible in the snow. Sudden terror had seized her: the thought of the man whose ice-blue eyes had a magnetic power which could deprive her of will and thrust her down into hallucination and horror. The fear she lived with, always near her, close behind the world's normal façade, had become concentrated on him. And there was another connected with him, they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person." (So, though the man is the narrator, one of them may not be real. . .)
“The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes.�
“As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of the world.�
But if you are put off by the grimness of it, here’s some of the lyricism, the mystery it captures so well:
“Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour.�
And one more punctuating devastating image, a punch to the gut:
“The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.�
December 28, 2021
Very high-grade pulp. The story’s achronological plot—as in Muriel Spark’s —doesn’t jigsaw together until the very end. Highly fragmented and dystopic—a new Ice Age is taking place concurrent with global war—it’s the story by a unnamed soldier’s obsession with a white-haired little slip of a girl. Everything is withheld: who the girl is, how she met her pursuer, what is her past, why are all cities in ruins, and so on. All those facts, which may or may not be determinative, are withheld. So all we have at the start is the tried and true vehicle of an obsessed man, whoever he is, running all over the world trying to save the girl. A being running through landscapes and time, the irreducible foundation of most narratives.
The narrator seems to be suffering from some form of mental illness. Is he hallucinating when he sees the girl? We don’t know, neither does he. We’re not even sure he’s a free individual looking for the girl with white hair. He may be in an institution raving mad like the Renfield character in . Kavan was a heroin addict most of her life and the dreamlike sequences here seem as drug-induced as anything in . At the same time there’s major cognitive dissonance; like the white matter eating through the landscapes destroying all the ruins, yet which doesnt reach as far as the narrator’s rooming house. He doesn’t conceive of it as snow, but sees it as an all pervading erasure of existence. Clearly there are cogs ajar. So monomania, idée fixe, etc. There’s a blending, too, of first person and third person points of view, in that he’s privy to scenes he should know nothing about. Then again there are descriptive passages so overwrought that they border on the comical. Like when the narrator steals a car to pursue the warden, who has taken the ever more generic-seeming “girl� with him across the frontier, through the snow.
I’m beginning to think the girl is simply a MacGuffin, a thing chased for purposes of plot advancement, but possessing no intrinsic value. She’s very one dimensional. I’m being too hard on the book. Published in 1967 it is unquestionably a Cold War document and must be read with a mindset. Funnily enough, there are no reliable news sources. But refreshingly, unlike today, when we swill lies, and are even willing to put ourselves and our families in harm’s way in support of the lie—the narrator here is decidedly skeptical. One thing author Kavan doesn’t do is explain. There are no locales, no place names. The entire world is freezing over. Period. If you won’t allow her conceit then be on your way. She doesn’t countenance doubters.
I can sometimes be faulted for reading too closely. So things bother me. The ice for instance encroaches mercilessly, inexorably, until there’s a block of action to be taken care of, then the ice isn’t so pressing and frightening anymore. This seems to me conspicuously poor pacing. The closer we get to the end, moreover, the more unwieldy the writing becomes, as if it received less care. For instance, one ice-bound and war torn landscape is called “indescribable chaos.� But the next thing the author does is proceed to describe it: “…bits of broken carts, tractors, cars, implements, lay about, bits of old tires, bits of unrecognizable tools, all mixed up with the debris of shattered weapons and war supplies.� (p. 129)
The obsession with the girl is completely irrational. When he’s not swearing her off and leaving her he’s insisting that he must do everything to save her. It’s absurd, grotesque, and the girl never has more character than the roughest simplest thumbnail outline. She’s undeveloped. She’s just there for him to run to and from. What does he see in her?
The narrator seems to be suffering from some form of mental illness. Is he hallucinating when he sees the girl? We don’t know, neither does he. We’re not even sure he’s a free individual looking for the girl with white hair. He may be in an institution raving mad like the Renfield character in . Kavan was a heroin addict most of her life and the dreamlike sequences here seem as drug-induced as anything in . At the same time there’s major cognitive dissonance; like the white matter eating through the landscapes destroying all the ruins, yet which doesnt reach as far as the narrator’s rooming house. He doesn’t conceive of it as snow, but sees it as an all pervading erasure of existence. Clearly there are cogs ajar. So monomania, idée fixe, etc. There’s a blending, too, of first person and third person points of view, in that he’s privy to scenes he should know nothing about. Then again there are descriptive passages so overwrought that they border on the comical. Like when the narrator steals a car to pursue the warden, who has taken the ever more generic-seeming “girl� with him across the frontier, through the snow.
I’m beginning to think the girl is simply a MacGuffin, a thing chased for purposes of plot advancement, but possessing no intrinsic value. She’s very one dimensional. I’m being too hard on the book. Published in 1967 it is unquestionably a Cold War document and must be read with a mindset. Funnily enough, there are no reliable news sources. But refreshingly, unlike today, when we swill lies, and are even willing to put ourselves and our families in harm’s way in support of the lie—the narrator here is decidedly skeptical. One thing author Kavan doesn’t do is explain. There are no locales, no place names. The entire world is freezing over. Period. If you won’t allow her conceit then be on your way. She doesn’t countenance doubters.
I can sometimes be faulted for reading too closely. So things bother me. The ice for instance encroaches mercilessly, inexorably, until there’s a block of action to be taken care of, then the ice isn’t so pressing and frightening anymore. This seems to me conspicuously poor pacing. The closer we get to the end, moreover, the more unwieldy the writing becomes, as if it received less care. For instance, one ice-bound and war torn landscape is called “indescribable chaos.� But the next thing the author does is proceed to describe it: “…bits of broken carts, tractors, cars, implements, lay about, bits of old tires, bits of unrecognizable tools, all mixed up with the debris of shattered weapons and war supplies.� (p. 129)
The obsession with the girl is completely irrational. When he’s not swearing her off and leaving her he’s insisting that he must do everything to save her. It’s absurd, grotesque, and the girl never has more character than the roughest simplest thumbnail outline. She’s undeveloped. She’s just there for him to run to and from. What does he see in her?
December 21, 2022
This is an absolutely brutal novel. I don't feel that I have very much to say about it. The prose is mesmerizing; I felt constantly wrong-footed; my habit of rereading passages I don’t feel I’ve fully grasped meant that I moved through the novel two steps forward, one step back. A novel about two men (or is it one man?) chasing (torturing?) a woman (many women?) as the world ends. There isn’t a warm moment to be had. I can't help but wonder how I would feel had it been written by a man. Less generous, I suspect.
The symbolism is obvious, and yet that obviousness breaks down somewhere—something richer and more terrible is happening here.
The symbolism is obvious, and yet that obviousness breaks down somewhere—something richer and more terrible is happening here.
June 18, 2013
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
This is the opening line of William Gibson's first novel, . It also sums up how I felt as I read Anna Kavan's Ice. I felt like I was watching an old analog television tuned to snow.
If you look at it long enough it's kinda mesmerizing, isn't it? You begin to see patterns, things coalescing and breaking up. Kind of like the shades in this novel. I can't rightly call them characters as they never felt that way to me. They were empty vessels waiting for someone to bring life to them. Only in the final chapter did this happen. On its own, the final chapter would make a nice standalone short story. But everything that preceded it was a wash of -- nothing. My eyes scanned the pages, but there was nothing there. I felt nothing. Not cold, warm, horror, excitement. It was random scenes strung together by random events. Lots of "suddenly"s, like an old ghost story. Or Marsha Brady. "Something suddenly came up." But the something never led to anything, and in the end the something felt like -- nothing at all.
There were moments when, as I read, I could tell that I was supposed to feel horror. There were words like "blood" or "slap" or phrases like "stacked two feet high." But when these words are placed besides empty vessels, the vessel still remains -- empty.
I read this with my buddy Mary and about halfway through I asked how she was liking it. This is a short book and I knew that if by the halfway mark it wasn't clicking, it probably wasn't going to. Mary enlightened me. She told me how she saw the events arranged, and I gotta admit, if Mary wrote the story the way she described it to me, I think I would have enjoyed it. Not enough to be mind-blown, but at least 3-stars worth. On its own, the novel to me is worth a single star. It's that final chapter that raises it to two.
In the final chapter I finally saw a semblance of characterization. All of a sudden there was something worth paying attention to. The characters spoke, they spoke in a meaningful way. I found myself slowing down to take everything in. It was almost like enjoyment. Would the chapter itself stand toe to toe with the best short stories in the world? Heck no. Was it worth reading? Yeah, I think so. But by the same token, everything before it was worth skipping.
There were glimpses, in random words and scenes, that made it seem like Kavan was on to something. The book was published originally in 1967. Vietnam. The threat of the Cold War. Nuclear annihilation. For a sentence at a time, spread maybe fifteen to twenty pages apart, I had an inkling there was something going on. A comment on the state of the world at that time. In many ways, I feel that sixties and the present day are mirroring each other in a sadistic sort of way. That should have made this a very interesting read. But by the next sentence the scene was changed, some random happening was happening, an empty vessel moved from here to there. The new place was just as staticy and unclear as the previous one. And -- nothing.
May 29, 2017
As soon as I started to hear about this book, I knew I had to read it: apocalyptic surrealist pseudo-sci-fi wherein a man seeks a women in a world gradually being engulfed by snow and ice. For whatever reason all-consuming ice has been very prominent in my personal symbology for well over a decade now (only recently noticed this trend, currently wondering how this happened). And it gets (justified) style/tone comparisons to Robbe-Grillet. And so it comes as very little surprise that I was totally caught up by this one.
This is an incredibly strange book. It only rarely plays out anything like the adventure-story-at-the-end-of-the-world that this synopsis might suggest in a normal story, instead opting for eerie poetic atmosphere, evocations of ruins and tundra, gliding shifts in perspective and setting, and perhaps a kind of very mysterious psychodrama. In one of the most Robbe-Grillet-like touches, the protagonist has begun to hallucinate violence towards the object of his search, and these scenes are continuously intercut with the action to tint everything with feverish nightmare colors. And I have inklings that this thread, along with the general feeling of unreality that permeates the "real" action, and a key transition in the middle -- I can't shake the sensation that these elements suggest some really strange things going on with the narrative of this book. To the point that I have to wonder whether David Lynch had this in mind when he started composing the heavily subjective storytelling of Lost Highway and subsequent work. Don't worry though: ambiguous as this may be, in no way does the storytelling trail off and abandon the reader as later Lynch can seem to. The final sequences, on the contrary, were rendingly beautiful.
I'm totally fascinated by Anna Kavan now, this visionary English junkie who adopted the guise of one of her own characters as pen name and wrote so intriguing a puzzle as this. Her female lead often seems a flat male-generated fantasy of victimization and vulnerability, but she fiercely rejects this role as often as she is oddly complicit in it. In fact, it seems like this could be interpreted in part as a study of the (still around of course, but certainly even more blatant in the contemporary sci-fi of the 60s). Not that female writers are immune to writing from the male gaze, but Kavan's approach to this book suggests that she knew exactly what she was doing here. And it's totally amazing and fascinating. Damn, there's just so much going on in this slim book that I want to keep mulling over.
But maybe I should just give Kavan's visions themselves center stage:
Note, may 2012: Incidentally, I've had a lot of theories on the narrative of this book that I didn't want to set down because they seemed to be mine alone and I didn't want to push people towards any one reading. But now, the part of under the spoiler tags seems to be pretty well in agreement with my reading, so go look at that, though only after you've formed your own ideas. This is totally the missing link between Ambrose Bierce and David Lynch, as far as subjective narrative goes.
...
By the way, the excellent cover image for the 1985 Norton hardcover above is scanned from my own ex-library copy. The novel really seems to inspire some incredible images in general, actually:
This is an incredibly strange book. It only rarely plays out anything like the adventure-story-at-the-end-of-the-world that this synopsis might suggest in a normal story, instead opting for eerie poetic atmosphere, evocations of ruins and tundra, gliding shifts in perspective and setting, and perhaps a kind of very mysterious psychodrama. In one of the most Robbe-Grillet-like touches, the protagonist has begun to hallucinate violence towards the object of his search, and these scenes are continuously intercut with the action to tint everything with feverish nightmare colors. And I have inklings that this thread, along with the general feeling of unreality that permeates the "real" action, and a key transition in the middle -- I can't shake the sensation that these elements suggest some really strange things going on with the narrative of this book. To the point that I have to wonder whether David Lynch had this in mind when he started composing the heavily subjective storytelling of Lost Highway and subsequent work. Don't worry though: ambiguous as this may be, in no way does the storytelling trail off and abandon the reader as later Lynch can seem to. The final sequences, on the contrary, were rendingly beautiful.
I'm totally fascinated by Anna Kavan now, this visionary English junkie who adopted the guise of one of her own characters as pen name and wrote so intriguing a puzzle as this. Her female lead often seems a flat male-generated fantasy of victimization and vulnerability, but she fiercely rejects this role as often as she is oddly complicit in it. In fact, it seems like this could be interpreted in part as a study of the (still around of course, but certainly even more blatant in the contemporary sci-fi of the 60s). Not that female writers are immune to writing from the male gaze, but Kavan's approach to this book suggests that she knew exactly what she was doing here. And it's totally amazing and fascinating. Damn, there's just so much going on in this slim book that I want to keep mulling over.
But maybe I should just give Kavan's visions themselves center stage:
A mirage-like arctic splendor towered all around, a weird unearthly architecture of ice. Huge ice-battlements, rainbow turrets and pinnacles filled the sky, lit from within by frigid mineral fires. We were trapped by those encircling walls, a ring of ghostly executioners, advancing slowly, inexorably, to destroy us. I could not move, I could not think. The executioner's breath paralyzed, dulled the brain. I felt the fatal chill of the ice touch me, heard its thunder, saw it split by dazzling emerald fissures. Far overhead the iceberg-glittering heights boomed and shuddered, about to fall. Frost glimmered on her shoulders, her face was ice-white, the long eyelashes swept her cheek. I held her close, clasped her tightly against my chest, so that she would not see the mountainous masses of falling ice.
Note, may 2012: Incidentally, I've had a lot of theories on the narrative of this book that I didn't want to set down because they seemed to be mine alone and I didn't want to push people towards any one reading. But now, the part of under the spoiler tags seems to be pretty well in agreement with my reading, so go look at that, though only after you've formed your own ideas. This is totally the missing link between Ambrose Bierce and David Lynch, as far as subjective narrative goes.
...
By the way, the excellent cover image for the 1985 Norton hardcover above is scanned from my own ex-library copy. The novel really seems to inspire some incredible images in general, actually:
July 23, 2021
(Art by Anna Kavan)*
This is on my short list for all-time favorite novel, and yet I can't properly explain why that is. It doesn't exactly feature a thrilling plot or even relatable characters, but the overall feel of the book is so uniquely strange and disorienting that I'm entirely absorbed anyway, similar to (as others have mentioned) watching a David Lynch film. I find myself revisiting certain sections pretty often, just to envelop myself in the cold, hallucinatory world of the narrator, who shifts in an out of dreams and visions during his journey across a frozen post-apocalyptic world to find the elusive "ice maiden" that he loves, and who he believes needs saving.
The first time I read this I treated it too much like a puzzle to be solved, which was a mistake, as it only causes needless frustration. Better to just go with it and let the otherworldly nightmare imagery wash over you, even if it can be relentlessly grim and depressing at times. Now that I've done that I can try to piece it all together, but there are so many possible interpretations that it's likely impossible. And that's fine by me.
One can only wonder where Anna Kavan could have gone from here had she lived longer. Brian Aldiss notes in his intro that she was slowly becoming more open to Ice being considered a science fiction novel by the SF community, and it would have been intriguing to see how her writing would have evolved had she been able to continue in this vein.
Not for everybody, but for me it gets all the stars.
*Image of painting is from 2019 3AM Magazine article on Kavan.
December 22, 2015
I chose this book because I heard somewhere that it was about ice apocalypse. In snowless England I wanted to read something to make me grateful for a mild climate (which I’m otherwise not that happy with). So yes, this book did make me appreciate a mild climate and also the fact I don’t do drugs (generally).
I am yet to read a book which was published in the 60s and wasn’t completely bonkers. Our generation seems so tame and conservative in comparison. I can’t imagine contemporary big publishers taking a chance on something that makes so little obvious sense.
The great thing about Ice is that you can have fun with it. I mean you can interpret it in a million ways � not sure if it is your idea of fun but for me it is. On the surface it’s a story of an unnamed narrator searching for unnamed girl while fighting another unnamed man for her affection (why name your characters? That’s sooo 1950s.) And all of this while the planet is facing the apocalypse and ice is threatening to swallow everything. The reader follows this frustrating chase which makes less and less sense and it feels like one of those unnerving dreams.
One of the first interpretations that came to my mind was that of the Cold War. The brutal reality of that world, military governments, ice plus the fact the book was written in the 60s all seem to fit nicely with this theory. But why stop there? Anna Kavan was a heroin addict and you will have no trouble with seeing the whole book as an allegory of addiction.
Let’s remove the book from its author and its time. Then really � the sky is the limit. I think my favourite interpretation is that of a power struggle in a relationship. This whole ‘I can’t love you without possessing you� conundrum. The whole you are the OBJECT (of my affection). Both men in the book are actually one man trying to disown the part of his personality he is not comfortable with.
All in all, it’s a typical 60s book. You finish the last page, close it and ask yourself: what the hell did I just read? And yet, you keep thinking about it. Every now and then something reminds you of this book. Some time later you are reorganizing your bookshelves, or maybe just looking for that book you were sure you had but instead you come across Ice. You open it at random and start reading it again.
“My window overlooked an empty landscape where nothing ever moved. No houses were visible, only the debris of the collapsed wall, a bleak stretch of snow, the fjord, the fir forest, the mountains. No colour, only monotonous shades of grey to the ultimate dead white of the snow. The water lifeless in its dead calm, the ranks of black trees marching everywhere in uniform gloom.�
I am yet to read a book which was published in the 60s and wasn’t completely bonkers. Our generation seems so tame and conservative in comparison. I can’t imagine contemporary big publishers taking a chance on something that makes so little obvious sense.
The great thing about Ice is that you can have fun with it. I mean you can interpret it in a million ways � not sure if it is your idea of fun but for me it is. On the surface it’s a story of an unnamed narrator searching for unnamed girl while fighting another unnamed man for her affection (why name your characters? That’s sooo 1950s.) And all of this while the planet is facing the apocalypse and ice is threatening to swallow everything. The reader follows this frustrating chase which makes less and less sense and it feels like one of those unnerving dreams.
One of the first interpretations that came to my mind was that of the Cold War. The brutal reality of that world, military governments, ice plus the fact the book was written in the 60s all seem to fit nicely with this theory. But why stop there? Anna Kavan was a heroin addict and you will have no trouble with seeing the whole book as an allegory of addiction.
Let’s remove the book from its author and its time. Then really � the sky is the limit. I think my favourite interpretation is that of a power struggle in a relationship. This whole ‘I can’t love you without possessing you� conundrum. The whole you are the OBJECT (of my affection). Both men in the book are actually one man trying to disown the part of his personality he is not comfortable with.
All in all, it’s a typical 60s book. You finish the last page, close it and ask yourself: what the hell did I just read? And yet, you keep thinking about it. Every now and then something reminds you of this book. Some time later you are reorganizing your bookshelves, or maybe just looking for that book you were sure you had but instead you come across Ice. You open it at random and start reading it again.
“My window overlooked an empty landscape where nothing ever moved. No houses were visible, only the debris of the collapsed wall, a bleak stretch of snow, the fjord, the fir forest, the mountains. No colour, only monotonous shades of grey to the ultimate dead white of the snow. The water lifeless in its dead calm, the ranks of black trees marching everywhere in uniform gloom.�
March 11, 2014
Luminous in the Dark
Early on, the male narrator discloses to us, "Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me."
It’s hard to tell just how much of a dream, no, a nightmare, this novel is or will become, whether it's a recurrent dream, or whether it is more than that.
The girl, his nameless, ageless obsession, the object of his pursuit, is brittle, fragile, shy, elusive, "her skin moonwhite, her face a moonstone, luminous in the dark...her hair was astonishing, silver-white, an albino’s, sparkling like moonlight, like moonlit Venetian glass..."
She is not exactly the type to ground him: "I treated her like a glass girl; at times she seemed hardly real." She thinks of herself as a "foredoomed child-victim, terrified and betrayed: ‘I always know you’ll torment me...treat me like some sort of slave.� "
So begins an almost Hegelian Master/Slave relationship in which their destiny seems to be a fight to the death.
As if that’s not bad enough, a post-apocalyptic Ice Age is fast approaching, the product of a collective death-wish, a fatal self-destructive impulse: "Instead of my world, there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, [no] victims; nothing but frozen silence, absence of life."
The narrator seeks the resumption of a relationship with the girl ("She was like a part of me, I could not live without her"), in what few days of existence are left.
Not only does the ice pose a threat, but the relationship becomes triangular (something I don’t recall Hegel mentioning): there is a rival, the Warden, a bully, an authoritarian Other, who declares "I shall take her back then."
The girl has no say in the matter. She barely differentiates between the suitors: "...they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person. Both of them persecuted her, she did not understand why..."
She is defenceless, she accepts it as her fate, just as humanity must fatalistically accept that its time on earth is about to come to an end. Initially, the narrator detects a masculine bond with the Warden and cannot stand to be alienated from him.
However, ultimately, he realises that "There was no bond...except in my imagination... Identification was nothing but an illusion."
Even the girl seems to have "corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another."
Perhaps love might have been a way out, but she has never desired love, at least not love of the narrator.
Besides, love is impossible in these circumstances. Relationships splinter with the ice. No two seem to be able to become one. Let alone three.
Still, it’s the girl we empathise with. Or is it? Are there three characters? Or two? Or just one in a dream? And whose dream is it?
As Anais Nin says, Anna Kavan is one of the few authors who has proven able to enter the world of "the divided self with skill and clarity."
"Ice" approaches death with the momentum of an adventure story (for some reason, I recalled "White Eagles over Serbia"). However, it remains metaphysical at heart.
Perhaps the inevitable embrace of death reinforces Hegel’s words about the Master and the Slave: "Through death, the certainty has been established that each has risked his life, and that each has cast a disdainful eye towards death, both in himself and in the other."
While the novel is hardly optimistic ("I knew there was no escape from the ice"), it does manage to stare down death with a modicum of disdain.
The challenge for the rest of us is to find an other and to demonstrate as much tenderness as possible before the ice comes.
"Self Portrait" by Anna Kavan
[From an Exhibition accompanying Victoria Walker's Presentation "Anna Kavan and the Politics of Madness" as part of the Exhibition "Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors" at the Freud Museum from 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014]
There is a podcast of Victoria's Presentation here:
"Untitled 29" by Anna Kavan
SOUNDTRACK:
Fever Ray - "If I Had A Heart"
This Mortal Coil - "A Heart of Glass"
Lisa Gerrard - "Come Tenderness"
Carta - "Kavan"
Wiki: San Francisco post-rock band Carta entitled their song "Kavan" on their album "The Glass Bottom Boat" after Anna Kavan. The song was subsequently released as a remix by The Declining Winter on their album "Haunt the Upper Hallways".
Early on, the male narrator discloses to us, "Reality had always been something of an unknown quantity to me."
It’s hard to tell just how much of a dream, no, a nightmare, this novel is or will become, whether it's a recurrent dream, or whether it is more than that.
The girl, his nameless, ageless obsession, the object of his pursuit, is brittle, fragile, shy, elusive, "her skin moonwhite, her face a moonstone, luminous in the dark...her hair was astonishing, silver-white, an albino’s, sparkling like moonlight, like moonlit Venetian glass..."
She is not exactly the type to ground him: "I treated her like a glass girl; at times she seemed hardly real." She thinks of herself as a "foredoomed child-victim, terrified and betrayed: ‘I always know you’ll torment me...treat me like some sort of slave.� "
So begins an almost Hegelian Master/Slave relationship in which their destiny seems to be a fight to the death.
As if that’s not bad enough, a post-apocalyptic Ice Age is fast approaching, the product of a collective death-wish, a fatal self-destructive impulse: "Instead of my world, there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, [no] victims; nothing but frozen silence, absence of life."
The narrator seeks the resumption of a relationship with the girl ("She was like a part of me, I could not live without her"), in what few days of existence are left.
Not only does the ice pose a threat, but the relationship becomes triangular (something I don’t recall Hegel mentioning): there is a rival, the Warden, a bully, an authoritarian Other, who declares "I shall take her back then."
The girl has no say in the matter. She barely differentiates between the suitors: "...they were in league together, or perhaps they were the same person. Both of them persecuted her, she did not understand why..."
She is defenceless, she accepts it as her fate, just as humanity must fatalistically accept that its time on earth is about to come to an end. Initially, the narrator detects a masculine bond with the Warden and cannot stand to be alienated from him.
However, ultimately, he realises that "There was no bond...except in my imagination... Identification was nothing but an illusion."
Even the girl seems to have "corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another."
Perhaps love might have been a way out, but she has never desired love, at least not love of the narrator.
Besides, love is impossible in these circumstances. Relationships splinter with the ice. No two seem to be able to become one. Let alone three.
Still, it’s the girl we empathise with. Or is it? Are there three characters? Or two? Or just one in a dream? And whose dream is it?
As Anais Nin says, Anna Kavan is one of the few authors who has proven able to enter the world of "the divided self with skill and clarity."
"Ice" approaches death with the momentum of an adventure story (for some reason, I recalled "White Eagles over Serbia"). However, it remains metaphysical at heart.
Perhaps the inevitable embrace of death reinforces Hegel’s words about the Master and the Slave: "Through death, the certainty has been established that each has risked his life, and that each has cast a disdainful eye towards death, both in himself and in the other."
While the novel is hardly optimistic ("I knew there was no escape from the ice"), it does manage to stare down death with a modicum of disdain.
The challenge for the rest of us is to find an other and to demonstrate as much tenderness as possible before the ice comes.
"Self Portrait" by Anna Kavan
[From an Exhibition accompanying Victoria Walker's Presentation "Anna Kavan and the Politics of Madness" as part of the Exhibition "Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors" at the Freud Museum from 10 October 2013 - 2 February 2014]
There is a podcast of Victoria's Presentation here:
"Untitled 29" by Anna Kavan
SOUNDTRACK:
Fever Ray - "If I Had A Heart"
This Mortal Coil - "A Heart of Glass"
Lisa Gerrard - "Come Tenderness"
Carta - "Kavan"
Wiki: San Francisco post-rock band Carta entitled their song "Kavan" on their album "The Glass Bottom Boat" after Anna Kavan. The song was subsequently released as a remix by The Declining Winter on their album "Haunt the Upper Hallways".
January 20, 2018
Foreword, by Jonathan Lethem
--Ice
Afterword, by Kate Zambreno
--Ice
Afterword, by Kate Zambreno
January 25, 2025
I love a surreal 'post apocalyptic' novella discussing climate change and it's now... not so surreal aftermath!!!
this book was published in 1967 and it gives for so much discussion on climate change, surrealism and humanities response to a climate catastrophe. reading this in 2025 was INSANE, I felt my jaw fall to the floor due to how scary MANY of the societal attitudes and reflections on our planet was... it all felt too oddly familiar. the setting of this was so eerie and I could vividly picture everything. I did unfortunately find that this slowed significantly in the middle of the novel, despite it being under 200 pages and I struggled to connect to any of the characters which was such a shame! but the setting oh my
some quotes I adored / think need to be highlighted in our current world climate:
~ 'there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, no victims; nothing but frozen silent, absence of life. the ultimate achievement of mankind would be, not just self-destruction, but the destruction of all life; the transformation of the living world into a dead planet' (this was written in the 60s btw!!!!)
~ 'the moon's dead eye watching the death of our world.'
~ 'pale cliffs looming, radiating dead cold, ghostly avengers coming to end mankind. I knew the ice was closing in around us, my own eyes had seen the ominous moving wall. I knew it was coming closer each moment, and would go on advancing until all life was extinct.'
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
this book was published in 1967 and it gives for so much discussion on climate change, surrealism and humanities response to a climate catastrophe. reading this in 2025 was INSANE, I felt my jaw fall to the floor due to how scary MANY of the societal attitudes and reflections on our planet was... it all felt too oddly familiar. the setting of this was so eerie and I could vividly picture everything. I did unfortunately find that this slowed significantly in the middle of the novel, despite it being under 200 pages and I struggled to connect to any of the characters which was such a shame! but the setting oh my
some quotes I adored / think need to be highlighted in our current world climate:
~ 'there would soon be only ice, snow, stillness, death; no more violence, no war, no victims; nothing but frozen silent, absence of life. the ultimate achievement of mankind would be, not just self-destruction, but the destruction of all life; the transformation of the living world into a dead planet' (this was written in the 60s btw!!!!)
~ 'the moon's dead eye watching the death of our world.'
~ 'pale cliffs looming, radiating dead cold, ghostly avengers coming to end mankind. I knew the ice was closing in around us, my own eyes had seen the ominous moving wall. I knew it was coming closer each moment, and would go on advancing until all life was extinct.'
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
June 24, 2024
ظاهراً جدا از این کتاب، نویسنده رو به خاطر مشکلات شخصی و بیماریها� ذهنی و اعتیادش به هروئین میشناس�
یخ� پاره هم دقیقاً حس خوندن کتابی رو میدا� که کسی با چنین پیش� زمینها� اون رو نوشته باشه. شبیه یه خواب بد. مردی تو دنیایی سرمازده، تیره و تار و در حال نابودی دنبال دختری میگرد� که قبلاً باهاش رابطه� نه چندان سالمی داشته. نه شخصیته� و نه مکانه� اسم نداشتن. حتی اصلا مشخص نیست شخصیتها� واقعیا� یا توهم. و شیوه� روایت گیجکنندها� که زاویهدی� به طرز عجیب غریبی تغییر میکر�
فکر کنم این چیزیه که بهش میگ� جریان سیال ذهن. شاید اگه حجم کمتری داشت بیشتر خوشم میومد چون از صد صفحه به بعد واقعاً خستها� کرد
یخ� پاره هم دقیقاً حس خوندن کتابی رو میدا� که کسی با چنین پیش� زمینها� اون رو نوشته باشه. شبیه یه خواب بد. مردی تو دنیایی سرمازده، تیره و تار و در حال نابودی دنبال دختری میگرد� که قبلاً باهاش رابطه� نه چندان سالمی داشته. نه شخصیته� و نه مکانه� اسم نداشتن. حتی اصلا مشخص نیست شخصیتها� واقعیا� یا توهم. و شیوه� روایت گیجکنندها� که زاویهدی� به طرز عجیب غریبی تغییر میکر�
فکر کنم این چیزیه که بهش میگ� جریان سیال ذهن. شاید اگه حجم کمتری داشت بیشتر خوشم میومد چون از صد صفحه به بعد واقعاً خستها� کرد
March 3, 2025
The oddness of Anna Kavan's Ice doesn’t stem so much from any incoherence in the plot than the disjointedness of the narration, leaving the reader unable to connect to neither characters nor universe, leaves them cold, as the title itself suggests. So why read such a book? Because it still does have its merits, it deftly draws a nightmarish world, being progressively covered by ice, a hostile secret government and the threat of nuclear destruction.
Suitably, I felt not very good reading this, as it kept on throwing flashes of the current situation of our world at me, I hated the interaction between the ice-maiden and the nameless lead character who keeps on bullying and mistreating her. It was a fever-dreamish, nightmarish read, but it gave me stuff to think about.
Finally, I appreciated the epilogue which explains what slip stream literature is, and although it sounds like totally my jam, this wasn’t quite.
Suitably, I felt not very good reading this, as it kept on throwing flashes of the current situation of our world at me, I hated the interaction between the ice-maiden and the nameless lead character who keeps on bullying and mistreating her. It was a fever-dreamish, nightmarish read, but it gave me stuff to think about.
Finally, I appreciated the epilogue which explains what slip stream literature is, and although it sounds like totally my jam, this wasn’t quite.
November 4, 2017
Elimde okunacak kitaplarım olmasına rağmen okuma yapamadığımda bazı yöntemlere başvuruyorum. Bunlardan biri de ilgimi çeken herhangi bir kitabı almak ve onu okumaya çalışmak.
Geçen hafta yorumlarına güvendiğim ve ilgiyle takip ettiğim kullanıcılardan sevgili M. tarafından bu kitap önerisini aldım. Geçen haftasonu da başka kitaplarla beraber satın aldım.
Havanın bir anda soğuduğu ve eve resmen donarak döndüğüm, hasta olmama ramak kaldığı bir gece aldığım kitaplar başcumda duruyorken Buz'un önsözünü merak ettim ve sadece o kısmı okuyup uyuma kararı aldım. -ki saat 02.00 civarındaydı- Önsöze bayıldım. Yusuf Atılgan ve eşinin Anna Kavan'ın Buz'unu nasıl sevdiklerini, çevirisinin yapılması için nasıl ilgilendiklerini öğrendim. 17 sayfalık sunuş bu kadar sevmemin üzerine kitabın çevirisi için de beklentilerim yükseldi. Hayal kırıklığına da uğramadım.. Harika bir çeviri bekliyor okuru.
Kitabı bitirmenin üzerine The Guardian'dan bir makale okudum. Anna Kavan'ın eserlerinde karakterlerin ve mekanların isimlerinin genellikle olmadığı, ana karakterin isimsiz yaratılan bu evrende bize yol göstermesi gerektiği fakat çoğunlukla hayallere ve düşüncelere daldığı için bunu yapmadığı, hatta okuru 'güvensizliğe' ittiğinden bahsediliyor. Hissettiğim bu güvensizlik eşsizdi, kitapların dışındaki dünyada bireylerin size hissettirdiği bazı duyguları bir kitap karakterinin bu derece sağlayabilmesi çok güzeldi.
Distopik unsurlar bulundurmakla beraber kitabın tamamen distopya veya bilim kurgu edebiyatı sınıflandırmasına maruz kalmasına karşı çıkıyorum. Kitapçılara gittiğinizde bu sınıflandırma nedeniyle 'bilim kurgu' kısımlarına konulan bu eser yayımlandığı yılın (1967) en iyi bilim kurgu kitabı seçilmiş. Benim gibi buna aslında katılmayan fakat kitabı bu kategoride aday gösteren kişi, 'önemli olan yazarın eserlerinin okunması için insanları teşvik etmekti' diyerek savunuyor kendini. Makul bir argüman.
Buz, imgesel anlatımın yoğunluğunun hissedildiği, katmanlarıyla sizi saran, zaman kavramını yitirmenize sebep olan, 180 sayfa olsa da belki de 500 sayfalık bir romanın tatminini veren bir kitap. Bir kadın yazarın, bir erkeğin saplantılarını ve duygularını okurun içinin buz kesmesine sebep olacak şekilde anlatabilmesi, o soğukluğu hissettirebilmesi ise çok büyük bir başarı. Yazarı çok sevdim, mutlaka diğer kitaplarını da edineceğim.
P.S. M. in yorumu 'spoiler' nedeniyle gizlenmiş olduğundan kitabı bitirdikten sonra okudum. Yakalayamadığım birkaç ayrıntıyı da bu sayede öğrenip 'aaooaaoo' diyerek dolaştım evde, kendisine beni Anna Kavan ile tanıştırdığı için teşekkür ediyorum :)
Keyifli ve bol okumalı haftasonları diliyorum!
Geçen hafta yorumlarına güvendiğim ve ilgiyle takip ettiğim kullanıcılardan sevgili M. tarafından bu kitap önerisini aldım. Geçen haftasonu da başka kitaplarla beraber satın aldım.
Havanın bir anda soğuduğu ve eve resmen donarak döndüğüm, hasta olmama ramak kaldığı bir gece aldığım kitaplar başcumda duruyorken Buz'un önsözünü merak ettim ve sadece o kısmı okuyup uyuma kararı aldım. -ki saat 02.00 civarındaydı- Önsöze bayıldım. Yusuf Atılgan ve eşinin Anna Kavan'ın Buz'unu nasıl sevdiklerini, çevirisinin yapılması için nasıl ilgilendiklerini öğrendim. 17 sayfalık sunuş bu kadar sevmemin üzerine kitabın çevirisi için de beklentilerim yükseldi. Hayal kırıklığına da uğramadım.. Harika bir çeviri bekliyor okuru.
Kitabı bitirmenin üzerine The Guardian'dan bir makale okudum. Anna Kavan'ın eserlerinde karakterlerin ve mekanların isimlerinin genellikle olmadığı, ana karakterin isimsiz yaratılan bu evrende bize yol göstermesi gerektiği fakat çoğunlukla hayallere ve düşüncelere daldığı için bunu yapmadığı, hatta okuru 'güvensizliğe' ittiğinden bahsediliyor. Hissettiğim bu güvensizlik eşsizdi, kitapların dışındaki dünyada bireylerin size hissettirdiği bazı duyguları bir kitap karakterinin bu derece sağlayabilmesi çok güzeldi.
Distopik unsurlar bulundurmakla beraber kitabın tamamen distopya veya bilim kurgu edebiyatı sınıflandırmasına maruz kalmasına karşı çıkıyorum. Kitapçılara gittiğinizde bu sınıflandırma nedeniyle 'bilim kurgu' kısımlarına konulan bu eser yayımlandığı yılın (1967) en iyi bilim kurgu kitabı seçilmiş. Benim gibi buna aslında katılmayan fakat kitabı bu kategoride aday gösteren kişi, 'önemli olan yazarın eserlerinin okunması için insanları teşvik etmekti' diyerek savunuyor kendini. Makul bir argüman.
Buz, imgesel anlatımın yoğunluğunun hissedildiği, katmanlarıyla sizi saran, zaman kavramını yitirmenize sebep olan, 180 sayfa olsa da belki de 500 sayfalık bir romanın tatminini veren bir kitap. Bir kadın yazarın, bir erkeğin saplantılarını ve duygularını okurun içinin buz kesmesine sebep olacak şekilde anlatabilmesi, o soğukluğu hissettirebilmesi ise çok büyük bir başarı. Yazarı çok sevdim, mutlaka diğer kitaplarını da edineceğim.
P.S. M. in yorumu 'spoiler' nedeniyle gizlenmiş olduğundan kitabı bitirdikten sonra okudum. Yakalayamadığım birkaç ayrıntıyı da bu sayede öğrenip 'aaooaaoo' diyerek dolaştım evde, kendisine beni Anna Kavan ile tanıştırdığı için teşekkür ediyorum :)
Keyifli ve bol okumalı haftasonları diliyorum!
July 31, 2017
The atmosphere was changing round me; suddenly there was a chill, as if the warm air had passed over ice. I felt a sudden uncomprehended terror, like the sensation that comes in nightmares just before one begins to fall.
As if written in one long, fretful breath, Ice plunges the reader directly into the cold dark waters of confusion. To say nothing is as it seems would be putting it lightly. Perception changes from one paragraph to the next, keeping us teetering and anxious. We meet, or think we meet, an unnamed narrator, a warden, a girl and her husband and are warned identification was nothing but an illusion.
The girl is ghostlike, frail, fading away and elusive. She is our weakness, our frailty, the shimmering ache of broken bones and the cowering tremble of our fears. She is hope glimpsed way off in the distance, always shadowy and just out of reach, and we endure endless feats and fight deadly battles to find her, to reach and capture our salvation. The descriptions of her delicate and glittering physical appearance are haunting and lovely. Her hair is the color of moonlight, her skin transparent, she could not stand the intense cold, she shivered continually, broke in pieces like a Venetian glass.
The imagery in Ice is of a desolate, harrowing world of mystery, terror and paranoia. Perhaps this is what the world will be once our minds deteriorate. Our vision shattered and skewed. Reality nothing but a desolate landscape, clattering teeth, strangers with hollow eyes, shapeless disorder, a town of sandcastles, wrecked by the tide.
The constant victimization of the girl, her weakness, her absolute reliance on those who sadistically torment her, allows us to conceivably understand the utter helplessness that Kavan herself endured during her years of being institutionalized.
I am not sure how one would classify a novel such as this. I found it frustrating, breathless, uncomfortable and somehow incredibly relevant. It was a miracle, a flashback to something dreamed.
As if written in one long, fretful breath, Ice plunges the reader directly into the cold dark waters of confusion. To say nothing is as it seems would be putting it lightly. Perception changes from one paragraph to the next, keeping us teetering and anxious. We meet, or think we meet, an unnamed narrator, a warden, a girl and her husband and are warned identification was nothing but an illusion.
The girl is ghostlike, frail, fading away and elusive. She is our weakness, our frailty, the shimmering ache of broken bones and the cowering tremble of our fears. She is hope glimpsed way off in the distance, always shadowy and just out of reach, and we endure endless feats and fight deadly battles to find her, to reach and capture our salvation. The descriptions of her delicate and glittering physical appearance are haunting and lovely. Her hair is the color of moonlight, her skin transparent, she could not stand the intense cold, she shivered continually, broke in pieces like a Venetian glass.
The imagery in Ice is of a desolate, harrowing world of mystery, terror and paranoia. Perhaps this is what the world will be once our minds deteriorate. Our vision shattered and skewed. Reality nothing but a desolate landscape, clattering teeth, strangers with hollow eyes, shapeless disorder, a town of sandcastles, wrecked by the tide.
The constant victimization of the girl, her weakness, her absolute reliance on those who sadistically torment her, allows us to conceivably understand the utter helplessness that Kavan herself endured during her years of being institutionalized.
I am not sure how one would classify a novel such as this. I found it frustrating, breathless, uncomfortable and somehow incredibly relevant. It was a miracle, a flashback to something dreamed.
November 15, 2024
I have no idea what was happening in this book. It has a nightmarish trippy feel to it. You are free to interpret this book 100 different ways, it is that surreal with an unreliable narrator (obsession would be the obvious theme). But it was surprisingly readable and beautiful. I loved the cold and icy environment. If you love David Lynch’s weird movies you should give this a try.
In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.
***
It was a miracle, a flashback to something dreamed. Then another shock, the sensation of a violent awakening, as it dawned on me that this was the reality, and those other things the dream. All of a sudden the life I had lately been living appeared unreal: it simply was not credible any longer.
***
He told me about the hallucination of space-time, and the joining of past and future so that either could be the present, and all ages accessible.
***
The hallucination of one moment did not fit the reality of the next.
2024 Update:
Not as impressed and mesmerized on a reread, this book is pure vibes, the way to “enjoy� it is to surrender to its feverish hallucinatory ramblings and not think about it too closely. Or maybe I’m just a different reader now, 4 years later. I couldn't even finish it this time.
In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.
***
It was a miracle, a flashback to something dreamed. Then another shock, the sensation of a violent awakening, as it dawned on me that this was the reality, and those other things the dream. All of a sudden the life I had lately been living appeared unreal: it simply was not credible any longer.
***
He told me about the hallucination of space-time, and the joining of past and future so that either could be the present, and all ages accessible.
***
The hallucination of one moment did not fit the reality of the next.
2024 Update:
Not as impressed and mesmerized on a reread, this book is pure vibes, the way to “enjoy� it is to surrender to its feverish hallucinatory ramblings and not think about it too closely. Or maybe I’m just a different reader now, 4 years later. I couldn't even finish it this time.
December 2, 2018
Sometimes, however critically lauded a book may be, you just don't click with it in any way, shape, or form. Sadly, that was very much the case for me here. In fact, I found this such a maddeningly impenetrable slog that I was reading purely to get it over with.
If some novels are dreamlike, this one is a nightmare, both in content and reading experience. The reader is held at such a distance that almost no narrative or thematic sense can be derived. The plot jumps in time, and shifts in and out of hallucinations practically mid-sentence; the perspective switches between first-person and omniscient third-person on the fly; characters and places remain unnamed; context and backstory are completely lacking; and instances of violence towards the prominent female character are so commonplace that it becomes gratuitous. I'm not adverse to strange fiction at all, but I need it to be grounded in some way, and this was entirely hallucinogenic, with nothing reliable to guide us through.
I'm sure there's symbolic meaning hidden under all the meandering, and perhaps if I'd read the book at another time, when I could have given it greater patience and consideration, I might have been able to find some of it. I also nearly added an extra star on to my rating for the admittedly beautiful prose employed at times to paint the threatening, icy landscape. But put bluntly, I wanted to throw the book at the wall too many times to warrant a higher rating.
Kavan's own author bio alludes to her heroin addiction and mental health struggles. If this book is supposed to reflect the utterly disorientating and alienating experience of her personal demons, essentially inviting us into an extended fever dream, then it's highly successful. But with sense and meaning so greatly obscured, I felt no emotional resonance whatsoever. I hoped I would love this, but it simply wasn't an engaging or rewarding reading experience in any capacity.
If some novels are dreamlike, this one is a nightmare, both in content and reading experience. The reader is held at such a distance that almost no narrative or thematic sense can be derived. The plot jumps in time, and shifts in and out of hallucinations practically mid-sentence; the perspective switches between first-person and omniscient third-person on the fly; characters and places remain unnamed; context and backstory are completely lacking; and instances of violence towards the prominent female character are so commonplace that it becomes gratuitous. I'm not adverse to strange fiction at all, but I need it to be grounded in some way, and this was entirely hallucinogenic, with nothing reliable to guide us through.
I'm sure there's symbolic meaning hidden under all the meandering, and perhaps if I'd read the book at another time, when I could have given it greater patience and consideration, I might have been able to find some of it. I also nearly added an extra star on to my rating for the admittedly beautiful prose employed at times to paint the threatening, icy landscape. But put bluntly, I wanted to throw the book at the wall too many times to warrant a higher rating.
Kavan's own author bio alludes to her heroin addiction and mental health struggles. If this book is supposed to reflect the utterly disorientating and alienating experience of her personal demons, essentially inviting us into an extended fever dream, then it's highly successful. But with sense and meaning so greatly obscured, I felt no emotional resonance whatsoever. I hoped I would love this, but it simply wasn't an engaging or rewarding reading experience in any capacity.
September 10, 2016
She herself did not seem quite real. She was pale and almost transparent, the victim I used for my own enjoyment in dreams.
Likely 2.5 stars. Ice is a mess of symbols running amok amongst myriad time signatures, the headlines being transposed into morality fables and a strange girl with silver hair insisting for 209 pages that No Means No. Kavan deftly assembles a nightmarish sound stage. It certainly exhibits the slipping mechanics and logic of our slumbers. It simply grew flat. The Ice Age is coming and I should think about my lemurs -- but wait, I risk my neck again and pursue my other half, even if she can't stand to be in the same time zone. I was fortunate to watch Fassbinder's World on a Wire the other day and despite toying with the same tropes, Fassbinder's film never flinched nor felt out of step. This did, unfortunately.
Likely 2.5 stars. Ice is a mess of symbols running amok amongst myriad time signatures, the headlines being transposed into morality fables and a strange girl with silver hair insisting for 209 pages that No Means No. Kavan deftly assembles a nightmarish sound stage. It certainly exhibits the slipping mechanics and logic of our slumbers. It simply grew flat. The Ice Age is coming and I should think about my lemurs -- but wait, I risk my neck again and pursue my other half, even if she can't stand to be in the same time zone. I was fortunate to watch Fassbinder's World on a Wire the other day and despite toying with the same tropes, Fassbinder's film never flinched nor felt out of step. This did, unfortunately.
September 7, 2020
Buz, eline alıp on sayfa okuyan herkesin fark edeceği gibi, anlaması da yorumlaması da zor bir roman. Üstüne üstlük, benim okurluk yolculuğumda hiç yaklaşmadığım bir bölgeden geliyor.
The New Yorker'da okuduğum yazıda Buz'un sinemada Godard'dan falan bildiğimiz Yeni Dalga'nın bilim kurgu uzantısı diyebileceğimiz "new wave science fiction" ile olan ilişkisinden bahsediyor. Türcü değilim, zaten postmodern çağda bu ayrımlarında da pek bir önemi kalmadı, örneğin yazıda da bahsi geçen Ishiguro'nun romanları da bilim kurgu yahut fantastik etiketi altına girse de, bunların hiçbiri klasik fantastik ve bilim kurgu eserleri olarak görülemez; bu yüzden de önsözdeki yazıda bilim kurgu-bilim kurgu değil tartışmasını lüzumsuz bulmuştum; ama aslında mesele buymuş. Bir araba laf edip "yeni dalga bilim kurgu" lafını ağzınıza almamayı nasıl başardınız Anna Kavan'dan bahsederken şaşırıyorum gerçekten.
Neymiş bu yeni dalga bilim kurgu diye araştırdım, kitabın anlaşılmasında önemli olduğuna inandığım için şöyle bir özet alıntılayacağım:
Yeni Dalga (New Wave), 1960 ve 1970’lerde bilim kurguya yeni bakış açılarının getirildiği, deneysel metinlerin öne çıktığı bir akımdır. İçinde birçok tema ve türden eser bulundurur ancak bunlar genelde hard sci-fi çerçevesinde olmaz. Yeni dalgacılar teknolojik gelişmelerin değil; politika, psikoloji, toplum bilim gibi sosyal bilimlerin ya da felsefenin öne çıktığı ve genelde alternatif toplum biçimlerinin sorgulandığı kurgulara önem verirler. Bu teknoloji karşıtlığında, doğaya dönüşün kurtuluş olduğunu söyleyen William Morris’in etkisi de yadsınamaz. Akımın en önemli temsilcisi J. G. Ballard, bilim kurgunun uzaya sıkışıp kalmaması gerektiğini savunur. “Asıl yabancı gezegen dünyamızdır.� der ve geleceğin bugünü anlamakta geçmişten daha etkili bir araç olduğunu vurgular. Böylelikle feminizm, LGBTİ, beat, punk ve anarşizm gibi birçok alt kültürü de içinde barındırır. Bu dönemde bilimkurgunun tanımı genişlemiş ve farklı bir boyuta evrilmiştir.
Kaynak: Yazının devamı da son derece ilgi çekici bu arada, yazan kişiyi tebrik ederim. Yazıda geçmeyen bir şeyi de ekleyeyim, bu akım modernist geleneğin bir parçası olarak konumlanıyor, zaten Anna Kavan'ın Kafka ile olan bağlantısından ve katı biçimci yaklaşımından bunu anlayabiliyoruz.
Kitabın nasıl bir yerden geldiğini tespit ettikten sonra kitabın içeriğine geçelim; The New Yorker'daki yazıda kitabın otobiyografik parçalarından, bilhassa "Kız" karakterinin Anna Kavan ile olan bağından bahsediyordu, zaten Anna Kavan ile ilgili hiçbir şey bilmeseniz bile bunu tahmin ediyorsunuz, ama o yazı yine de kafanızda bu resmin iyice netleşmesini sağlıyor: Anna Kavan'ın ilk kocasıyla yaşadığı -kitaptan yola çıkarak rahatça taciz-tecavüz diye adlandırabileceğimiz- cinsel sorunlar ve ressam olan ikinci kocası gibi şeyleri romanda görebiliyoruz. Anna Kavan'ın annesiyle yaşadığı sorunlar önsözde de belirtiliyor zaten, kitapta sıkça buna da değiniliyor; ama önsöze şöyle bir eleştiri getirebilirim belki, odak noktasını çok fazla Kavan'ın annesine çekiyor, ki romanda annesiyle ilgili şeyleri görsek de, Buz'da Kavan'ın kocalarının, annesine oranla daha çok yer kapladığını düşünüyorum .
Ben romanın Kafkaesk tarafında dikkat çekmek istiyorum. Kafkaesk'in en bariz özelliği, bir nevi "muhafız" rolüne bürünen halktır; bireyi, beğeni ya da yergi yoluyla, güzellik ile yahut zor kullanarak, tehdit ederek ya da ödüllendirerek törpüler ve kendisine benzetmeye çalışır. Imre Kertesz'in Kafkaesk romanı Fiyasko'yu, hem Buz'a olan benzerliğinden ötürü, hem de gördüğüm en yetkin Kafkaesk romanlardan biri olma sebebiyle bolca andım bu romanı okurken, ben şahsen Fiyasko'yu çok daha fazla sevdim. Fiyasko Kafkaesk'in en net anlatımlarından biridir. Buz için de faydalı bir perspektif sağlayacaktır. Kertesz'in Nazi kamplarında kaldığını da göz önünde bulundurursak, Kafkaesk'i onun kadar iyi anlayan bir yazarın olması da zordur.
Anna Kavan ise, Kafkaesk'i hem Kafka gibi ebeveyni yüzünden deneyimlemiştir, hem de -belki de- Kertesz'inki kadar zor olan erkek baskısı/şiddeti (şiddetin farklı biçimleri olacağını hatırlatıyorum) görerek.
Bu yüzden karakterleri de yine Kafkaesk düzlemde ele alabileceğimizi düşünüyorum. Kız, iradesi yok edilmiş, sömürülen, şiddet gören, tecavüze uğrayan, ama yine de karşı koyamayan biri; hatta -Anna Kavan'ın inanılmaz sert anlatımıyla- kendisine tecavüz eden kişiye vücudunun ufak hareketleriyle kolaylık sağlıyor. Sesi yok, neredeyse roman boyunca birkaç cümleden fazlasını kurmuyor; yalnızca Anlatıcı'ya ondan iğrendiğini söylüyor. Kız'ın motivasyonları, tercihleri, düşünceleri hep kapalı, ki bunu sadece okur değil, Anlatıcı da böyle görüyor. Kız'ın neyi niçin yaptığını idrak edemiyor.
Anlatıcı ile Muhafız arasındaki ilişki son derece ilginç; Anlatıcı Muhafız ile aynı kişi olduğundan şüphelendiğini defalarca dile getiriyor; ama buradaki özdeşliği aynı kişi oldukları yönünde okumak bana biraz kolaycı geliyor. Buradaki Anlatıcı-Muhafız ilişkisi, bence son derece başarıyla yaratılmış bir otorite ve otoriteyi yaratan ilişkisi. Ne demek bu? Otoriteyi yaratan halk, otoriteyi kendisinden bir parça olarak çıkarır; uzaktan gelmez, halkın içinden, halk tarafından seçilir ve otoriteye dönüştürülür; otorite, otoriteyi yaratanın hayal ettiği ve edebildiği bir yerdedir ve arzu nesnesi olmayı bu şekilde sürdürür; tıpkı bu şekilde, başarı da, toplumun arzularına sahip olmaktır, kendi arzularını ve hedeflerini belirleyen kişi başarılı bir olarak kabul edilmez. Örneğin bitki morfolojisiyle uğraşan biri, kendi önemsediği ve umursadığı şeylerle istediği kadar uğraşsın, istediği sonuçları elde etsin, gıptayla bakılan biri hâline gelemez, doğal olarak da tasvip edilen biri olmaz. Tasvip edilmenin ön şartı arzu edilebilir olmaktır. Bu koşllarda, basit bir mantıkla söyleyecek olursak, arzu edilen kişi de toplumun kurallarına göre oynayan, toplumun arzu ettiği şeylerin bir kısmına sahip olan kişidir. Yani otorite, otoriteyi yaratanın bir yansımasıdır.
Buz'da, Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'la sık sık özdeşleştiğini, onunla aynı şeye (Kız'a) ilgi duyduğunu, onun gibi olmak istediğini ve ona duyduğu hayranlığı, bütün bunlarla birlikte ondan korktuğunu, zaman zaman baş kaldırmaya çalıştığını ama her seferinde Muhafız'ın neredeyse erotik bir şekilde betimlenen kudreti yüzünden geri çekilmek zorunda kaldığını okuyoruz.
Muhafız, Kız'ın üstünde Anlatıcı'dan çok daha etkili, hatta Kız'ı yanında tutmak için zor kullanmasına dahi gerek kalmıyor; ama Muhafız'ın olmadığı yerde de Anlatıcı Kız'ın üstünde güçlü bir otorite kuruyor. Eril otorite, hem psikolojik hem de fiziksel olarak zayıf Kız'ın üstünde kolaylıkla söz sahibi oluyor roman boyunca.
Kafka'nın romanlarındakinden daha da karanlık bir roman okuyoruz. En azından orada ezilen, törpülenen karakterin sesini duyabiliyor iken, burada o da ortada kalkıyor ve otorite tarafından ezilse dahi otoritenin içinde kendine yer bulabilen (aynı zamanda otoritenin birileri ezmesinin de müsebbibi olan) Anlatıcı'dan dinliyoruz hikâyeyi. Benim klasik distopyalarda gördüğüm en büyük eksiklik Buz'da böylece harika bir anlatımla kendine yer bulmuş. Klasik distopyalarda hemen her zaman "yukarıdakiler" aşağıdakileri piyon gibi kullanır, hiçbir fırsat tanımaz, mutlak otoritedir. Oysa durum bu değildir, yukarıdaki ile aşağıdaki düzenli bir etkileşim hâlindedir, ezilen bireydir, Kız'dır.
Zaten roman boyunca da kız fırsat buldukça kaçıyor, Anlatıcı ve Muhafız onun peşine düşüyor. Bireyin yok edilmesi, bütün sivri uçlarının törpülenmesi otoritenin nihai amacı, ki romanın sonunda bu amaca ulaşılıyor.
Aynı zamanda roman boyunca Anlatıcı'nın elde ettiği şan-şöhret ve başarı hikâyelerine tanık oluyoruz. Bu bölümlerin, farklı türde olsa da, anlatıcının bilinç akışı olduğunu söyleyebiliriz sanırım. Bu görü ve vizyonlarda, artık adına ne dersek, zaman zaman Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'ın gözünde değerli hâle geldiğini, zaman zaman bir tür otoriteye dönüştüğünü ve Muhafız'a başkaldırdığını, zaman zaman da Kız'ın öldürüldüğünü görüyoruz; Kız'ın defalarca öldürülmesi de bu bağlamda otoritenin ve kalabalığın bireyi yok etme arzusuyla açıklanabilir.
Romanın sonlarına doğru, Anlatıcı Kız'ı elde ettiği zaman ne yapacağını bilemiyor ve onu terk ediyor, çünkü Muhafız artık onun peşinde değil, zaten öncesinde Muhafız Anlatıcı'ya Kız'ı öldürdüğünü söylüyor; Anlatıcı için Kız'ı değerli kılan şey Muhafız'ın ilgisi. Araba kovalayan bir köpek gibi, yalnızca kovalıyor, elde ettiğinde ise ne yapacağını bilemiyor, çünkü elde ettiğinde, Muhafız'ın yapmayı tercih etmediği bir şeyi yapmış durumda. Muhafız'ın hâlâ Kız'ın peşinde olduğunu öğrendiğinde ise, bin bir eziyetle Kız'a tekrar ulaşıyor ve tıpkı Muhafız'ın Kız'ı kaçırdığı zaman olduğu gibi bir yolculuğa girişiyorlar. Bu bağlamda aslında Muhafız ile Anlatıcı'nın aynı kişi olmadığını, Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'a, otoriteye dönüşmek isteyen biri olduğunu açıkça görebiliyoruz, annesini, babasını yahut filmlerde gördüklerini taklit eden bir çocuk gibi, Muhafız ile Kız'ın yolculuğunu taklit ediyor ve tekrar yaşıyorlar. Tıpkı onun gibi askeri başarılar elde ettiğini hatırlayalım. Kız'ın yanına da üstünde bir üniforma ile gidiyor, hatta Kız onu Muhafız zannediyor.
Evet, önce Kız'ın peşinde olan kişi Anlatıcı'ydı, ama dediğim gibi, otorite, sıradan halkın arzularına sahip olan kişidir ve böyle arzu nesnesine dönüşür. Bu yüzden Kız'a Anlatıcı'dan evvel Muhafız "sahip oluyor". Anlatıcı'nın arzu nesnesi de en başta Kız iken, zamanla Muhafız'a dönüşüyor.
Buz metonimisi (ki niye sembolcü dendiğini anlamadım Kavan'a, bunlar sembol değil) sanki bütün bunların ucuzluğunu, otoritenin güçsüzlüğünü bize hatırlatmak için orada. Muhafız ya da Anlatıcı Kız'ın üstünde otorite kurarken, Buz her yeri ve her şeyi yavaş yavaş ele geçiriyor. Ölümün ucundaki hayatlarımızın boşnalığını bizlere gösteriyor.
Bu romanın feminist bir roman olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Kız karakterini yukarıdaki gibi birey olarak okumak mümkün, ki bu da bireyliği anti-eril, feminen bir şey olarak görmek demek; otoritenin her türlüsünü de eril olarak kodlayabiliriz. Buz da, roman boyunca otoritenin her türlüsünü ortaya başarıyla koyan, yukarıdaki mücadelemize rağmen anlamın muğlak kaldığı bir roman. Feminizmin postmodernizmle ilişkili bir kolunda, "anlamın/hakikatin" eril bir şey olduğu söyleniyordu, sürekli değişen, dile gelmeyen ve belki de hiç varolmayan hakikatin yerine, kaba saba, dille putlaştırılmış ve dayatılan, akışkanlığın içinde sabitlenen bir hakikat, düşündüğümüz zaman gerçekten de eril bir şey. Romanın muğlak yapısını belki de bu şekilde yorumlayabiliriz. Yine bu perspektifle, bu yorumun da eril bir yorum olduğunu, Anna Kavan'ın romanın bile isteye muğlak bıraktığı yapısında anlamı sabitleyerek otorite kurmak istediğini söyleyebiliriz.
The New Yorker'da okuduğum yazıda Buz'un sinemada Godard'dan falan bildiğimiz Yeni Dalga'nın bilim kurgu uzantısı diyebileceğimiz "new wave science fiction" ile olan ilişkisinden bahsediyor. Türcü değilim, zaten postmodern çağda bu ayrımlarında da pek bir önemi kalmadı, örneğin yazıda da bahsi geçen Ishiguro'nun romanları da bilim kurgu yahut fantastik etiketi altına girse de, bunların hiçbiri klasik fantastik ve bilim kurgu eserleri olarak görülemez; bu yüzden de önsözdeki yazıda bilim kurgu-bilim kurgu değil tartışmasını lüzumsuz bulmuştum; ama aslında mesele buymuş. Bir araba laf edip "yeni dalga bilim kurgu" lafını ağzınıza almamayı nasıl başardınız Anna Kavan'dan bahsederken şaşırıyorum gerçekten.
Neymiş bu yeni dalga bilim kurgu diye araştırdım, kitabın anlaşılmasında önemli olduğuna inandığım için şöyle bir özet alıntılayacağım:
Yeni Dalga (New Wave), 1960 ve 1970’lerde bilim kurguya yeni bakış açılarının getirildiği, deneysel metinlerin öne çıktığı bir akımdır. İçinde birçok tema ve türden eser bulundurur ancak bunlar genelde hard sci-fi çerçevesinde olmaz. Yeni dalgacılar teknolojik gelişmelerin değil; politika, psikoloji, toplum bilim gibi sosyal bilimlerin ya da felsefenin öne çıktığı ve genelde alternatif toplum biçimlerinin sorgulandığı kurgulara önem verirler. Bu teknoloji karşıtlığında, doğaya dönüşün kurtuluş olduğunu söyleyen William Morris’in etkisi de yadsınamaz. Akımın en önemli temsilcisi J. G. Ballard, bilim kurgunun uzaya sıkışıp kalmaması gerektiğini savunur. “Asıl yabancı gezegen dünyamızdır.� der ve geleceğin bugünü anlamakta geçmişten daha etkili bir araç olduğunu vurgular. Böylelikle feminizm, LGBTİ, beat, punk ve anarşizm gibi birçok alt kültürü de içinde barındırır. Bu dönemde bilimkurgunun tanımı genişlemiş ve farklı bir boyuta evrilmiştir.
Kaynak: Yazının devamı da son derece ilgi çekici bu arada, yazan kişiyi tebrik ederim. Yazıda geçmeyen bir şeyi de ekleyeyim, bu akım modernist geleneğin bir parçası olarak konumlanıyor, zaten Anna Kavan'ın Kafka ile olan bağlantısından ve katı biçimci yaklaşımından bunu anlayabiliyoruz.
Kitabın nasıl bir yerden geldiğini tespit ettikten sonra kitabın içeriğine geçelim; The New Yorker'daki yazıda kitabın otobiyografik parçalarından, bilhassa "Kız" karakterinin Anna Kavan ile olan bağından bahsediyordu, zaten Anna Kavan ile ilgili hiçbir şey bilmeseniz bile bunu tahmin ediyorsunuz, ama o yazı yine de kafanızda bu resmin iyice netleşmesini sağlıyor: Anna Kavan'ın ilk kocasıyla yaşadığı -kitaptan yola çıkarak rahatça taciz-tecavüz diye adlandırabileceğimiz- cinsel sorunlar ve ressam olan ikinci kocası gibi şeyleri romanda görebiliyoruz. Anna Kavan'ın annesiyle yaşadığı sorunlar önsözde de belirtiliyor zaten, kitapta sıkça buna da değiniliyor; ama önsöze şöyle bir eleştiri getirebilirim belki, odak noktasını çok fazla Kavan'ın annesine çekiyor, ki romanda annesiyle ilgili şeyleri görsek de, Buz'da Kavan'ın kocalarının, annesine oranla daha çok yer kapladığını düşünüyorum .
Ben romanın Kafkaesk tarafında dikkat çekmek istiyorum. Kafkaesk'in en bariz özelliği, bir nevi "muhafız" rolüne bürünen halktır; bireyi, beğeni ya da yergi yoluyla, güzellik ile yahut zor kullanarak, tehdit ederek ya da ödüllendirerek törpüler ve kendisine benzetmeye çalışır. Imre Kertesz'in Kafkaesk romanı Fiyasko'yu, hem Buz'a olan benzerliğinden ötürü, hem de gördüğüm en yetkin Kafkaesk romanlardan biri olma sebebiyle bolca andım bu romanı okurken, ben şahsen Fiyasko'yu çok daha fazla sevdim. Fiyasko Kafkaesk'in en net anlatımlarından biridir. Buz için de faydalı bir perspektif sağlayacaktır. Kertesz'in Nazi kamplarında kaldığını da göz önünde bulundurursak, Kafkaesk'i onun kadar iyi anlayan bir yazarın olması da zordur.
Anna Kavan ise, Kafkaesk'i hem Kafka gibi ebeveyni yüzünden deneyimlemiştir, hem de -belki de- Kertesz'inki kadar zor olan erkek baskısı/şiddeti (şiddetin farklı biçimleri olacağını hatırlatıyorum) görerek.
Bu yüzden karakterleri de yine Kafkaesk düzlemde ele alabileceğimizi düşünüyorum. Kız, iradesi yok edilmiş, sömürülen, şiddet gören, tecavüze uğrayan, ama yine de karşı koyamayan biri; hatta -Anna Kavan'ın inanılmaz sert anlatımıyla- kendisine tecavüz eden kişiye vücudunun ufak hareketleriyle kolaylık sağlıyor. Sesi yok, neredeyse roman boyunca birkaç cümleden fazlasını kurmuyor; yalnızca Anlatıcı'ya ondan iğrendiğini söylüyor. Kız'ın motivasyonları, tercihleri, düşünceleri hep kapalı, ki bunu sadece okur değil, Anlatıcı da böyle görüyor. Kız'ın neyi niçin yaptığını idrak edemiyor.
Anlatıcı ile Muhafız arasındaki ilişki son derece ilginç; Anlatıcı Muhafız ile aynı kişi olduğundan şüphelendiğini defalarca dile getiriyor; ama buradaki özdeşliği aynı kişi oldukları yönünde okumak bana biraz kolaycı geliyor. Buradaki Anlatıcı-Muhafız ilişkisi, bence son derece başarıyla yaratılmış bir otorite ve otoriteyi yaratan ilişkisi. Ne demek bu? Otoriteyi yaratan halk, otoriteyi kendisinden bir parça olarak çıkarır; uzaktan gelmez, halkın içinden, halk tarafından seçilir ve otoriteye dönüştürülür; otorite, otoriteyi yaratanın hayal ettiği ve edebildiği bir yerdedir ve arzu nesnesi olmayı bu şekilde sürdürür; tıpkı bu şekilde, başarı da, toplumun arzularına sahip olmaktır, kendi arzularını ve hedeflerini belirleyen kişi başarılı bir olarak kabul edilmez. Örneğin bitki morfolojisiyle uğraşan biri, kendi önemsediği ve umursadığı şeylerle istediği kadar uğraşsın, istediği sonuçları elde etsin, gıptayla bakılan biri hâline gelemez, doğal olarak da tasvip edilen biri olmaz. Tasvip edilmenin ön şartı arzu edilebilir olmaktır. Bu koşllarda, basit bir mantıkla söyleyecek olursak, arzu edilen kişi de toplumun kurallarına göre oynayan, toplumun arzu ettiği şeylerin bir kısmına sahip olan kişidir. Yani otorite, otoriteyi yaratanın bir yansımasıdır.
Buz'da, Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'la sık sık özdeşleştiğini, onunla aynı şeye (Kız'a) ilgi duyduğunu, onun gibi olmak istediğini ve ona duyduğu hayranlığı, bütün bunlarla birlikte ondan korktuğunu, zaman zaman baş kaldırmaya çalıştığını ama her seferinde Muhafız'ın neredeyse erotik bir şekilde betimlenen kudreti yüzünden geri çekilmek zorunda kaldığını okuyoruz.
Muhafız, Kız'ın üstünde Anlatıcı'dan çok daha etkili, hatta Kız'ı yanında tutmak için zor kullanmasına dahi gerek kalmıyor; ama Muhafız'ın olmadığı yerde de Anlatıcı Kız'ın üstünde güçlü bir otorite kuruyor. Eril otorite, hem psikolojik hem de fiziksel olarak zayıf Kız'ın üstünde kolaylıkla söz sahibi oluyor roman boyunca.
Kafka'nın romanlarındakinden daha da karanlık bir roman okuyoruz. En azından orada ezilen, törpülenen karakterin sesini duyabiliyor iken, burada o da ortada kalkıyor ve otorite tarafından ezilse dahi otoritenin içinde kendine yer bulabilen (aynı zamanda otoritenin birileri ezmesinin de müsebbibi olan) Anlatıcı'dan dinliyoruz hikâyeyi. Benim klasik distopyalarda gördüğüm en büyük eksiklik Buz'da böylece harika bir anlatımla kendine yer bulmuş. Klasik distopyalarda hemen her zaman "yukarıdakiler" aşağıdakileri piyon gibi kullanır, hiçbir fırsat tanımaz, mutlak otoritedir. Oysa durum bu değildir, yukarıdaki ile aşağıdaki düzenli bir etkileşim hâlindedir, ezilen bireydir, Kız'dır.
Zaten roman boyunca da kız fırsat buldukça kaçıyor, Anlatıcı ve Muhafız onun peşine düşüyor. Bireyin yok edilmesi, bütün sivri uçlarının törpülenmesi otoritenin nihai amacı, ki romanın sonunda bu amaca ulaşılıyor.
Aynı zamanda roman boyunca Anlatıcı'nın elde ettiği şan-şöhret ve başarı hikâyelerine tanık oluyoruz. Bu bölümlerin, farklı türde olsa da, anlatıcının bilinç akışı olduğunu söyleyebiliriz sanırım. Bu görü ve vizyonlarda, artık adına ne dersek, zaman zaman Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'ın gözünde değerli hâle geldiğini, zaman zaman bir tür otoriteye dönüştüğünü ve Muhafız'a başkaldırdığını, zaman zaman da Kız'ın öldürüldüğünü görüyoruz; Kız'ın defalarca öldürülmesi de bu bağlamda otoritenin ve kalabalığın bireyi yok etme arzusuyla açıklanabilir.
Romanın sonlarına doğru, Anlatıcı Kız'ı elde ettiği zaman ne yapacağını bilemiyor ve onu terk ediyor, çünkü Muhafız artık onun peşinde değil, zaten öncesinde Muhafız Anlatıcı'ya Kız'ı öldürdüğünü söylüyor; Anlatıcı için Kız'ı değerli kılan şey Muhafız'ın ilgisi. Araba kovalayan bir köpek gibi, yalnızca kovalıyor, elde ettiğinde ise ne yapacağını bilemiyor, çünkü elde ettiğinde, Muhafız'ın yapmayı tercih etmediği bir şeyi yapmış durumda. Muhafız'ın hâlâ Kız'ın peşinde olduğunu öğrendiğinde ise, bin bir eziyetle Kız'a tekrar ulaşıyor ve tıpkı Muhafız'ın Kız'ı kaçırdığı zaman olduğu gibi bir yolculuğa girişiyorlar. Bu bağlamda aslında Muhafız ile Anlatıcı'nın aynı kişi olmadığını, Anlatıcı'nın Muhafız'a, otoriteye dönüşmek isteyen biri olduğunu açıkça görebiliyoruz, annesini, babasını yahut filmlerde gördüklerini taklit eden bir çocuk gibi, Muhafız ile Kız'ın yolculuğunu taklit ediyor ve tekrar yaşıyorlar. Tıpkı onun gibi askeri başarılar elde ettiğini hatırlayalım. Kız'ın yanına da üstünde bir üniforma ile gidiyor, hatta Kız onu Muhafız zannediyor.
Evet, önce Kız'ın peşinde olan kişi Anlatıcı'ydı, ama dediğim gibi, otorite, sıradan halkın arzularına sahip olan kişidir ve böyle arzu nesnesine dönüşür. Bu yüzden Kız'a Anlatıcı'dan evvel Muhafız "sahip oluyor". Anlatıcı'nın arzu nesnesi de en başta Kız iken, zamanla Muhafız'a dönüşüyor.
Buz metonimisi (ki niye sembolcü dendiğini anlamadım Kavan'a, bunlar sembol değil) sanki bütün bunların ucuzluğunu, otoritenin güçsüzlüğünü bize hatırlatmak için orada. Muhafız ya da Anlatıcı Kız'ın üstünde otorite kurarken, Buz her yeri ve her şeyi yavaş yavaş ele geçiriyor. Ölümün ucundaki hayatlarımızın boşnalığını bizlere gösteriyor.
Bu romanın feminist bir roman olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Kız karakterini yukarıdaki gibi birey olarak okumak mümkün, ki bu da bireyliği anti-eril, feminen bir şey olarak görmek demek; otoritenin her türlüsünü de eril olarak kodlayabiliriz. Buz da, roman boyunca otoritenin her türlüsünü ortaya başarıyla koyan, yukarıdaki mücadelemize rağmen anlamın muğlak kaldığı bir roman. Feminizmin postmodernizmle ilişkili bir kolunda, "anlamın/hakikatin" eril bir şey olduğu söyleniyordu, sürekli değişen, dile gelmeyen ve belki de hiç varolmayan hakikatin yerine, kaba saba, dille putlaştırılmış ve dayatılan, akışkanlığın içinde sabitlenen bir hakikat, düşündüğümüz zaman gerçekten de eril bir şey. Romanın muğlak yapısını belki de bu şekilde yorumlayabiliriz. Yine bu perspektifle, bu yorumun da eril bir yorum olduğunu, Anna Kavan'ın romanın bile isteye muğlak bıraktığı yapısında anlamı sabitleyerek otorite kurmak istediğini söyleyebiliriz.
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