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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.