Ice

Rating:
Summary: Revelations from a supreme visionary
Review: How can one not discuss Anna Kavan first when discussing her work?Ice was last published novel in her lifetime, and also her masterpiece.The plot is quite simply, two men pursue a women who they constantly victimise, against a background of universal annihilation and destruction.However the book defies description, so surrealistic is the prose and so profound is the metaphor.Anna Kavan was a heroin addict for over thirty years, and had suffered two mental breakdowns which resulted in her being institutionalized. However she was a consummate artist who re-invented herself successfully as a avant garde writer (now sadly neglected). Ice is her crowning achievemnt,read it.

Rating:
Summary: beauty there is no escapin
Review: SIMPLE MATTER OF FACTNESS feelings of [ICE] APART,TALES TOLD WITHIN FANTASY underCreation addiction a brave revealing unraveling of[Self] poetic FRENZY,Or a depiction of catrosphy GEoAGE CHANGE, [for the escape into the wEllsOF aIMLeSSness inTO ICEY THE AtTRACTION of follyfeeds the need of the fallen and the forsakenShrouded in HOPELESSNESS,LOVER

Rating:
Summary: beauty there is no escapin
Review: SIMPLE MATTER OF FACTNESS feelings of [ICE] APART,TALES TOLD WITHIN FANTASY underCreation addiction a brave revealing unraveling of[Self] poetic FRENZY,Or a depiction of catrosphy GEoAGE CHANGE, [for the escape into the wEllsOF aIMLeSSness inTO ICEY THE AtTRACTION of follyfeeds the need of the fallen and the forsakenShrouded in HOPELESSNESS,LOVER

Rating:
Summary: Ice by Anna Kavan
Review: When I first read 'Ice' (from Brian Aldiss' published recommendation) I enjoyed it but didn't think it was great. It seemed to me to be about Kavan's struggle with drugs - a struggle she couldn't win. But this was a bit remote for me since I have never taken drugs. Some years later I read another Kavan novel - 'The Eagle's Nest'. This is a hot novel in comparison to the coldness of 'Ice' and, perhaps, more akin to my own personality. Anyway, it encouraged me to read 'Ice' again and now I saw it as so much stronger because it's (to me anyway) not about a futile struggle against drug addiction but something much more cosmic - the futile struggle that we all embark on against death.

I have read more Kavan since then - 'A Scarcity of Love' is great. 'Let Me Alone' is something else again. Will I ever dare reread it?

Rating:
Summary: Ice by Anna Kavan
Review: When I first read 'Ice' (from Brian Aldiss' published recommendation) I enjoyed it but didn't think it was great. It seemed to me to be about Kavan's struggle with drugs - a struggle she couldn't win. But this was a bit remote for me since I have never taken drugs. Some years later I read another Kavan novel - 'The Eagle's Nest'. This is a hot novel in comparison to the coldness of 'Ice' and, perhaps, more akin to my own personality. Anyway, it encouraged me to read 'Ice' again and now I saw it as so much stronger because it's (to me anyway) not about a futile struggle against drug addiction but something much more cosmic - the futile struggle that we all embark on against death.

I have read more Kavan since then - 'A Scarcity of Love' is great. 'Let Me Alone' is something else again. Will I ever dare reread it?