"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

Anna Kavan – Ice

Oh. My. God.How come this novel isn’t up there alongside Ph. K. Dick, Asimov, and the rest of the greatest sci-fi works of our time?

Oh, yeah, it might be because it talks about violence over a woman.

This anxious, delicate masterpiece follows an unreliable, possibly schizophrenic narrator through a world ravaged with violence and unravels its gradually falling apart, while ice relentlessly advances and threatens to cover everything. How? Why? It’s not important. What’s important is the Girl, a woman the narrator is obsessed with, and whose fragility he’s morbidly attracted to. Claiming he wants to save her, he speaks of abuse and control with the same tranquility he uses in detailing the end of the world, of physical violence and the denial of autonomy, flawlessly describing her brittle bones and delicate appearance as the cause for this obsession. Obviously it’s going to be the girl’s fault. That, or the ice.I

It’s a must read.

It should be studied at school.

Ice is a novel by British writer Anna Kavan, published in 1967

architecture, engineering and construction

As-built model vs. AIM: two different things

Last month, I wrote a couple of things aimed at my local market, specifically on the updated norms on BIM for an Exchange Information Requirements and what should be specified inside. In one of those, I mentioned a principle in passing: that the as-built model

Read More »

And here I was, just being civil

A few nights ago, there I was at one of my favourite pubs (it’s this one, in case I’m found dead in a ditch), when an elderly guy approached me. I was sitting at a table, which is uncommon for me, because I had my

Read More »
Share on LinkedIn
Throw on Reddit
Roll on Tumblr
Mail it
No Comments

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RELATED POSTS

As-built model vs. AIM: two different things

Last month, I wrote a couple of things aimed at my local market, specifically on the updated norms on BIM for an Exchange Information Requirements and what should be specified inside. In one of those, I mentioned a principle in passing: that the as-built model

Read More

And here I was, just being civil

A few nights ago, there I was at one of my favourite pubs (it’s this one, in case I’m found dead in a ditch), when an elderly guy approached me. I was sitting at a table, which is uncommon for me, because I had my

Read More