Ice | 
Not sure what to think of this book, it was hard to keep reading. A narcissistic narrator chasing a pale woman and abusing her, I couldn‘t tell what was real and what was hallucinations. I had high hopes for it.
so-soThis one had been on my radar for a long time so it‘s a shame I didn‘t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. Most of the story is told from the perspective of one hell of an unreliable (and unlikeable) narrator, whose terrible actions brought me close to quitting more than once. And yet there are some things to be enjoyed here, such as …
📚I Am Legend/Ice/If Beale St Could Talk/If On a Winter's Night a Traveler/In a Lonely Place/In the Freud Archives/Invisible Man (Wells & Ellison)/Island of Dr. Moreau/Iza's Ballad
🖋️Ishiguro
🎬 Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)/Inception/I Saw the Devil/Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
🎙️Interpol
🎧It Seemed the Better Way (Cohen)/Insane in the Brain (Cypress Hill)/I'm Going to Break Your Heart (Moon Vs Sun)/ICU (P. Bridgers)/👇
pickI fully expected to love this book, but it actually left me rather cold (sorry 😔). The main character is a narcissistic abuser who repeatedly terrorises the woman who is the target of his obsession, vindictively punishing her when she has the temerity to object.
Yes, it is surreal and has a kaleidoscopically shifting viewpoint in which the characters may actually be aspects of the same fractured personality, but I found it hard to get past the...
From the real-life dystopia of Nazi Europe to the imagined dystopia of glacial climate change. Contrasting the icy conditions of the book with a sunny afternoon tea 🌞
pickA glacial glimpse into an unnamed girl‘s fear, isolation and lost innocence. Almost certainly mirroring the author‘s own fractured persona. The description of a world succumbing to slowly encroaching ice, and society breaking down, is a haunting, hallucinatory dystopian vision.
pickA singular book – the most surreal, dreamlike apocalypse you will ever experience. The narrator on returning to his home country fixates on a childhood love, a frail girl dominated by her mother, now a husband, and then the Warden. As the world is slowly encompassed by ice-age glaciers, the narrator abandons duties to “save” his love. The story slips from “reality” into visions and back again, unsettling any hope to force a plot or storyline.
panAfter a nuclear war, a nuclear winter sets in. As the icesheets spread the narrator (nobody in the book has a name) pursues and attempts to rescue a woman who he considers is in an abusive relationship. Is she? Well, since he sees her get killed or stumbles across her body several times, only for the pursuit to continue in the next chapter, who knows? Some beautiful descriptive writing but I'd've appreciated a much clearer storyline. So-so or pan?
pick“Anna Kavan's Ice is a book like the moon is the moon. There's only one.“-Jonathan Lethem
Our unnamed narrator travels across various landscapes as walls of ice are slowly encroaching, leveling cities & killing millions. News blackouts, secret police, massive civic denials & unrest in the (so far) untouched cities lends them a paranoid & surreal quality that as Lethem writes in the introduction of the book called to mind the mutually assured 👇
Still TBR, here is a brief summary from the back cover, "A novel unlike any other, Ice is at once a dystopian adventure shattering the conventions of science fiction, a prescient warning of climate change & totalitarianism, a feminist exploration of violence & trauma, a speculative literary dreamscape, & a brilliant allegory for its author's struggles with addiction..." Sounds pretty remarkable! #ShesSoCold #AnglophileApril
Another one on my TBR. Praised by Doris Lessing & Ballard, sounds promising!
#IcePrincess
#NoFemmeber
@Cinfhen @Billypar
pickI was in two minds about whether to mark this as a pick or not, honestly it was very confusing and brutal and I spent a lot of it not sure if I was enjoying it or not, but I went for calling it a pick because I was so engrossed while I was reading it, it truly sucked me in, it was so original and the ending made me feel so much. So so weird bleak and nasty, but beautiful in places, I *think* I recommend it? Would love to know what others thought!
This is such a bizarre book. I‘m reading it very slowly for such a short book, and I have no idea if I like it or not. It‘s very engrossing, very dark and it really throws me off to read something so strange, unique and disturbing. I have no idea what‘s going to happen which is a nice feeling
This is an amazing book I‘m reading, but the thing I wanted to share even more is how much happiness and peace I‘ve found making homemade chicken spinach sandwiches and reading library books on my own at lunch. Like everyone else I‘ve been thinking about climate change a lot today, thinking about how I‘m prepared to live differently and work harder, but in the middle of the panic I found a lot of comfort doing my small cheap relaxing thing.
Eating a chocolate croissant thing from Paris Baguette and seeing what's on my Libby. I'm currently listening to Hunger and flirting between the other two books (Ice is very surreal and strange and I need a breather in between)
An after-lunch treat of affogato (nespresso with Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz)
Snowstorm going on outside... Definitely in the mood for some winter reads! Any recommendations?
Penguin is publishing a 50th anniversary edition on November 14th. With a foreword by Jonathan Lethem & an afterword by Kate Zambreno, this is the perfect time to read a book that's been on my TBR for far too long.
bailed
