Anna Kavan’s ICE
A slipstream depiction of sexual predation
Anna Kavan, Ice, (originally published in 1967), 50th Anniversary Edition, Peter Owen Publishers, 2017, Forward by Jonathan Lethem, Afterward by Kate Zambreno.
Ice is a novel that is amenable to multiple interpretations. And it is not likely to be very productive to argue that any one interpretation is the “correct” one. Better, I think, to treat them as more akin to some properties of quantum particles, able to all exist in superposition. This commentary is an offering of my own preferred interpretation.
Reading Ice created in me a strong feeling of apprehension, sometimes even a sense of dread, about what was going to happen next. But a concurrent emotional response elicited while reading this book was an intense feeling of empathy. I felt like I had been given a tiny glimpse into what it might feel like to be a (powerless) child or young woman being victimized by a (powerful) sexual predator.
There are three principal characters. First, a young woman referred to only as The Girl. Second, a sadistic sexual predator, The Warden. Third, an unreliable Narrator, mysterious and unnamed (sometimes referred to as being a military Commander), from whose point of view we learn about most of the events.
Given the life history of the author Anna Kavan,¹ I surmise that she probably constructed this fictional novel in a deliberate manner such as to create in the reader a feeling of empathy towards anyone trapped in that situation. Also, some of Kavan’s chroniclers state that she did not produce her novels from a stream of consciousness, but carefully constructed them with multiple re-writes and edits. I find it fascinating to look at some of the elements of the novel from those perspectives.
I found Kavan’s choice of point of view (POV) to be particularly interesting. The obvious technique for creating empathy for how The Girl felt, one might think, would be to tell the story from her POV. Instead, almost the entire novel is from the POV of the unnamed male Narrator. The only exceptions are 8 short sections (pp. 33, 51, 65, 80, 85, 123, 166, and 180) where the POV shifts briefly to an omniscient narrator who reveals a few details about outside events, and about thoughts happening inside The Girl’s head.
Sometimes empathy can be evoked more powerfully when it is approached obliquely rather than in the form of an outpouring of first-person emoting. I have noticed this while attending open-mike poetry readings. Some poets, especially those who are young and novice, quite literally cry out about the suffering they are personally feeling. These direct approaches can elicit some amount of empathy. However, oftentimes far stronger emotional responses involving empathy are elicited by an indirect accounting of oblique events using a few well-placed images and allusions. Anna Kavan seems to have used this latter approach in her novel, and at least for me, it works.
The structure of the novel also merits analysis. Examined on a large scale, the events in the novel appear to take place in a mostly linear sequence. The Narrator is on a mission to find The Girl and rescue her from The Warden. He arrives at some location, fails to succeed in his mission, then travels on to a new location and tries again. This is repeated for about 15 separate locations over the course of the novel. Finally, in the last chapter, the Narrator “succeeds.” (This last term merits further discussion, below).
However, examined in finer granular detail, the events are far removed from a linear progression. There are abrupt and unexplained changes in time and place that leave the reader disoriented about what is happening. This starts out in the first chapter where the Narrator is traveling to look for The Girl on a dangerous icy road. Suddenly, with no explanation, it is warm and sunny. Then, just as abruptly, it is wintry again. These unexplained abrupt discontinuities in the narrative occur repeated throughout the novel (e.g., pages 20–25, 51–54, 80–83, 96–97, 142, 166–167,179). This technique creates a sense of surrealism and a detachment from reality such that it is difficult for us readers tell whether we are reading about events that are actually happening, fantasies occurring in the Narrators head, or deliberate made up stuff the (unreliable) Narrator is telling us to keep us from learning the truth about what is really happening. Reviews of the novel sometimes refer to this style of writing as slipstream, a term that has also been used to characterize writers such as Kafka whose writing was clearly an influence on Kazan.
Kazan might have employed this slipstream style of writing, at least in part, as a technique to facilitate allowing the reader to experience a tiny taste of something akin to what The Girl was experiencing. Just try to imagine what it might feel like to be in bondage in a soundproof room, not knowing if it was day or night outside the room, being subjected abruptly to unpredictable (sometimes horrific) events and feeling terrorized about what might happen next. Consider snippets of dialogue from The Narrator such as this one,
“I was well aware how sinister my wordless exits and entrances must have seemed [to The Girl].” (p. 142)
All in all, a surrealistic as well as terrifying experience.
The narrative of the story takes place against a background of a pending world-wide climate change disaster. This creates an overall atmosphere of doom and despair, a common theme in the genre of futuristic science fiction. However, the book makes it clear, explicitly at several locations, that this backdrop is meant to be interpreted as an external parallel to the internal psychological world of the characters rather than as the primary storyline driving the plot. For example,
“In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.” (p. 78)
The parallelisms are obvious. The Girl is trapped, sometimes in a soundproof room in bondage undergoing torture and probably impending death, with no possible way to escape. The characters in the novel, including The Narrator, are trapped in a world undergoing destructive climate change that will eventually lead to the extinction of humans, with no possible way to escape.
Biographical information about Kavan reveals that when she wrote reviews earlier in her career while she was employed by a literary magazine, she sometimes adopted a psychoanalytic perspective. Later in life she also had a long-term close friendship with a psychiatrist who provided prescriptions for her ongoing heroin drug habit, and the two of them wrote a book together. Given this background, we might plausibly expect Kavan to have included themes, characters, and situations that have underlying psychological interpretations. I will explore some potential candidates.
A reasonable argument can be made that the two characters identified as The Narrator and The Warden (and perhaps others) are really a single psychotic individual (elaborated further below). That individual is a sexual predator obsessed with victims of a certain type — very thin, vulnerable appearing, young woman (“girls”) with blond hair. We are introduced to the fact that The Narrator fantasizes about torturing girls of this type early on in the first chapter.
“For a moment, my lights [seemed to pick out] like searchlights [a] girl’s naked body, slight as a child’s, ivory white … heard her thin, agonized screams. I felt no pity for her. On the contrary, I derived an indescribable pleasure from seeing her suffer.” (p. 18)
Throughout the book, despite the fact that the Narrator claims to be searching for a single young thin blond, The Girl, in order to save her, his fantasies sound much more like those of a psychopathic sexual predator who enjoys capturing, torturing, and possibly killing, girls of a certain type.
The Girl, instead of being a single individual, is more likely to be several girls. Several elements of the plot do not really make sense if The Girl is the “same girl” throughout the novel. First, it seems strange, and stretches credulity, that wherever The Narrator travels, he just happens to run into the same girl. These inconsistencies are apparent early in the novel when The Narrator sees “The Girl” leaving on board a ship. (p. 38) He later boards a different vessel (a Cargo Boat) leaving from the same port. (p. 40) Surprisingly, as soon as he is on the Cargo Boat he notices
“A girl in a heavy grey coat with a hood was standing a little apart from the other passengers, leaning on the rail.” (p. 41)
He begins to fantasize about her.
“She could not have been more motionless if she had been tied to the rail, and I thought how easily bonds could be hidden by the voluminous coat. A bright band of glittering blonde hair, almost white, escaped from the hood and blew loose in the wind.” (p. 43)
This new girl now becomes The Girl. The issue is never addressed as to how The Girl who left a short time earlier on a different ship and The Girl who mysteriously shows up on the Cargo Boat he has just boarded can be the same person. Similarly at several other places later in the novel.
Another reason for being skeptical about there only being one girl is that “The Girl” appears to be killed more than once during the course of events described in the novel (p. 71, p. 121, possibly again p. 140), and then without explanation reappears later.
As for the particular type of “look” that the Narrator is obsessed with, it appears to be a somewhat bizarre case of art, imitating life, imitating art. The name of the author was not originally Anna Kavan. Biographical accounts state that she was a “plump” looking woman with dark hair early in her life. She wrote a book in which one of the characters was a thin, blond named “Anna Kavan.” At some point later in life, the author entered a mental institution as a patient. When she was released, she was dangerously thin and had dyed her hair blond. She had her name legally changed to “Anna Kavan.”
The Narrator appears to have a number of diagnosable psychological disorders. Two of these are alluded to in the part of the story where The Narrator is arrested and forced to testify in court (pp. 94–98). Exactly what is happening in this section is ambiguous, but we are informed “The case was that a girl had vanished, supposedly kidnapped, possibly murdered.” The Narrator appears to be under the impression that some other person was the accused, and that he was only called to testify as a witness. But he hears a voice in the courtroom, ‘I wish to state that the witness [italic added] is a psychopath, probably schizoid…’
If The Narrator is a psychopath, he could very well be a serial rapist, torturer, and killer of young girls. The other mentioned psychological diagnosis, schizoid personality, is one that can be applied to individuals who feel some form of detachment. There are examples throughout the book consistent with this diagnosis, such as
“I had a curious feeling that I was living on several planes simultaneously…” (p. 68)
“[I] became aware of an odd sort of fragmentation of my ideas. (p. 80)
In extreme cases, feelings of detachment can be so strong that they become diagnosable as psychotic conditions in which the patient has lost contact with reality. The Narrator informs us that just exactly that has been happening to him,
“I was aware of an uncertainty of the real, in my surroundings and in myself.” (p. 45)
One kind of diagnosable condition in which a patient has lost contact with reality is Multiple Personality Disorder. A plausible interpretation of what is happening in the court room section is that a single person is on trial, but that person has two (split) personalities. The first, The Narrator who thinks he is only a witness to the crime that took place; The second, The Warden who the Narrator thinks was responsible for committing the crime.
Somewhat analogous to the well-known fictional characters in Stevenson’s novella, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Narrator who relates the story to us in Ice thinks he is trying to save the girl(s), while his alter-ego, The Warden, is intent of torturing and killing them.
Diagnostically, a Multiple Personality falls within a group of psychoses called Dissociative Disorders. Kavan may have slipped in an early clue about the condition of the Narrator in the first chapter when he states,
“I had dissociated myself” (p. 28)
There is a considerable amount of evidence in the text consistent with the supposition that The Narrator and The Warden are the same person; A single person with Multiple Personality Disorder. Consider the following snippets:
“It was clear that he [The Warden] regarded her as his property. I [The Narrator] considered that she belonged to me. … Her only function might have been to link us together. … [I] felt an indescribable affinity with him, a sort of blood-contact, generating confusion, so that I began to wonder if there were two of us …” (p. 97)
“The man emerged … ‘She’s dead’ … ‘Who killed her?’ … he said ‘I did’ … I looked back at him … I seemed to be looking at my own reflection … not sure which of us was which. (p. 121)
“Suddenly I was entangled in utmost confusion, not sure which one of us was which. We were like halves of one being, joined in some mysterious symbiosis. … I continually found I was not myself, but him.” (p. 122)
“With one arm I warmed and supported her: The other arm was the executioner’s.” (p. 140)
It is also possible that The Narrator shares additional personalities besides The Warden. In the first chapter The Narrator introduces us to “the current husband” of The Girl. Given the evidence we learn later in the book that The Narrator might have multiple personalities, we should probably be suspicious that “the current husband” might in reality be The Narrator.
“[The Narrator] sees [The Girl] posing for [her husband] in the nude … I wondered how she managed to keep so still until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles.” (p. 31)
In a later chapter, The Narrator hears a character identified only as “the father” through a window telling those present about a Nordic legend in which a young girl must be sacrificed to a dragon (pp. 72–74). This section has the flavor of perhaps being a dream with unconscious Freudian undertones of repressed guilt. Perhaps The Narrator was having a dream about himself in his role sometime earlier in his life as a father.
There is dialogue between The Narrator and The Girl scattered throughout the novel that can also be interpreted as representing the complexity, ambiguity, and contradictions of an ongoing relationship between a sexual predator and his victim:
“Forced since childhood into a victim’s pattern of thought and behaviour, she was defenseless against his aggressive will … ” (p. 51)
“I tried to stop thinking about her … But she persistently distracted me with thoughts that were less than innocent … The strength of the temptation alarmed me … Something in her demanded victimization … It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another. (p. 93)
“I sat on the bed, smoking, watching her face in the mirror … the glass reflected the beginning of her small breasts. I watched them move with her breathing, went and stood behind her … She pulled away from me … I had an impulse to do certain things with the lighted cigarette … I pulled her closer to me. She struggled and cried … You’re cruel and treacherous … you betray people and break promises … (p 96)
“[She] begged me to leave her … I replied that I was trying to save her … ‘That’s what you say. I was fool enough to believe you the first time.’” (p 141)
“’I’ve come to say goodbye’ … then her voice, cold, resentful … ‘What sort of man do you think you are? … Now perhaps you see why I’ve never trusted you.’” (p. 146)
“Only love might have saved her from it. But she had never looked for love. Her part was to suffer; that was known and accepted.” (p. 180)
“’Can’t you ever stop bullying me?’ … Suddenly I [The Narrator] felt ashamed … I asked softly: ‘Are you coming with me? I promise I won’t bully you anymore.’ (p 188)
“She could not know that I had discovered a new pleasure in tenderness.” (p. 191)
The perpetrator abuses; the victim tolerates (sometimes even blaming herself for precipitating the abuse); the cycle repeats. If a breaking point is reached such that the victim finds a way to flee, the perpetrator has a “change of heart”, promises to never abuse again, following which the victim forgives.
So what are we to make of the ending of the book? If my general thesis is correct that Kavan constructed this novel, in part, to reveal what it feels like to be a victim of a sexual predator, it perhaps seems odd that she would end the novel with a “happy ending.” There are a dozen or more situations over the course of the novel in which The Narrator finds The Girl and tries unsuccessfully to convince her that she should allow him to save her, and she repeatedly shuns his approaches and says that she does not trust him. Then suddenly at the end she accepts his offer to be her savior, the two of them reconcile, and we are left with an image of two happy lovers in a car with the heater running to keep them warm, shielding them at least for the moment from the encroaching ice storm.
However, on deeper reflection, this ending does fit with my hypothesis that Kavan constructed her novel in a manner that attempts to give us readers a small sense of what it feels like to be the victim (and also the perpetrator) of repeated physical and sexual abuse. The belief that things have really changed permanently at the end of the novel is nothing more than a cruel delusion. Just read the last sentence Kavan inserted into her book.
NOTE:
- My sources of biographical information about Kavan come primarily from the Forword and Afterword of the 50th Anniversary Edition of Ice, and from Victoria Walker’s Foreword to her edited collection of Kavan stories, Machines in the Head.
