Ice

The last of Anna Kavan's books to be published in her lifetime, Ice is a surrealistic dream-novel set in an unrecognizable world padded by ice and snow, run by a secret government, invaded by aggressors, and threatened with nuclear destruction.

A nameless narrator in frenzied pursuit of a frail "ice-maiden" he once loved turns out to be not so much a character in his own right as part of the girl and of the "warden" - a bullying high-ranking official whose sullen, outlandish functionaries police the country. Dream sequences slip in and out of the narrative, and the story ends with a high-speed ride in a car - one of the huge, sleek automobiles that appear everywhere in Kavan's writing: tearing into jungles, mowing down people and problems, slicing through entire battle scenes.
5 hrs 39 mins