From Publishers Weekly
British author Kavan (1901–1968) plays with the confusion of reality and unreality in this understated posthumous novel set in a nebulous time and place. When Mark, the somewhat unstable and unreliable narrator, is young, his war-hero father treasonously converts to pacifism and is forced to abandon him. Further isolated by a gradual separation and distancing from his mother, Mark is fully cast adrift by his parents' deaths, for which he blames himself, in an enemy bombing during his last year at boarding school. The similarities between Kavan's work (Ice) and Kafka's quickly become evident when Mark, now an adult, must contend with a hostile and unresponsive government bureaucracy. He's also torn between the powerful and mysterious Mr. Spector, whom he sees as both protector and nemesis, and the enigmatic love interest, Carla, who remains tantalizingly near but remote. Kavan's ability to penetrate psychological tangles with startling acuity is in full force in this powerful journey conducted by a very troubled mind. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
Set in an unspecified but eerily familiar time and landscape, this is the story of Mark, a protagonist who struggles against the machinations of a hostile society and bureaucracy. Suffering at first from the persecution of his father as a conscientious objector, his life quickly comes under the control of the Machiavellian Mr. Spector, an influential government minister who arranges Mark's education, later employment, and even accommodation. It is when Mark tries to break free from Spector's influence that his life begins to unravel.
About the Author
Anna Kavan was one of the greatest unsung enigmas in 20th-century British literature. Born Helen Ferguson, a fraught childhood and two failed marriages led her to change her name to that of one of her characters. Despite struggling with mental illness and heroin addiction for most of her life, she was still able to write fiction that was as powerful and memorable as any English female writer of the last 150 years.
