The Ice Age cometh (Anna Kavan) and a new novel about Jonestown (Arnold Ludwig)

My final take on Anna Kavan's novel Ice (1967) is thata if you knew nothing of her troubled life - her attles with mental illness, addiction, abusive relationships and marriages, struggles to write, flight from Europe during World War II, death in near  obscurity in1968 at age 67 - the book would hold little or at least much less interest. As noted previously it's a dystopian novel about the coming of a 2nd Ice Age that will destroy the planet and end human life, but it's by no means a science-fiction novel - she has no interest in the cause of this impending disaster nor in any efforts by the human race to avert death. The novel is without plot - just a series of loosely connected events, as a protagonist pursues a beautiful (ice-like) woman across several continents; when he at last captures her he seems to rape her - Kavan is elusive on this matter - and the two of them take off by car - to nowhere. Could have been another chapter, it really doesn't matter. So this is a novel of its time - trippy, hallucinogenic - but doesn't make a lot of sense today aside from art of the life story of the unusual, outsider author.

On another note, I've been reading a new novel from Amazon/Kindle, by friend Arnold M. Ludwig - Blue Smoke & Mirrors. Not sure why Dr. Ludwig - a well-know professor of psychiatry and medicine - was unable to (or chose not to) find a traditional publisher, as this novel is a potential commercial success I would think: A thriller based on extensive research Ludwig has done on the Jonestown massacre. Ludwig has some intriguing and surprising theories about the events that led up to this debacle, and he tells the story through the eyes of a participant and unlikely survivor. For those interested in more information on religious cults and the mesmerizing powers of a cult leader - particularly those who've watched the recent Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country - this book is worth a good look.