What do You think about An Ice-Cream War (1999)?
What a strange book this is. I picked it up because after Lila I thought it'd be nice to read something 'light,' a comedy in this case, about a bunch of half-mad Englishmen in East Africa during the First World War. That's how ignorant I can get. It is 'light' in the same way that say, The Beatles' Blue Album is light - that it's certainly no didactic, that it's lively and frisky and that action and response, not vague morality, means everything. And it's so well made, so well executed, continuously inventive, and self-assured that you probably won't be able to treat it 'lightly.'It's a very funny book, refreshingly politically incorrect, about a small bunch of flawed people, the good and the mad, English and German, but it's also a very serious book dealing with themes not only of war but of family and love too, self-preseverance and the relentless sense of loss. It's also quite brutal, or at least very violent occasionally. It's great fun, a very memorable ride with unforgettable characters and highly recommended.
—Lucynell
Boyd at his accomplished best. Able to transport the reader effortlessly into ostensibly unpromising territory (East Africa? 1914-18?) and bring his large cast of disparate characters absorbingly alive. This epic story has it all - a chaotic and pointless war, meandering adventure, travelogue, family, frustrated love and shocking loss. Boyd seamlessly intermingles episodes of romance, drama and thriller with dark comedy, punctuated with moments of delirious farce reminiscent of Tom Sharpe. I especially enjoyed his running joke about the ways things get hopelessly lost in translation, whether to amusing or calamitous effect. Above all he is a master of convincing description and detail, lending his prose a vivid cinematic quality, which continually provokes the reader's imagination. A book to be relished and long remembered, not least for its title which refers to the sheer idiocy of conducting hostilities in an unforgivingly hot climate.
—RedSaab
An entertaining and occasionally laugh out loud account of warfare in East Africa during WWI. As with many of William Boyd's books, the reader has to pick the plot out from the very dense background detail and though the writing is of a consistently high standard, it can be difficult at times. It certainly took me a while to get into this novel - but once the 'egregious' Cobb family made their appearance, the entertainment level certainly moved up a notch or two. Events alternate between the farcical and the gruesome. Some quite horrific events interspersed with episodes of military incompetence - at one point a ship full of troops is unsure whether it is supposed to land at Beach A, Beach B or Beach C. Rather like conducting a war in a branch of Argos. There is an impressive sense of the ridiculous - two sides in a conflict unable to quite understand what they are fighting over, and struggling to muster sufficient enmity to make it convincing. And the sergeant who spoke entirely in Celtic dialect was fab. What fascinated me in particular about this book was the character Felix - an 'odious little prig' according to his sister-in-law. An accurate description, and yet I rather liked him by the end. If this wasn't a book written by one of my fave authors I would no doubt be grumbling about inconsistent characterisation, but under the circumstances I'd have to conclude that it's a highly skilled depiction of the effects of war on the individual
—Jayne Charles
