Having read Ice prior to this (oops, there's a review beckoning), when Kris suggested this to me I promptly dropped everything else (including Proust - sorry P - not to mention the other dozen books alternately languishing and luring on my currently-reading shelf) and plunged headlong into another Kavan world, this time one of intense, sweltering heat.I'm not keen on rehashing a book but the setting and some of the events require mention here. I was a complete tabula rasa upon which the late Ms Kavan could paint her magic - from the opening pages I had imagined myself in either India or Pakistan with the descriptions of unrelenting monsoonal weather and invasive tropical flora and fauna and appropriately clad and inscrutable locals. That the book is set in Myanmar (Burma) I did not discover until emerging from the cocoon she had created, when I also read, during a few frenzied 'net searches, that she was a teenage bride married to a detested older man and living in Myanmar during the first year of her marriage; the semi-autobiographical patina that pervades the book and confirms, rather than informs, my reading.If there is a fault with Who Are You?, it is that, in comparison with Ice, Kavan has an agenda (not of itself a problem) which she fails to execute in the limpid, sleight-of-hand manner she achieves in her final book. The oppression of the surrounding jungle, the threatening storm, the conniving servants, are a reflection of the constraints in which she has placed the female protagonist and the male antagonist, and rather than reflect her as a feminist, actually seem to point at Kavan's own sense of failing to break free of the coercion, repression, and limitations imposed on women by society during Kavan's lifetime.The female protagonist remains a victim, passive, despite the dual endings which hint at a potential escape, never chronicled, and the male antagonist is depicted as equally vengeful and oppressive in both of the (intimated but never fully realised) coup de grace. Indeed, the double denouement seems contrived, because there was very little variation in either motive or action for protagonist and antagonist, no emotional growth nor (even vague) resolution, hence I was left wondering: to what purpose? The re-written passages were fleeting and the questions in both alternatives at which Kavan hinted were answered with echoes. As a device, interesting, and yet perhaps telling, seeming to point towards Kavan's state of mind and perception of reality, her sense of (her lack of) freedom and choice, even though in the years that she wrote Who Are You? she had attained some stability, autonomy, and identity of self.While this may be contentious, I would also posit that Kavan lacks a 'modern feminist's' sensibilities, simply because 'feminist' is an anachronistic term deserving to be replaced by, as a suggestion, 'humanist'. Although the males in the book appear in multitude (there is only one other female who actually appears as opposed to being referenced), there is no male of substance or quality in the book - even the protagonist's 'saviour' is described in scathing, unflattering terms, without needing to be considered or presented as a knight in shining armor. Are all males so superficial, so irrelevant, so puerile, so controlling and aggressive or manipulative? This is not a balanced view of the genders, even if collectively, the one oppresses, with the collusion of the other.The antagonist's 'aggressor' (not the protagonist's 'saviour') is also described brutally, and is, no less, a male of savage and barbarian demeanour. This vilification of the male gender is not, in this reader's opinion, a feminist perspective, if feminism is deemed to be about changing perception, power dynamics and status quo.The prose is written in third person present tense and required a few pages to adjust. It is sublimely evocative, but there are instances where it descends into bludgeoning, the depiction of character serving to act as a mouthpiece for presenting the opportunity inherent in unbalanced (in the sense of power) relationships for misunderstanding, misinterpreting, and misreading of gestures and speech. Where the dialogue is sufficient, the insights into the characters apt, Kavan takes an unnecessary step further to compound the message that couples in extreme (almost surreal) circumstances behave perfectly rationally in an utterly absurd and grotesque manner.Who Are You? suffers in comparison with Ice only because the latter shows a maturation, an acceptance, a graphic illustration of entrapment in circumstances through choice and action, but withholds judgement on both protagonist and antagonist and even setting. Who Are You? is no less worthy of being read, despite that lack of authorial distance.Anna Kavan is a writer who I will be reading again, even if I commenced the journey with her magnum opus rather than her earlier works. I've yet to see a lesser-known (dead) author of the twentieth century more deserving of attention.
Somewhere in Burma, under the pressure cooker of building monsoon, a Girl is trapped and isolated in a sweltering, nightmarish marriage to Mr. Dog Head. As the clouds build and build, and the brain-fever birds shriek, and Mr. Dog Head attempts to entice the girl to play the Rat Game... surely something must happen.This is the penultimate book Kavan published in her lifetime, followed only by her masterpiece Ice. This time, the events described are strictly "real" (and presumably build out of her own horrible first marriage), but deeply dyed in feverish, contorted prose and apocalyptic imagery. It's powerful and dire and convincingly constricted. I can't think of anyone else who writes like this. I'm basically committed, now, to tracking down all of Anna Kavan's books if possible.
What do You think about Who Are You? (2001)?
"Who are you?" refers to the call of a bird in the tropical clime where this book is set in the tumultuous weeks leading to the start of the monsoon season. The main character, hastily married, begins to regret her decision when her husband turns out to be both a drunkard and a boor, but she feels trapped by social expectations until a male visitor offers her the possibility of a different life. What is unusual is the forked ending, where two slightly different denouements take place. The prose is sparse and stifled, mimicking the situation, and that double ending adds a star. However whilst I enjoyed it I also felt a little distanced from the main characters, hence the grade.
—Andrew
"Lots of fun to read" says the Daily Telegraph review quoted on the cover, leading me to believe that either the paper's reviewer missed the point, or I did. It's rather bleak, isn't it? When I read Kavan's Ice, among the many things it wasn't particularly similar to but sort of reminded me of anyway as I grasped for a frame of reference were the films of David Lynch... because I think (rightly or wrongly) that one of Lynch's abiding themes is how a mind reels from trauma. It fragments, loses identity, loops around, creates fictions for itself. I felt that, among other things, that's what Ice was about too.And Who Are You? seems similarly themed, but differently approached. The oppressive heat. The birds always calling out the question that forms the title of the book. This is a mind caught in an oppressive loop as it recalls its ordeal - twice - working over its own narrative, altering it slightly with each retelling, as it tries to make sense of what happened and tries to turn it into a fairytale of sorts (Y'know, like Bob in Twin Peaks. Sort of.) Or something along those lines.Like Ice, it's not quite that easy to pin down. And that's good. There's a lot of different valid interpretations I'd be prepared to hear. But I shall have to stare into the middle distance for a couple of hours while I think about it some more. So, engaging. Thought-provoking. Kavan is the most inspiring new-to-me writer I've been led towards this year. But fun? Not so sure it's that.
—Ishmael
