Not sure what went wrong with this for me. The writing is technically of very high quality and the subject promised a really interesting read, but I have ended up confused and disappointed.

The style should have appealed to me as well: this is a sort of semi-fantastical reworking of Australian/colonial British history with distinctly surreal aspects, and I've visited practically all of the settings (Sydney, Melbourne and Goathland) which is usually a plus, but even that didn't help.

Possibly I didn't give it the best chance, as I was reading this at the same time as a very drab and uninspiring book club book and so wasn't able to dedicate myself to it entirely. Maybe it needs that, as the plot is intricate and sprawls across decades.

What a pity. Don't think that I'll seek out more Louis Nowra based on this one. ( )

Louis Nowra's Ice is a multilayered novel about undying love.

Ostensibly we are reading a historical novel about Malcolm McEacharn - his drive to innovate and build a fortune as told by a contemporary narrator who is hoping and grieving for his biographer wife lying in a coma. The novel begins with an iceberg towed into Sydney Harbor in the 1880's and that is just the start of the fictional diversion from McEacharn's life.

The crossover story-telling in the historical fantasy and the contemporary narration is unsettling at first, but you are left feeling impressed by Nowra's imagination at the very end. What I really liked about the novel is the historical and multicultural descriptions of Australia in the late 19th Century, the technological revolution of refrigeration and electricity alongside economic development and social tension. But that's not the main purpose of the novel which is to explore passionate, grieving, loving madness.

In the final pages, the narrator reveals his motives for the way his story is told, and while you know how the novel is structured by then, it still takes your breath away. A rollercoaster ride where you think you've been alienated but then are brought back to sympathy in the last chapter. ( )

A very wild retelling of a part of Australian history I knew nothing about. (Don't you love books that also educate you?) The fiction (towing an iceberg to Sydney, amongst other tales) is mixed in liberally with the facts (the life of Malcolm McEacharn, an early mover and shaker in Australian business and politics). If McEacharn was still alive, he'd be suing the pants off of Louis Nowra round about now.

But he's not, meaning that we can enjoy this wonderful toboggan ride through Australian history.

The book opens with young McEacharn and his business partner, Andrew McIlwraith, towing an iceberg into Sydney Harbour one hot summer. While this doesn't make their fortune (their backers get the lion's share of the profits), it does make their name in colonial Australia, and as the book progresses, their fortunes rise as they become the first people to successfully ship frozen meat from Australia to England, and then move into immigration, shipping English people out to the Australia to make their own fortune. But as the story progresses, we find out Malcolm's full story and his obsession with his first wife. And this tale is paralleled by the story of the narrator who slowly emerges from the usual role of a disinterested party as we discover his own reasons for writing this story.

The pressure builds as both McEacharn and the narrator's obsessions are fully revealed, leaving me emotionally bereft at the end from the narrator's story, and rather gobsmacked at the extent of McEacharn's obsession.

And I likes me a tale of obsession, I does.

This is not a book for everyone: those of you who prefer their history untweaked should keep well away, but I thought this was a marvellous story. ( )

ell, it took me a while to read this book, and aspects of it I found interesting (except I kept trying to equate it with 'actual' Australian history as at times 'real' were mentioned). Overall, I think it was contrived. I was hoping to say it was well structured, linking the importance of ice in early times with the dangers of what the word 'ice' has become in the world of recreational drug taking, but for me, it didn't work.

And I felt that Malcolm was extremely disturbed as a character. I mean really, his love of Ann was taken to the absurd ! (Those who've read the book will know what I mean.) I could understand that he wanted to find out how is dad dies. That was fine. And as GTM says, there was a lot of interesting stuff in the book

For some reason, this book reminded me of Carey' s earlier novels. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing. ( )

A most intriguing book...not easy because of the complex structure and competing narrative voices, but see http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/ice-by-louis-nowra-beware-spoilers/ ( )