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Who Are You?
Depicting the hopeless, emotional polarity of a young couple, this novel follows their doomed marriage spent in a remote, tropical hell. She—described only as "the girl"—is young, sophisticated and sensitive. He, "Mr. Dog-Head," is an unreconstructed thug and heavy drinker who rapes his wife, otherwise passing his time bludgeoning rats with a tennis racket. Together with a visiting stranger, "Suede Boots"—who urges the woman to escape until he is banished by her husband—these characters live through the same situations twice. Their identities are equally real—or unreal—in each case. With slight variation in the background and the novel's atmosphere, neither the outcome nor the characters themselves are quite the same the second time. The constant question of the jungle "brain-lever" bird remains who are you?
117 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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About the author
Anna Kavan
39 books478 followersAnna Kavan was born "Helen Woods" in France on April 10, 1901 to wealthy expatriate British parents.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
Her initial six works were published under the name of Helen Ferguson, her first married name. These early novels gave little indication of the experimental and disturbing nature of her later work. I Am Lazarus (1945), a collection of short stories which explored the inner mindscape of the psychological explorer, heralded the new style and content of Kavan's writing. The change in her writing style and physical appearance coincided with a mental breakdown. During this time, Helen also renamed herself Anna Kavan after a character in her own novel Let Me Alone.
Around 1926 Anna became addicted to heroin. Her addiction has been described as an attempt to self-medicate rather than recreational. Kavan made no apologies for her heroin usage. She is popularly supposed to have died of a heroin overdose. In fact she died of heart failure, though she had attempted suicide several times during her life.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
January 20, 2013
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.
May 24, 2025
Reread May 2025 - more like 3.5 stars this time esp w/r/t a lot of her other work
Who Are You? shares themes with Anna Kavan’s well-known novel Ice but is written in a less abstract style. As in Ice (and some of Kavan’s other fiction), the focus is on a girl resigned to the desperation of her fate. She is trapped in a situation from which she sees no escape, living under the control of a warden-type husband. Instead of the creeping ice, there is the dripping oppressive heat of a tropical locale. The house is her prison. She is portrayed as the passive object of struggle between two male characters, Mr. Dog Head (her husband) and Suede Boots (another non-native 'businessman' much closer to her in age than Dog Head). The primary focus is on the dynamic between the girl and Dog Head, the latter who lives in perpetual simmering resentment of the former’s silence, which she in turn feels to be the required, and in fact, the only possible response to his despotic control.
The detached narration, with its stage direction descriptions of the house and movements of its inhabitants, draws strong comparisons to Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel La Jalousie, published a few years earlier. It’s hard to imagine Kavan not having been influenced by this work, which is also set in a tropical climate and concerned with the dynamic between a married woman, her husband, and a possible lover. The similarities between the two novels are striking, yet Kavan heads in a different direction than Robbe-Grillet. Her arrangement of plot is less overtly circuitous, though she does play with the reader’s understanding of certain events and outcomes. She also does not entirely avoid the third-person omniscient viewpoint, as Robbe-Grillet strove to do; the veil (mosquito net?) is lifted on occasion to reveal what is in the characters' heads. One could argue that this makes the book more readable in a conventional sense, but readers all maintain their own conventions for what is 'readable'. Recommended as an interesting companion read to both La Jalousie and Ice, but also as an alternate entry point than the latter to Kavan’s work.
Who Are You? shares themes with Anna Kavan’s well-known novel Ice but is written in a less abstract style. As in Ice (and some of Kavan’s other fiction), the focus is on a girl resigned to the desperation of her fate. She is trapped in a situation from which she sees no escape, living under the control of a warden-type husband. Instead of the creeping ice, there is the dripping oppressive heat of a tropical locale. The house is her prison. She is portrayed as the passive object of struggle between two male characters, Mr. Dog Head (her husband) and Suede Boots (another non-native 'businessman' much closer to her in age than Dog Head). The primary focus is on the dynamic between the girl and Dog Head, the latter who lives in perpetual simmering resentment of the former’s silence, which she in turn feels to be the required, and in fact, the only possible response to his despotic control.
The detached narration, with its stage direction descriptions of the house and movements of its inhabitants, draws strong comparisons to Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel La Jalousie, published a few years earlier. It’s hard to imagine Kavan not having been influenced by this work, which is also set in a tropical climate and concerned with the dynamic between a married woman, her husband, and a possible lover. The similarities between the two novels are striking, yet Kavan heads in a different direction than Robbe-Grillet. Her arrangement of plot is less overtly circuitous, though she does play with the reader’s understanding of certain events and outcomes. She also does not entirely avoid the third-person omniscient viewpoint, as Robbe-Grillet strove to do; the veil (mosquito net?) is lifted on occasion to reveal what is in the characters' heads. One could argue that this makes the book more readable in a conventional sense, but readers all maintain their own conventions for what is 'readable'. Recommended as an interesting companion read to both La Jalousie and Ice, but also as an alternate entry point than the latter to Kavan’s work.
June 30, 2011
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.
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.
August 17, 2020
This short, airless, downbeat novel was written around the same time as Ice, and the two books share some key elements: both involve a girl, her husband, an overseer of sorts, and a man who seeks to free her, most of whom are not given names, and both take place within an oppressive climate. In Who Are You? the ever-present weather is brutally hot. 'The girl' and her older husband, 'Mr Dog Head' (a derisive nickname invented by the locals), are English and have recently come to live in a bare, seemingly isolated home in a tropical climate. The naive, introverted girl is desperately unhappy. The arrival of a neighbour, 'Suede Boots', offers a potential reprieve, but both live in fear of her vicious husband.
By all accounts, Who Are You? is semi-autobiographical – based on Kavan's marriage to Donald Ferguson – making it likely that the 'remote, tropical hell' (per the blurb) of the setting is Myanmar, or Burma as it was then. The title describes the monotonous call of the 'brain-fever birds' common in the country, 'an infuriating mechanical sound... uttered simply to madden the hearer'. (It helped to look up recordings of the bird's call, since for me, 'who are you' more readily brings to mind the football chant. In doing so I also discovered that 'brain-fever bird' is a widely used name for the common hawk-cuckoo and not, as I initially thought, an invention of Kavan's.)
The setting is depicted as the backdrop to a nightmare: unbearable heat, constant noise, an empty house plagued by mosquitoes and rats, surrounded by dirt tracks and swamps. Kavan's writing is most effective when she describes the extremes of the landscape, with the lucid language recalling the vivid imagery of Sleep Has His House. On a day when it becomes 'almost too hot to live', 'the red-hot earth seethes like an immense cauldron in the eerie thunderlight of an eclipse, electric tremors vibrating in the breathless air'. The darkness of night, meanwhile, is 'a black asphyxiating tank, bubbling and steaming'.
The blurb tells us that the characters 'live through the same situations twice', suggesting an experimental, uncategorisable piece of fiction in the vein of Ice. In fact, this doubling does not take place until the final pages of the novel, and really there is little difference between the accounts. The notion of a divided self is intrinsic to much of Kavan's work, yet here the girl's own awareness of her potential paths seems more significant than the narrative device. 'Who are you?' is a question that echoes throughout the story, but it is destined to go unanswered.
TinyLetter | Linktree
By all accounts, Who Are You? is semi-autobiographical – based on Kavan's marriage to Donald Ferguson – making it likely that the 'remote, tropical hell' (per the blurb) of the setting is Myanmar, or Burma as it was then. The title describes the monotonous call of the 'brain-fever birds' common in the country, 'an infuriating mechanical sound... uttered simply to madden the hearer'. (It helped to look up recordings of the bird's call, since for me, 'who are you' more readily brings to mind the football chant. In doing so I also discovered that 'brain-fever bird' is a widely used name for the common hawk-cuckoo and not, as I initially thought, an invention of Kavan's.)
The setting is depicted as the backdrop to a nightmare: unbearable heat, constant noise, an empty house plagued by mosquitoes and rats, surrounded by dirt tracks and swamps. Kavan's writing is most effective when she describes the extremes of the landscape, with the lucid language recalling the vivid imagery of Sleep Has His House. On a day when it becomes 'almost too hot to live', 'the red-hot earth seethes like an immense cauldron in the eerie thunderlight of an eclipse, electric tremors vibrating in the breathless air'. The darkness of night, meanwhile, is 'a black asphyxiating tank, bubbling and steaming'.
The blurb tells us that the characters 'live through the same situations twice', suggesting an experimental, uncategorisable piece of fiction in the vein of Ice. In fact, this doubling does not take place until the final pages of the novel, and really there is little difference between the accounts. The notion of a divided self is intrinsic to much of Kavan's work, yet here the girl's own awareness of her potential paths seems more significant than the narrative device. 'Who are you?' is a question that echoes throughout the story, but it is destined to go unanswered.
TinyLetter | Linktree
March 13, 2013
This is probably really a four-star book, but to me it just read like a simplified version of Ice, set in the tropics. There's still a passive, blonde female character, but in this one she's stuck with a powerful, hypermasculine guy named Mr Dog Head, which is, incidentally, what made this novel so appealing to me. His name. He's a character, fully fleshed out in just one dimension. She's a bit deeper, but neither of them possesses the space for multiple interpretation that is so abundant in Ice. Throw in the third leg of the triangle, an earnest young man known only as Suede Boots, and you've got the basics. There's not much more to it than that, except of course good writing. And one thing Who Are You? manages to say that you won't find in Ice concerns the value of stoicism; or, in other words, how useful it is to let the slings and arrows bounce off of you until there aren't any left to be shot.
December 29, 2014
Who are you?: the question that tolls throughout this book, emphatic, unremitting, accusatory. In oppressive jungle heat, in birdsong that calls down from the trees.
Here, Kavan has given us a character almost unheard of in parable: one who is frail and utterly, unquestionably passive. You'll be tempted to moralize. You'll try to distance yourself from these most hated of character traits. Kavan knew this. And so, she places the broken pieces before you. She reassembles them in front of your eyes. But there's no way out. In the face of unremitting abuse, there's no escape. There's not even a "self" in which to escape.
Kavan doesn't give us the outcome we want, that satisfies our sense of what is Right and Complete. She lets the pieces fall and lets you be the judge. And in doing so, she turns the question upon the reader: Who are you? Are you passive? Are you breakable? Are you cruel? Are you kind?
Here, Kavan has given us a character almost unheard of in parable: one who is frail and utterly, unquestionably passive. You'll be tempted to moralize. You'll try to distance yourself from these most hated of character traits. Kavan knew this. And so, she places the broken pieces before you. She reassembles them in front of your eyes. But there's no way out. In the face of unremitting abuse, there's no escape. There's not even a "self" in which to escape.
Kavan doesn't give us the outcome we want, that satisfies our sense of what is Right and Complete. She lets the pieces fall and lets you be the judge. And in doing so, she turns the question upon the reader: Who are you? Are you passive? Are you breakable? Are you cruel? Are you kind?
July 25, 2016
"Who-are-you? Who-are-you? Who-are-you? The mounting volume of noise comes from both sides of the house, from the back, from the front, from the compound, the road, the swamp, the trees, from everywhere all at once. Hundreds, thousands of birds are all shouting their heads off-- the girls never heard them make such a racket. The frantic cries sound to her not only demented but threatening, so she feels uneasy. Some of them sound distinctly ominous. Yet she must imagine this, for, in reality, all the cries are exactly alike. All have the same infuriating, monotonous, unstoppable persistence; all sound equally mechanical, motiveless, not expressing anger, or fear, or love, or any sort of avian feeling-- their soul function seems to be to drive people mad."
A stifling, heat ridden nightmare of a girl too afraid to confront her own life.
A stifling, heat ridden nightmare of a girl too afraid to confront her own life.
March 18, 2021
Who Are You? is a fever dream fairytale spun from Anna Kavan's early life, and by "fairytale" I mean one of the darker variety. A young woman barely out of her childhood finds herself married to a wolfish brute and stuck in a dilapidated house in the jungle. She feels like she's trapped, the oppressive heat draining her of energy enough to even imagine that anything could change. Eventually she makes a single friend, an event that leads to sexual assault, violence with a tinge of the supernatural, and a conclusion following a raging monsoon.
No names are given for the main characters or the setting, with the protagonist remaining unnamed throughout, and her husband and friend referred to as Mr. Dog Head and Suede Boots, respectively, but this novella is apparently highly autobiographical. Kavan was married at the age of 19 to a much older man who (bizarrely) was her mother's former lover, and the quickly unhappy couple lived in Burma until Kavan left him a few years later. All of this tracks with the story told in Who Are You?, with Kavan portraying her protagonist as so young and inexperienced that she almost entirely lacks agency. It’s an understandable way for a worldly and successful author over 60 years old to view her 19-year-old self. I hope for Kavan’s sake that her actual experiences weren’t as terrible as the events she depicts in this story, but it’s clear that she drew upon real life trauma in writing this tale.
This book is an interesting piece to compare to Kavan’s masterwork Ice, as Kavan wrote Who Are You? directly before she penned Ice. Both deal with unhappy relationships and extreme weather, with a layer of nightmarish unreality covering the entire thing. Both are experimental as well, with Who Are You?’s most obvious experimental feature being that it retells some of the previous scenes in its final pages. This rehashing didn’t add anything for me; there is a reason that “repetitive” is nearly never used as a compliment. Still, it’s interesting as a showcase of Kavan testing the waters of stylistic and structural variation that she later used to such great effect in Ice.
Who Are You? is not as good as Ice, but it’s enough in the same vein that if you finish Ice and want something similar you may want to try it out. Kavan’s prose is very good, as is so often the case, and the work has an interesting fever dream tone. The duplicated scenes were a misstep, but with the book being so short you get through them quickly. Overall, a perfectly fine work, though it pales in comparison to Kavan’s best. 3/5.
No names are given for the main characters or the setting, with the protagonist remaining unnamed throughout, and her husband and friend referred to as Mr. Dog Head and Suede Boots, respectively, but this novella is apparently highly autobiographical. Kavan was married at the age of 19 to a much older man who (bizarrely) was her mother's former lover, and the quickly unhappy couple lived in Burma until Kavan left him a few years later. All of this tracks with the story told in Who Are You?, with Kavan portraying her protagonist as so young and inexperienced that she almost entirely lacks agency. It’s an understandable way for a worldly and successful author over 60 years old to view her 19-year-old self. I hope for Kavan’s sake that her actual experiences weren’t as terrible as the events she depicts in this story, but it’s clear that she drew upon real life trauma in writing this tale.
This book is an interesting piece to compare to Kavan’s masterwork Ice, as Kavan wrote Who Are You? directly before she penned Ice. Both deal with unhappy relationships and extreme weather, with a layer of nightmarish unreality covering the entire thing. Both are experimental as well, with Who Are You?’s most obvious experimental feature being that it retells some of the previous scenes in its final pages. This rehashing didn’t add anything for me; there is a reason that “repetitive” is nearly never used as a compliment. Still, it’s interesting as a showcase of Kavan testing the waters of stylistic and structural variation that she later used to such great effect in Ice.
Who Are You? is not as good as Ice, but it’s enough in the same vein that if you finish Ice and want something similar you may want to try it out. Kavan’s prose is very good, as is so often the case, and the work has an interesting fever dream tone. The duplicated scenes were a misstep, but with the book being so short you get through them quickly. Overall, a perfectly fine work, though it pales in comparison to Kavan’s best. 3/5.
July 22, 2016
I'm not sure why i picked this book to read this month, maybe because it's so short and it feels like ive read alot of big books latey and i still have a couple big books to come (Zola's Germinal and Mistry's Family Matters) plus ive tried reading alot of authors i haven't read before the last couple months, so, this book......it's not bad but neither is it good. As far as the story go's it feels like it wasn't really planned and that Kavan was making it up as she was writing it. It has alot of nice descriptions of people, setting and the heat which really gives a great and clear picture in your head, it's a shame it wasn't better.
March 30, 2020
Depressing little book about a woman who is completely trapped: in her marriage, in a foreign country, in the society. And the fever birds ask who are you? There is hope though...
The plot has parallels to Anna Kavan's own life and her first marriage which brought her to Burma.
The plot has parallels to Anna Kavan's own life and her first marriage which brought her to Burma.
April 8, 2019
Anna Kavan is unlike any author I’ve ever read. Her imagery is vivid - like looking into a nightmarish dream. The repetition of certain elements in the environment make the book feel claustrophobic. I felt oppressed by the heat, and by the girl’s inability to change her abusive, hopeless fate. I thought that oppressiveness was important to the story. We want the main character to push back against her oppressor, but she doesn’t. She endures her husband’s abuse with apathy. She doesn’t feel capable of changing her situation. I think this really captures what it is like to suffer something psychological - the barriers it places around you feel immovable.
September 29, 2012
Unsatisfactory short novel. The set-up promised a claustrophobic study of an oppressive relationship, but the style disperses any atmosphere with clumsiness and cliche. Kavan was a very uneven writer, she could be very powerful at times.
April 13, 2019
Though not as stunning and surprising as Asylum Piece, this taut novel uses minimal means to process some of the same themes: rote repetition, violence, guilt. This time, Kavan does so through the institution of marriage as opposed to medicine, and her characterization of the husband, Mr. Dog Head, is devastating in his inevitable, matter-of-fact brutality, like the sweltering lightning storms she describes. Still, the glimmer of hope flashes, literally, in the light of a lightning strike in a moving scene, made all the more so when compared to the cold economy of writing in the scenes describing Dog Head.
June 27, 2023
Interesting, I enjoyed the reoccurring motifs, the compound, the squeaking fan, the inescapable heat, the pressing need of escape mixed with the compulsion of staying. In places it felt animated which lent a surreal quality. I wanted to know more about Dog Head, the reason of his anger and compulsion to dominate etc.
November 7, 2024
[Peter Owen] (1931). SB. 117 Pages. Purchased from Books2Door.
An exploration of the dark relationship between a vulnerable young lady and her monstrous, older husband. She’s complicit in the perpetuation of her predicament.
Generally well written, bleak and threaded with hopeless despair.
For me, the ‘dual’ ending is an odd, pointless failure.
An exploration of the dark relationship between a vulnerable young lady and her monstrous, older husband. She’s complicit in the perpetuation of her predicament.
Generally well written, bleak and threaded with hopeless despair.
For me, the ‘dual’ ending is an odd, pointless failure.
January 24, 2025
I don't know what it is about Kavan's writing that makes it so compelling. This is a very simple story, yet very effectively told. Easily as good as anything else I've read by this author. Lightning, cruelty, monsoons, rats, and endlessly shrieking birds. I can't imagine any other author making this work nearly as well as Kavan.
May 7, 2020
What a visceral depiction of human hell. This was like a mix of Sartre's No Exit and a Shirley Jackson story of domestic lockdown.
December 14, 2021
Sprachlich dicht und zauberhaft, inhaltlich heiss und bedrückend. Ein faszinierendes Buch, nur leider sehr kurz.
September 21, 2024
Most horrifyingly avoidant book
October 3, 2020
*WARNING - You're about to head into Spoiler Town, please turn around if this is not your intended destination*
*Disclaimer: this is required reading for university*
(TW: Domestic abuse, sexual assault)
My lecturer really is cracking out some weird books for us to read this year! This book was....I honestly don't know how to put it into words. It might take a second read for me to properly understand what the f**k just happened.
Don't get me wrong, Kavan is a PHENOMENAL writer when it comes to describe the landscape, I mean my GOD there was so much beautiful imagery in this novel! However, there was one thing in this novel that stopped me from enjoying it more...the plot. The darn plot.
I just couldn't emotionally invest myself into the plot, let alone get my head around it! The climax of the novel resulting in the girl and Mr Dog-Head seemingly repeating the same events all over again made literally no coherent sense to me - but then, you'll have to remember, this is only my first reading/interpretation.
Now that I'm critiquing the plot, I might as well critique the characters, who are inherently flawed also. It's like Kavan has stripped them back to their very basic stereotypes - the young innocent bride, the drunk abusive husband, the kind mysterious stranger aka Mr Suede Shoes. But what about their lives, Kavan? What about their psyches? The girl had a university scholarship lined up, but then her mother forced her into marriage. That's all we know about her. Mr Dog-Head likes to drink heavily, randomly likes to kill rats with a tennis raquet, occasionally goes to his club after working in an anonymous office, and rapes his wife when he feels she's "not listening to him". Slightly more to him but not that much. And, last but not least, Mr Suede Shoes walks past the house on the daily basis, then starts to visit the girl every day, evidentially interested in her romantically whilst acting as a helping hand in regards to her "Great Escape" towards the end of the novel. Wow. Such intrigue.
Yet again, I have to say if I read this again I'm sure I'd appreciate it more, finally able to understand Kavan's motives for the odd choices she makes in this book. All I know is that this book will DEFINITELY spark interesting discussions at university. God help us.
*Disclaimer: this is required reading for university*
(TW: Domestic abuse, sexual assault)
My lecturer really is cracking out some weird books for us to read this year! This book was....I honestly don't know how to put it into words. It might take a second read for me to properly understand what the f**k just happened.
Don't get me wrong, Kavan is a PHENOMENAL writer when it comes to describe the landscape, I mean my GOD there was so much beautiful imagery in this novel! However, there was one thing in this novel that stopped me from enjoying it more...the plot. The darn plot.
I just couldn't emotionally invest myself into the plot, let alone get my head around it! The climax of the novel resulting in the girl and Mr Dog-Head seemingly repeating the same events all over again made literally no coherent sense to me - but then, you'll have to remember, this is only my first reading/interpretation.
Now that I'm critiquing the plot, I might as well critique the characters, who are inherently flawed also. It's like Kavan has stripped them back to their very basic stereotypes - the young innocent bride, the drunk abusive husband, the kind mysterious stranger aka Mr Suede Shoes. But what about their lives, Kavan? What about their psyches? The girl had a university scholarship lined up, but then her mother forced her into marriage. That's all we know about her. Mr Dog-Head likes to drink heavily, randomly likes to kill rats with a tennis raquet, occasionally goes to his club after working in an anonymous office, and rapes his wife when he feels she's "not listening to him". Slightly more to him but not that much. And, last but not least, Mr Suede Shoes walks past the house on the daily basis, then starts to visit the girl every day, evidentially interested in her romantically whilst acting as a helping hand in regards to her "Great Escape" towards the end of the novel. Wow. Such intrigue.
Yet again, I have to say if I read this again I'm sure I'd appreciate it more, finally able to understand Kavan's motives for the odd choices she makes in this book. All I know is that this book will DEFINITELY spark interesting discussions at university. God help us.
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October 14, 2025Far more striking than their non-appearance, is the abrupt cessation of their nerve-racking cries. The eternal, monotonous question without an answer has woven itself into the whole fabric of the day, and even now still leaves behind it a soundless echo, like some obscure irritant of the mind.
The light, forgotten, burns on in the silent room, in the midst of the circling suicidal throng of creatures attracted to it.
What on earth is she doing here, anyway, among all these brain-fever birds, parrots, vultures, snakes, scorpions, big bright spiders, and ants that can eat a whole bush in half an hour? It doesn’t seem to be her life at all. It’s more like a dream, that only is not a nightmare because she knows it won’t last forever this is the knowledge that keeps her going. In the meantime, the days seem endless. Each day is like a balloon, blown up to bursting point by the heat and the tension of the approaching monsoon. Electric tension gathers beneath the great clouds that pile up always gone the next morning while the earth swelters in airless suspense. It’s too hot to think, even. She seems to spend her time waiting for night to come, or simply for the next minute.
The wind brings no coolness; there is no respite from the heat. The night is a black asphyxiating tank, bubbling and steaming. But the rain, when will the rain come?
The light, forgotten, burns on in the silent room, in the midst of the circling suicidal throng of creatures attracted to it.
What on earth is she doing here, anyway, among all these brain-fever birds, parrots, vultures, snakes, scorpions, big bright spiders, and ants that can eat a whole bush in half an hour? It doesn’t seem to be her life at all. It’s more like a dream, that only is not a nightmare because she knows it won’t last forever this is the knowledge that keeps her going. In the meantime, the days seem endless. Each day is like a balloon, blown up to bursting point by the heat and the tension of the approaching monsoon. Electric tension gathers beneath the great clouds that pile up always gone the next morning while the earth swelters in airless suspense. It’s too hot to think, even. She seems to spend her time waiting for night to come, or simply for the next minute.
The wind brings no coolness; there is no respite from the heat. The night is a black asphyxiating tank, bubbling and steaming. But the rain, when will the rain come?
February 9, 2016
"Brain-fevered birds." Try as I might I couldn't help rolling my eyes every single time this phrase was brought up. High marks for writing well; I admire those who take a moment to try and paint a picture.
So, onwards. In summation the story was a bit askew lacking direction in my opinion. For all intents and purposes, the entire book could have been descriptions about nature--the climate, mosquitos and vermin too.
The protagonist must not be mentally sound and I'm just sitting here rather insulted. Plus, the blatancy shook no reverberations of the two distraught figures trying to assess their relationship or lack thereof.
Still, in the end, as the title exclaims, the question remains "who are you?" Sadly, I don't care for the answer.
So, onwards. In summation the story was a bit askew lacking direction in my opinion. For all intents and purposes, the entire book could have been descriptions about nature--the climate, mosquitos and vermin too.
The protagonist must not be mentally sound and I'm just sitting here rather insulted. Plus, the blatancy shook no reverberations of the two distraught figures trying to assess their relationship or lack thereof.
Still, in the end, as the title exclaims, the question remains "who are you?" Sadly, I don't care for the answer.
December 13, 2022
Oh shit! In many ways an airtight masterpiece from Kavan, worthy of careful study. Every word, every sentence drops heavy, steady, and sure, like a hallucinatory rainfall comprising a single stream of drops. The prose then floods the mind and dissipates uncontrollably, refusing easy digestion, demanding some sort of elusive, subconscious mastication. Who, what, where, when, and why oh why?
The first page sets the tone, presaging an "ultimate nightmare climax", and Kavan doesn't let up, propelling the reader through the realist phantasmagoria of her identity-less jungle couple, darkly relentless and matter of fact in her dream vision. The product is honed to a razor's edge, kind of like a palindrome in novel form--but not quite . . . no, not quite.
The first page sets the tone, presaging an "ultimate nightmare climax", and Kavan doesn't let up, propelling the reader through the realist phantasmagoria of her identity-less jungle couple, darkly relentless and matter of fact in her dream vision. The product is honed to a razor's edge, kind of like a palindrome in novel form--but not quite . . . no, not quite.
January 6, 2015
"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.
January 29, 2022
4.5 rounded up. I struggled to connect with the story when first I read this which I think is why I originally gave it a 4, but somehow I have never forgotten the oppressive atmosphere the author creates. Not many books stay with me so clearly, so I upgraded it to a 5.
August 30, 2013
I think this book is a heroin analogy
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