A Scarcity of Love

by Anna Kavan

Rejection, betrayal, and a girl's discovery of evil are the themes of this strange, haunting novel. Discarding such aids to realism as geography and mundane physical facts, this narrative tells the story of a young girl, rejected by her narcissistic and vengeful mother, whose life thereafter is a continuing series of betrayals that can lead only to the dead end of madness and death. Demonstrating a nearly perfect control over language, this tale describes, in the simplest and most ordinary of terms, the bizarre and hallucinatory landscape of derangement.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Literature, Novels, Womens, Literary Fiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Anna 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.

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going in, there is some perverse comfort in knowing that nothing will ever work out well in an Anna Kavan novel. Here, we witness the seeds of accumulated tragedy sown by a series of unwanted births. The twisted growth of these seeds yields a dark harvest of miserable lives poisoned by the effects of neglect, cruelty, and abandonment. If you are seeking an argument for antinatalism manifested in fiction, look no further. In the character of Gerda, we see a preview of the victimized female characters yet to come in Kavan's future novels Ice, Who Are You?, and the posthumously published Mercury. Conversely, the coldly distant mother figure—a staple character in Kavan’s early novels—who dies at the end of this novel disappears from her work going forward, if I recall correctly.

This book is among the most brutally relentless of Kavan's work in its careful, systematic negation of any chance of hope or personal happiness found with another person. However, I wouldn't say this fits in the highest tier of her oeuvre. My main issues with it are that the ending is rather abrupt and unimaginative and that Kavan suddenly abandons two of the characters to an unknown fate midway through the text. But it is still an important later work, particularly in its thematic structure, of the bridge period leading up to the publication of Ice, so I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars to 4.

She looked up at the now disembodied summits, terrible great ghost-shapes of luminous pallor floating on the dark sky, almost phosphorescent, with black gaps of shadow where darkness came pouring through: dim, huge, breathing down iciness. Deliberately she identified herself with their inhumanity and utter loneliness—with the fearful cold otherness of the non-human world. She would not fee the terror of it; she would not feel anything any more. She drew the horror and awe and loneliness of the mountains into herself; willing it to freeze her into some substance so rocklike that it could never melt, never be broken, harder than stone and colder than ice; so that no one should ever again have the power to hurt her, or even come near her. She had a sudden sense of solitude, peace, then; of detachment, as though she had been perfected, and made invulnerable like the mountain.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

He suddenly got the feeling that, though she was still isolated, cold and remote, on her mountaintop, she half wished to come down. The wave of bitterness that had swept her up there had subsided and left her stranded, not sure that she wanted to stay, not knowing how to get down- would she ever be able to make the descent?

She slept under glass, Sleeping Beauty pricked by a mother's weapons of sticks and stones. Cinderella forgot the words to whistle while you work. Snow White sleepwalks behind glassy eyes, before vacant windows. The snow curtains fall into a special little snowflake dress pattern of ice around the breaking heart. No two broken hearts are just alike. She sleeps for your kiss.

The witch-beauty hears a reassuring murmur of only you, you are so beautiful. Holding the warden's keys in her grasp. No wars were waged, no ships were launched. They crashed at her feet and turned to stone made of her. The lonely child called up her own image and conquered no further, learned no more spells. The imaginary friends are days of the calendar that fall on the corners of the eyes in blankets of cold hard snow. The heart murmur love song, if there is one in the cave of stone, is sung in reverse.

Suddenly something seemed to catch at the heart in her breast, as, startingly, in the darkening sky, the heights burst into flame. One after the other, the summits caught the last fire of the setting sun, burning in final splendour around the sky, the snow rose-red, the rock many violet shades touched with gold and deep lustrous blue-black shadows; a magic circle, blazing, austere and splendid, over the night-bound world. She was amazed by this unexpected and awesome beauty, transfiguring the great gruesome masses of rock and ice, making them glow with unearthly glamour- it seemed to her like a sign of acceptance. Her cheeks burned, her unnaturally bright eyes shone still brighter, reflecting the strange effulgence, which seemed to show that the mountains had taken her to themselves. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the jewel-colouring vanished, the heavy indifferent crests at once began to glow ghostly and indistinct, withdrawing from her.

Don't be afraid. I know how to put the monster to sleep. I don't believe in you. Make these words louder than all other words. Spells of make them love me, friendship, family and the kindness of strangers.

When Gerda runs away from her narcissistic bitch of a mother, the BEAUTIFUL Regina, her stone deaf purse of a husband and his (I guess?) a coin purse of a son I curled inside myself. Coins over my eyes I'll pay any price to cross the river styx to never see beauty again if it ever means this. I don't believe in you. Louder than is there such a thing as love? Come on, I know you saw This is Spinal Tap. All the way up to eleven. Gerda runs and never moves. The snow falls. If you never have to find out what you look like when you leave your body you may not ever find out that you sold yourself too low. I did that when I was a teenager too. Once I talked to a woman who didn't make eye contact when she spoke to me. I had a grave walking feeling of how I was not living with anyone else. It felt as if I had given up part of my soul when I imagined what I must have looked like in the class my 9th grade self prayed to a God I hoped for, sometimes, to please get me out of this dragon's belly. Snow day in Florida, perhaps? The teacher sat me behind a filing cabinet so she wouldn't have to see my sightless gaze on my desk. Patterns in fake wood with the secrets to absolutely nothing. I was conscious of her bright orange dresses and high heels to my dullness. I might not have run as far as Gerda for she doesn't wake up until she walks willingly into another mouth. If Gerda didn't kill herself this way so she could have the chance for another murder my feeling is still that Kavan did. The male monsters and the victim's white blonde hair could live on the edge of the knife from her later novel Ice. Save yourself or hide. I could tell you how to escape but maybe you wanted to die all along. Or say it slowly and give me the chance to change my mind, if I ever know how.

There is a princess that the books forgot about. Or maybe she never made it down the mountain to tell the tale of love, happiness and peace on Earth. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. The unwritten pages fell down from the top softly as fallen snow. The princess and the pauper. She takes the baby from the Countess on her resting place of never touch me again. Smoke and mirrors of little girl smiles. Take a picture. It'll last longer, give you time to change your mind.
She willed her baby to die from outside of her. Red, forced to come down from birth. Probably innocent of knives and dreams that don't know how to come down. Still dead, though, and can't tell you anything. The ones who can tell you speak in accents from some place far away. I could have saved you from eating alone. Is that all there is? If there's still time....

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ice-cool examination of a loveless household, spreading tendrils of misery from sprog to sprog. Unflinching and stunning characterisations.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Killing narcissism, unfortunately far more harmful to those it touches than to its source. A fleeting dream of lives that intertwine with others, some ending, some finding means of carrying on. The landscapes of psychology, deftly explored. Most of all: Kavan's scathing attempt to exorcise her own mother, just dead at the time of writing.

This somehow feels less pure and focused than most of Kavan's work under that name, for which I give it one less star, but it's still an essential part of Kavan's personal narrative progression.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Regina's tone seemed to the girl to have that blend of long-suffering and impatience that would have been used to a stupid servant that never did anything right. It was so acutely painful to her, it made her longing for comfort seem so futile, that, without knowing why, she was ashamed, and her eyes again filled with tears. To her blurred vision, everything in the room began to seem dim and remote. The three people before whom she was standing seemed to recede and to grow unreal. She seemed to be looking at them from a tremendous distance as unreality, like a gigantic octopus, laid soft impalpable feelers upon each sense, dividing her from all the went on." (85)

[joe]

Notably quiet and slow, which to begin did set a relatively capturing mood to sit within, but I would’ve liked a little more urgency on Kavan’s side. She seemed to become a little settled in pressing down upon the primary character of the book. Understandable in a straightforward way that this was a technique used to emphasise later revelations and almost sketch onto the reader what would eventually happen. My issue with that is how slow and bogged down it did get, and how underwhelming, in a novelistic sense, the eventual climax felt. Kavan tip toes for 160 pages, and I’m itching for that scream in my ear to leave my nerves wracked in the final 40, but really you just end up on the receiving end of a tap on the shoulder.

Probably not the best book to start on with Anna Kavan, so will give the benefit of doubt to the author and pick up “Ice” in 2024.

[actuallymynamesssantiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost in the fog, these hollow hills
blood running hot, night chills
Without your love I'll be
so long and lost, are you missing me?

Cosas extrañas suceden con este libro. Escribí la review y se borró sola. Así que será lo que recuerdo y siento.
Es el último fantasmita que arrastro del 2023. Abandonado en agosto del año pasado. El que inició —potenció, la culpa no fue suya— una pausa en leer prosa por dos o tres meses.
Is it too late to come on home?
Are all those bridges now old stone? Le dije a mi hermano que elija a ciegas entre el Libro del desasosiego y esto. Ganaron los fantasmas.
Is it too late to come on home?
Can the city forgive? I hear it's sad, sad, sad song. Me apena haber perdido mi review original por su vitalidad. Porque Kavan escribe desesperada. Porque está v i v a. Pongan la cámara los Lumière, hay tanto ruido abajo y hay ruido acá, hay ruido al lado y ruidos en el bar; acá no se puede estar por el ruido, hay tanto ruido. Es repetitiva y repetitiva, porque los seres humanos somos repetitivos. Basta de esa falopeada de la m*l71d1m3n510n4l1d4d.
Ojo con el título, "A Scarcity of Love" es una carencia o escasez de amor. Kavan lo sabe, lo potencia y despotencia. El amor es vitalidad, fluye, así escribe, lo va haciendo un cristal. Y ahí peligra todo. La inestabilidad hecha estable. Creo que es un símbolo de que vuela hacia la locura!
Le hice leer una página a mi ogro-hermano y me dijo "Entendí, pero cómo que se transforma?" ese es el poder de la buena literatura, caramba. Transformar mentes individuales en socio-deficientes —a society of outsiders— para terminar todos en un ring of fire. Patti Smith lo predijo.
Tiene lo obvio de Kafka, el bicho malo híper señalado. Pero es la tradición de Woolf y Lispector: pero ni es Woolf, ni es Lispector; no mantiene el decoro de la primera ni lo animalesco de Clarice. Es elegante, limpia. Enfríen la bañera, traigan diamantes punzantes.
Me quedan algunas páginas, lo voy a terminar por la mañana and the curse will be lifted. De todas formas lo voy a mantener cerca, abrir alguna página y leerla en detalle; a ella en general, little, cold, hot, glittering ghost.
Can the city forgive? Ojalá se pudiera y se puede pero pareciera no se va a poder, o sí. I heard it's sad song. Break it up

Break it up, break it up, break it up
break it up, break it up, break it up
oh break it up, break it up, break it up
break it up, break it up, break it on up
break it up, break it on up, up, up
break it, break it, break it, break it
break it on up, break it up
break it up, break it up, break it up

Update: Lo termino 04:55 AM porque mi hermano me despertó gritándole a un pobre venezolano en la Play. De mis favoritos, excelencia pura. Without your love, I'll be.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm saying I "liked it" to mean something nearer to "admired it". I won't really be re-reading it anytime, and I won't recommend to anyone new to Kavan. It's really for a hardcore devotee who's made it through lighter fare such as "Ice" or "Asylum Piece". Perhaps some therapists might find value in prescribing it to clients with family-related problems.

A relentlessly oppressive journey through the lives of a cluster of upper-class narcissists and their damaged children. We now see the whole life of the dominating Regina (the same character as the one in "The Parson"? The latter could be an episode slotting in this narrative between the closing chapters). Her daughter Gerda who has a wretched life of illness and disappointments and rejections; her stepson is crushed in to a helpless piece of luggage. Fans of Foucault and Lacan will be fascinated by this universe in which characters are simply vertices in a framework of interlocking oppressions, and anyone interested in post-colonialism can note the awareness of race and imperialism in the structures of the tropical "paradise" estate that the wealthy nomads end up at in the closing section.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going to give A Scarcity of Love 3 stars, but then I went out for dinner with my buddy, really my only friend I can talk books with, and I told him about the story, basically sketched the whole plot for him, and he was astounded. The story is disturbing––nightmarish really––but airtight and startingly unique. I told my friend I wasn’t really enjoying it––it was likely my least favourite Kavan so far. He asked if the writing is good, and I said of course, Kavan’s prose is always above grade. Very rarely she lapses into a slightly bland style, but this is consistently overshadowed by the eloquence and unreal dream quality of her work.

Well, the plot is undeniably exceptional sketched out, and the writing is excellent, so why wasn’t I liking it? The only answer I see is that it simply isn't enjoyable to read––it is powerfully depressing and offers the reader zero emotional support. (And, as an aside, I was more interested in the doctor and suicidal girl, who feature at the beginning of the novel, than the other characters who take center stage throughout the middle and conclusion of the novel.) But the story came into itself in the final chapters. Loose ends are skillfully, relentlessly tied, and the reader is left holding a heavy, dark globe, a cloudy magic ball that just might offer some unexpected insight if you stare at it long enough and will past its black suggestions.

It is, truly, an incredible novel. Looking back, I can’t talk about the story without my mind boggling at its dark, deathly genius. There is nothing like it; some might say Kafkaesque, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but there is a deeply psychological element (we get into the heads of almost all of the characters described) which is absent in Kafka’s work. Kavan stands on her own ground, dreadful and dazzling and damned original.

[sid graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kavan’s prose crawls deliberately across the page—slow, suffocating, and steeped in intensity. It traps the reader in a psychological labyrinth that mirrors the characters’ inner turmoil, pulling you into their stifling realities.

The narrative oscillates between varying states of consciousness, slipping in and out of waking life, dreams/fantasy, and disorienting emotional states. This fluidity blurs the boundaries of reality, heightening the surreal and delusional quality of the story.

Kavan’s precision in observing her characters is shocking in its depth. She exposes their selfishness, vulnerabilities, and delusions with a clinical detachment that somehow remains human.

The relationships in the novel are rarely reciprocal. They exist as transactions, one-sided dependencies, or desperate, unfulfilled longings. Love is scarce, and connection is fragmented, leaving the characters yearning for something that constantly eludes them.

What stands out most is the exhaustive excavation of internal landscapes. Kavan writes with impressive clarity and emotional weight, capturing intricate psychological power struggles that feel both oppressive and painfully relatable. That she wrote this in the 1950s feels revolutionary, especially given how much of the novel seems to reflect her own struggles with trauma and I isolation. I had visceral reactions while reading, yet I couldn’t bring myself to put it down.

———

“He suddenly got the feeling that, though she was still isolated, cold and remote, on her mountaintop, she half wished to come down. The wave of bitterness that had swept her up there had subsided and left her stranded, not sure that she wanted to stay, not knowing how to get down—would she ever be able to make the descent?”

[Neda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second book by Anna Kavan - it took me a while to start reading it after I finished 'Ice' last year. It had left me with mixed, oppressed feelings due to the sense of hopelessness it conveys and its profoundly unlikeable characters. The prose of both 'Ice' and 'Scarcity of Love' is really beautiful, though, and I enjoy the way Kavan moves between the magical and mystical, on the one hand, and the construction of extremely realistic psychological portraits, on the other. 'Scarcity of Love' is somehow more dynamic, its narrative is more linear than the one of 'Ice', which felt like a dark spiral that sucks you into sticky despair. However, it shares some of the distinctive features of the other novel - like the importance of natural landscapes; the presence on frail, yet threatening female characters (in Scarcity of Love, these qualities are distributed between different characters, whereas in Ice they are condensed within one); obsession, anxiety and almost absolute psychological dependency between the protagonists. Reading it now, I couldn't fail to be interested in the role of doctors and hospitals in the narrative - it felt as if the limited amount of care, love and protection that characters accept and share with each other is only permissible within medical institutions.
All in all, 'Scarcity of Love' might be less subtle and ambiguous than 'Ice', but as a reader I felt slightly less alienated or nauseated by its many forms of violence.

[Todd Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kavan's work is always kind of unpleasant and mesmerizing at the same time. Her view of humanity is one of isolation and cruelty--even cruelty to ourselves. We want to dominate and we want to be loved, so we can never get what we want since these two things are always at odds. I feel like all of her books could be called A Scarcity of Love. This one is an intense and beautifully crafted read.

[Lily Ruban · Rating 5 out of 5]

A translated fragment:


"Высокий увенчанный башней замок одиноко возвышался на холме. Казалось, он вынырнул прямо из средневековья, целый и невридимый после сотен прошедших лет. Люди, видевшие его издалека, часто не замечали, что он был уже частично разрушен. Полуразрушенность только подыгрывала его окрестностям, скалам цвета охры, которые нависали торжественными громоздкими коронами над холмистым силуэтом местности. В бурю или солнечную погоду замок выглядел одинаково нерушимо-безвременным. Лишь в сумерках, когда ночь с неизбежностью морского прилива затапливала долины и пляжи, замок преображался в принца илюзорности и парил в сиянии заката.

Молодой доктор, сейчас ехавший к этому замку на своей старой машине, обладал гораздо более живым воображением, чем обычно люди его профессии, и для него замок олицетворял всю магию южных земель. Впервые приехав сюда по работе, он был очарован холмами и скалами этой теплой страны, ее оливковыми деревьями и седыми виноградниками. Он был взволнован необрамленной красотой юга, ничего подобного не было на индустриальном перенаселенном севере, откуда он прибыл. Это было как путешествие во времени к тому периоду, который засвидетельствовал замок. Загадочный век, в сравнении с ним современность казалась блеклой с серыми подтеками.

Люди ему здесь тоже очень нравились; в самом начале они радушно принимали его. Но сейчас он уже не был так уверен, ни в их гостеприимстве, ни в своих впечатлениях. Несмотря на то, что он все еще был очарован югом и его южанами, постепенно, с наступлением жары, его отношение к ним начало меняться. Не было уже того энтузиазма.

Наступил уже август, и у него появилось отвращение к жаре. Знойное поднебесье повседневно выматывало его. Иногда ему не хватало влажной прохлады родного климата, он чувствовал себя здесь, в странных душных землях вдали от дома, чужеродным телом. Скорее всего именно поэтому он ощущал невидимый барьер отделяющих его от местных, которые, ему казалось, нарочно исключали его. Возможно его сторонились только в его воображении. Как бы там ни было, молодой человек, был уже не так рад здесь находиться, и даже чувствовал легкое разочарование южной реальностю.

Будучи самым младшим в медицинском сообществе, ему поручали медицинские визиты в отдаленные уголки страны. Это означало, что он много колесил по малонаселенным местностям между холмов, иногда проезжая по пыльным деревенским улочкам на пути к отдаленным фермам. Так как на проселочных дорогах было очень мало машин, вождение не требовало большой концентрации. Таким образом, путешествуя, он зачастую погружался в свои мечтания. Его воображение тяготило образами к замку, который неизменно следил за его извилистыми передвижениями с высоты своей черной башни.

Что же за люди здесь жили? Какому роду они принадлежали? Он отказывался их принимать за обычных людей: ни ту супружескую пару, о которой рассказывал его коллега, ни судью, которого он лично встречал, ни свою жену, южанку, встретить которую ему только предстояло. Жизнь в этих средневековых декорациях не могла не оставить отпечатка, он думал, именно это делало их такими отличными, все они носили под сердцем магию прошлого, и жили они все на заре существования, с готовностью проявить окаменевшую красоту и мудрость средневековья."

А вот эта новелла, она вроде бы как об одной женщине - но в голов�� стольких персонажей мы болезненно некрасиво рылись, а сама Регина - начинается новелла ею, и заканчивается, ее имя мелькает в середине - а все остальное...

У меня правда болит голова стабильно. Еще жутко на душе от вот этого восприятия реальности которым она заражает. Сейчас объясню -

Там такая сцена, девушку оставил ее муж в больнице на целый год (у Каван это сюжет в третий раз встречаю), потом она внезапно возвращается, муж потерял к ней интерес, эту хрупкую влюбленность, а она все так же его любит. И вот диалог между двумя, обмениваются фразами сухо, вежливо, ничего взрывного во фразах, никакого намека на разрыв. Девушка внутри чувствует что абсолютно лишняя, что больше не нужна, что останется одна, а он внутри норовит сбежать из комнаты от того красноречивого, вопиющего просто вида ее непроизносимой любви - которую она не имеет права просто ощущать к нему, не имеет права эта девушка которую он в прошлом любил и провел с ней райский медовый месяц - она не имеет права на такую невзаимность, такое несчастье - и он сам не хочет ни быть у порога ни каким-то образом граничить с таким несчастьем.

Безумная сцена на 20 страниц, со скудным диалогом. Этой сценой Каван, ха-ха, ну по крайней меня, она дестабилизирует. Теперь в любой тишине, в любой статичности декораций, повседневности, я подозреваю собственную ненужность, подозреваю что со мной мирятся, назодят компромис оправдывающий мое присутствие, что повсюду вершины айсбергов - особенно зная что это действительно так, будучи экстравертом в окружении интровертов, открывается непреодолимое пространство для подозрений, снежное, как холодно от прочтения ее книги.
Зачем такое читать, зачем себя усугублять, я не пойму.

Но не читая это, . Но только читая это, мне кажется что на самом деле живу. А когда думаю, что могла бы прожить эту жизнь свою никогда не познав эту писательницу, то кажется what a waste.

[B99 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has a gothic flavour despite nothing supernatural in it. There is a feeing of heavy, intense and dissonant emotions in very damaged and damaging people together with hidden menaces and acts hinted at but unspoken

It was too overwrought for me although has merit

[Daniel Polansky]

Anna Kavan's shitty mother is the subject/target of this slim but still slightly interminable novel about weak-willed people controlled by the menacing egos of minor monsters. Elegant but self-pitying.

[Aubrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark and hypnotic.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

GASP

[Daniel Hui]

Sad that it's so homophobic

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intense, word-rich novel which takes some getting into, but persistence pays rewards. I would describe the story, the character relationships, and the settings as 'beguiling' which the dictionary states as 'charming or enchanting, often in a deceptive way'. Everyone in this novel is unfulfilled. Happiness is fleeting, only to be snatched away due to the evil inherent in others. The relentless trampling of dreams is often utterly heartbreaking, as the novel switches from ice-cold beautiful Regina to her discarded daughter, Gerda. Is there any love to be found in this bleak world? Kavan doesn't seem to think so, yet her prose, her precise dissection of relationships, and the almost hypnotic way she describes emotions and places is at odds with this world view. It is the aberrant correlation between the subject matter and the telling which makes this a wonderfully sustained - if occasionally hard-going and irritating - novel.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't quite so well constructed as her other works, in my opinion. It's essentially a novel-in-short-stories, though not exactly presented as such. I can't help but wish she had stayed with Gerda, throughout, as that's where the writing really comes alive.

The book does, however, have good momentum. The ending is well written, very Anna, and gathers all the floating fragments together beautifully.

Worth reading as it does shed some light on her other books and on Kavan, herself.

[William Eck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a vivid and harrowing description of a young girl's life under the thumb of a narcissistic mother. Anna Kavan is able, as usual, to defamiliarize everyday situations and infuse every scene with a nameless sense of dread. This was the first book I ever read by Anna Kavan and remains one of my favorites.