"In this haunting and surreal novel, the narrator and a man known as the warden search for an elusive girl in a frozen, seemingly post-nuclear, apocalyptic landscape. The country has been invaded and is being governed by a secret organization. There is destruction everywhere; great walls of ice overrun the world. Together with the narrator, the reader is swept into a hallucinatory quest for this strange and fragile creature with albino hair. Acclaimed upon its 1967 publication as the best science fiction book of the year, this extraordinary and innovative novel has subsequently been recognized as a major work of literature in its own right." Summary courtesy of Goodreads
There is a plot to the novel but it is loose. In fact, it can be hard to keep track of what is going on because of the hallucinations. But that seems to be the point. It is a psychological examination of destruction and control. It's about what might happen at the end of the world.
It is notable that no characters are named. The prose is beautiful. The forward and afterword help give background and context to the novel. I would recommend this to those like science fiction and those that like literary fiction.
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