In the realm of speculative fiction, a remarkable Polish novel is making waves with its chilling and intellectually dazzling premise. Jacek Dukaj's 'Ice', first published in Poland in 2007 and winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, presents a breathtakingly original alternate history where a single cosmic event reshapes the fabric of reality.
A World Frozen in an Alternate 1924
The novel opens with a line that immediately signals its metaphysical depth: "On the fourteenth day of July 1924, when the tchinovniks of the Ministry of Winter came for me... only then did I begin to suspect that I did not exist." This is the world of Benedykt Gierosławski, a Polish polymath—philosopher, logician, mathematician, and gambler—who is rudely awakened by officials from a ministry that should not exist.
In Dukaj's meticulously constructed reality, the 1908 Tunguska comet impact did more than just flatten a Siberian forest. It triggered a fundamental shift in physics and history. The event gave rise to the 'gleiss'—an inexplicable, expanding, and possibly sentient field of cold that is steadily engulfing the land. Consequently, neither the Russian Revolution nor the First World War has occurred. The Tsar still rules, and a mysterious Ministry of Winter oversees the new frozen order.
Gierosławski's mission, offered as a way to clear his debts, is to travel to this 'wild east' and find his exiled father, Filip, now known as Father Frost. Filip, a geologist and mystic, may hold the key to understanding the gleiss. This quest forms the spine of an epic narrative that blends adventure, espionage, and profound philosophical inquiry.
The Geopolitics of Frost and New Physics
The emergence of the gleiss has not only altered borders but ideologies. Society is fractured between factions like the Ottepyelniks, who advocate for a Thaw, and the Lyednyaks, who wish to preserve the eternal frost. This is far from a simple allegory for the Cold War. The ice creates stark dichotomies: Slavophiles versus westernisers, imperialists against Polish and Siberian nationalists, and materialists clashing with those who see in the frozen stasis a form of religious transcendence.
The comet's 'black physics' has also spawned astonishing new materials and technologies that define this world:
- Coldiron: A superconducting material.
- Frostoglaze: A mysterious substance born of the new physics.
- Blackwickes: Devices that emit 'unlicht'.
For Gierosławski, a scientist and gambler, one of the most fascinating aspects is how the gleiss affects probability. Under its influence, randomness becomes certainty, and quantum uncertainties resolve into crystal-clear outcomes.
A Journey Through a Reimagined Siberia
The novel unfolds in three distinct acts, taking the reader on a grand tour of this strange new Siberia. First, Benedykt travels on the Trans-Siberian Express, a journey fraught with spies, double agents, and intrigue. Next, he navigates the political and scientific hotbeds of Irkutsk. Finally, he ventures into the frozen wastes along the enigmatic 'Ways of the Mammoth'.
Dukaj populates his fiction with an array of real historical figures, adding a layer of playful authenticity. Nikola Tesla becomes a fellow traveller, while Aleister Crowley, Leon Trotsky, and Rasputin also make appearances, their lives and roles twisted by the altered timeline.
The translation by Ursula Phillips is a monumental achievement in itself. The publishers wisely included an appendix where Phillips discusses her formidable task. To mirror the protagonist's existential uncertainty—his suspicion that he 'might not exist'—she made the bold choice to drop the first-person 'I' for a more immediate, instructional prose style: "Stand facing … release air from the lungs …". She deftly navigates the dense cultural references and complex ideas, providing an anchor for the reader in a narrative that is deliberately oblique and challenging, much like the Thomas Pynchon novel Dukaj recommended she read during the process.
Ice is far more than a cerebral exercise. It is a work of great emotional range, featuring moments of genuine hilarity, palpable horror, and deep pathos. It is a gloomy, sharp, and dazzling exploration of a central question: if history were changed by a cataclysm, would human nature and conflict simply reassert themselves in different forms? For readers seeking a profound, ambitious, and utterly unique science fiction epic, Dukaj's frozen masterpiece is an essential and chilling journey.
Ice by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillips, is published by Head of Zeus (£25).
