An Ice-Cream War

Infobox Book
author= William Boyd
name= An Ice-Cream War
isbn= ISBN 0375705023
release_date= 1982
publisher= Vintage

"An Ice-Cream War" (1982) is William Boyd's second novel. It was nominated for the Booker Prize for Fiction in the year of its publication.

Plot summary

"An Ice-Cream War" delves into the clashes between British and German forces in the East Africa campaigns of the First World War. The historical and military material of this book is recreated in vibrant detail, and in his intense descriptive passages Boyd brings out the full colour and desolation of the ravaged landscape of Tanzania. European and American settlers in Eastern Africa, once friendly neighbors, reluctantly turned to enemies.

The background of the novel is the amazing success of German lieutenant colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (not much portrayed in the story), who commanded Germany's tiny, undersupplied African force (mostly African soldiers). He inflicted embarrassing losses on British forces at Tanga, and tied down Allied forces that outnumbered his own by at least 10 to 1 for the duration of the war. [Allreaders.com, "An Ice Cream War" [http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/info_898.asp] ]

The African scenes are intercut with episodes set in Kent, in the south of England, and the parallel stories of two brothers, Gabriel and Felix Cobb, whose lives change irreparably as they are drawn, one after the other, into the war. The quiet civility of Edwardian England contrasts starkly with the confusion and panic of the Africa conflict, experienced first-hand by Gabriel, as he leads his regiment into an attack on the town of Tanga: When Gabriel is taken prisoner, his brother Felix searches for him in an African landscape transformed into an absurd nightmare of squalor, insects, torrential rain and countless human casualties. And the novel swings ultimately from romance to elegy, providing a brilliant evocation of the long reach of war behind the front lines and into ordinary domestic existence. [British Council, Arts, Contemporary Writers, Dr Eve Patten, 2005 [http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth17] ]

The novel evokes suggestions of the early Evelyn Waugh as a critic of "The New York Times" wrote at its time of publication:

References