[In The Ice Age it] is Drabble's design to portray the public plight of her country through the personal tribulations of a handful of characters, almost all of whom have experienced a catastrophe of one form or another as the novel opens….

The single remotely happy person we encounter is Len's irrepressible secretary/companion, Maureen Kirby. Everyone else is feeling the effects of the chill, both physical and spiritual, that pervades this wintry tale. Their central concern—and by extension, that of the author—is why they have been afflicted….

Perhaps they are being tested, like Job, or are simply the innocent victims of what Len's crazy prisonmate believes to be the reason for all the trouble—that nuclear waste has suddenly thrown the laws of chance out of whack. Alison is probably nearer the truth, though, and certainly closer to the spirit of a Freudian era, in...