(Also known as “Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow,”) this intriguing murder mystery/thriller takes place between Denmark and Greenland. The main protagonist in this story, Smilla Jaspersen, is one of the strongest, most interesting female characters to appear in fiction in a very long time.
The novel is written in the
Six year old Isaiah, a Greenlander like Smilla, leaps to his death from the roof of the apartment building in which he lives with his mother. While the boy’s body is still warm, the police pronounce that the death is an accident. But Smilla, who lives in the same building and has come to love the little boy as her own, knows her young neighbor didn’t fall from the rooftop on his own. She knows that he was very afraid of heights. Also, even though there is only one set of footprints on the roof, she still suspects foul play. And her instincts are supported by her “reading” of the footprints. Knowing most of what there is to know about snow and ice, she is ably to see things other people do not – things which cannot easily be communicated, but which are still read and true.
The motive of her initial investigation lies in the kindred spirit she shares with Isaiah, both having been born in Greenland and then brought to Copenhagen after a parent died. But as she learns more, the more intent she is to find the real answer behind this boy’s death. She uncovers a series of conspiracies and cover-ups and quickly realizes that she can trust nobody.
Her investigations into who killed Isaiah and why he was killed begin in Copenhagen, but eventually lead to an adventure on an ice breaking ship and then to an island in the northern part of Greenland. The ending is very surprising.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow is an adventure in the grand tradition, with all the intrigue and occasional scenes of violence and disaster this suggests. It is suspenseful, original, and entertaining. Peter Hoeg proves that serious literature can be both entertaining and artful. A novel of the kind that only comes along very rarely.
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I loved the book, but for a mistake a lot of writers make. It is always a shame when a great story is ruined by the ignorance of weaponry. When having a character pick up or describe a gun, the author should do a better job with terminology or have someone who knows guns write that portion for them. Perhaps it was the translators fault that the Ballester Molina handgun is describesd as a 6 shot revolver—WRONG.
It is an Argentinian-made version of a .45 semi-auto pistol.
“Sense of Snow” was engaging and soul participating. The story most certainly traced the inside lining of Hoeg’s psyche and wide ranging life experience. I am always intrigued by the author behind the story working the puppets. I have no doubt he understands poverty and riches combined. I liked how he illustrated his beliefs and courage. The coldness though. It cuts me like a knife. May gentleness come next.
I liked the way Hoeg writes. The way he combined knowledge, feelings, and beliefs about geology, shipping, the Inuit, power, corruption in medical, academic and scientific circles, etc. I’m also drawn to imagine Hoeg’s own psychological cleansing process and the spirit that powerfully moves the story forward and in going into the fearful unknown and brutal struggles finds connecting layers of a higher consciousness. It is refreshing in a natural and uncontrived fashion.
I now ponder … Is the character’s coldness rooted in the temperature and climate? Or is she Hoeg’s mother now strong and transformed? It was a triumphant ending and the ultimate revenge as evil is chased into the freezing water in parallel to what “the Baron” endured. Now the rooftop snow has transformed to ice and liquid depths. Put to rest.
Why named “the Baron” when so foetal and unformed? I pictured infant-like … amorphous as the worm.
Is this novel a magnification or a true reflection?
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