Smilla's Sense of Snow

C’è un freddo straordinario, 18 gradi Celsius sotto zero, e nevica, e nella lingua che non è più mia la neve è qanik, grossi cristalli quasi senza peso che cadono in grande quantità e coprono la terra con uno strato di bianco gelo polverizzato. Questa è Smilla che parla in prima persona, all’inizio del romanzo. Lei “sente” la neve, come dice il titolo, la “capisce”. E la neve le dice che la morte di un bambino suo vicino di casa non è stata un incidente, come tutti sembrano pensare. Comincia così questo giallo un po’ atipico, che mi è piaciuto davvero davvero molto. Soprattutto ho adorato le ambientazioni, tra la Danimarca e la Groenlandia, freddo, neve e ghiaccio, ma ancor di più ho adorato il personaggio di show more Smilla. La adoro perché è sola, fredda, forte e quasi insensibile, ma anche passionale, fragile e ferita. E’ umana, e sotto alcuni aspetti (forse i peggiori!) mi somiglia moltissimo. E poi la adoro perché è proprio un bel personaggio, ben costruito, approfondito e sfaccettato, diviso tra due mondi senza appartenere veramente a nessuno dei due. Poi può anche risultare antipatica (a me no!!), però come personaggio la trovo veramente affascinante!

«Smilla. Com’è possibile che una ragazza carina e minuta come te abbia una voce così rude?»
«Mi dispiace» dico «di dare l’impressione di essere rude solo con la bocca. Mi sforzo quanto posso di esserlo in tutto.»

http://www.naufragio.it/iltempodileggere/1091 show less

"The body's pain is so paper-thin and insignificant compared to that of the mind."

This book was initially written in Danish and then translated into English. The story follows Smilla Jaspersen, a 37-year-old Greenlander living in Copenhagen. Smilla is a loner by nature, but there is one person in her life she feels a connection to, her young neighbour, Isaiah. This is revealed through a series of flashbacks, because in the novel’s opening chapter it is revealed that Isaiah has died following a fall off the snowy roof of their apartment block.

Accidental death say the police but Smilla knows the boy and moreover has a feeling for snow. She reads a different story in his snowy footprints. Isaiah wasn’t playing, he was running from show more something. Smilla decides to investigate this untimely death and soon realises that she has stumbled onto something much bigger than a solitary death. What's more she can read the smallest changes in ice and snow.

This novel is an entertaining mystery/thriller that IMHO has enough in it for anyone who is a fan of that particular genre but for me, the best part was learning about the history and culture of Greenland. Hoeg deftly explores the many problems of the colonization of this island nation, weaving historical context into his text. I started the novel knowing absolutely nothing about the relationship between Denmark and Greenland, so it was a interesting to learn something about their uneasy history. Hoeg’s prose is densely packed, full of information, action, and on occasion, wonderfully vivid imagery.

Coincidentally I started this on a day that it had started to snow in my own neighbourhood and if nothing else, it reminded me that British winters are rather tame in comparison to those endured in the bone-chilling arctic.

"Whining is a virus, a lethal, infectious, epidemic disease." show less

The plot of this crime novel is broad and complicated, but it starts like this: Smilla is a woman in her thirties living in an apartment complex in Copenhagen. One snowy day, the young son of one of her neighbours falls off the roof and the police quickly decides that it was an accident. Smilla, however, knows that the boy was afraid of heights and that it's not possible that he climbed up there by himself or in play. Smilla is the daughter of an Inuit hunter and grew up in Greenland, so she has a feeling for snow that goes far beyond what city dwellers can see, and thus, she also detects more things in the snow that suggest that the boy was killed. This discovery leads to a journey through Copenhagen and later onto a ship to Greenland, show more deep into the history of expeditions and scientists, and Smilla's own past.
I think that this crime plot is only half of it, though. Interwoven, the reader learns a lot about Greenland, both concerning science and history, and about the treatment of the Inuit in Denmark and the colonization of Greenland. All this was quite lost on me when I read it for the first time, but now I found it very interesting and eye-opening. Previously, I have not really been aware of this part of Danish/European history. When I realized that this topic was so important in the book I was a bit wary because it's written from the point of view of an indigenous woman by a non-indigenous man, but I think it was written very profoundly, and when I did some online research, I did not find any articles criticizing this aspect.
The story itself drags a little in some chapters and I think it could have been a bit shorter to hold up the interest of the reader a little more. Sometimes the background of the crime is too detailed and it gets a bit repetitive. Nevertheless, it is an unusual novel composed in poetic and strong language, with a powerful heroine and a fascinating topic. show less

Mystery doesn't typically grab me as a genre and I can do without thrillers on the whole, but this one has more depth than I expected. I learned a lot about the Denmark-Greenland political relationship, and this was a great way to explore it. There's also a lot about the Arctic and its peoples. Smilla, for example, is a Greenlander living in Denmark. Just like Canada's Inuit, she is very attuned to all the subtle varieties of ice and snow. It requires precisely somebody with her background to observe important clues when a young boy appears to commit suicide by leaping off a roof.

The subsequent story doesn't unfold in the typical way (at least, not as I expected); it's less a 'whodunnit' than a 'whydtheydoit'. Smilla just wants to show more understand. All of her motives are intrinsic, but she's absolutely relentless. This is exactly the kind of character I like best, a gruff logician with a secret emotional side. Standing a whole 5 foot 4, she can milk people's assumptions for all they're worth. It's great to watch her in action, even when her stamina challenges belief. Smilla relies on boldness, spontaneity and solid instincts. This led into a few humourous bits (the dog, the maintenance lady, etc.) but just as frequently she made some brilliant moves. A light touch keeps things more intriguing than frustrating when unfolding events need time to explain themselves as she makes her next leap.

Smilla has many layers and a lot of history that she's very introspective about, mercilessly examining herself under a microscope. This degree of personal honesty grants her the power to read others so well, and humanity in general: what drives us, how we are driven by others. There's exploration here of deeper mysteries than just the one at hand, and it's a rare book in this genre that makes so much quality time to do that. Despite Smilla's direct approach it's not a light, breezy read to the end. In fact, I wouldn't have minded less resolution than I got. By then it felt like the main point was the journey, about always following your own star however inhospitable the wilderness you call home. show less

I read Peter Høeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow" after being entranced by Julia Ormond as Smilla Jasperson in the movie. Smilla Jaspersen--half Greenlander, half Dane, an unconventional loner and brilliant scientist who struggles with her conflicted upbringing--is devastated when a young boy she has befriended mysteriously falls to his death from the roof of their apartment building. Unsatisfied that it was an accident, she follows a trail from Copenhagen to the bleak Arctic reaches to solve his murder. Since that time I've probably read it a half a dozen times--and not for the incantatory power of the prose. Don't get me wrong--the writing is terrific and the story is compelling, complex, and extraordinarily well-plotted--but what gripped show more me most about this book was the main character. And she still grips me today.

Smilla is undoubtedly the first contemporary fictional female character who isn't a wife, mother, saint, or a whore. Imagine a grown-up cross between Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking--if they'd been kicked out of every school they ever attended, hitchhiked around the world, maybe did some low-level smuggling, and somewhere along the way managed to pick up a couple of graduate degrees. Smilla is clever, bold, smart, independent, funny, adventurous, slightly reckless, and feels no qualms about telling the men who get in her way to shove off. She's a boat-rocker, whistle-blower, a rule-breaker who thumbs her nose at authority and refuses to submit, like a well-behaved girl, to the ancillary role society would like her to play (e.g., wife, mother, saint, whore). Which, of course, drive the men whose power she challenges into a fury that makes them want to annihilate her. The irony is that she was created by a man.

But Smilla's rebellion does not come without intense self-scrutiny and the painful knowledge that she's a lone wolf; at one despairing point in the book she even calls herself a loser. She admits her freakishness, the fact that she cannot find deep connections with others. She usually refrains from getting involved with men because she's terrified of becoming too dependent, of losing herself. She's terrified of being vulnerable, of being loved, of being left. And yet despite all of her fears she plods forward. She laments her inability to make a permanent place for herself in the world, and yet that doesn't deter her from what she feels is her duty--to solve the death of a little boy who may be the one person to whom she had what came close to a true connection. But the greater, unspoken challenge is how to live in the world as a black sheep, particularly if you are a woman.

Perhaps the intense dislike some feel towards Smilla stems from her daring to challenge the established structure of society which, despite all the advancements women have made, still places men on top and women underneath. Men dislike her because they can't abide a woman who doesn't know her second place; women dislike her because it forces them to address the power they give away by seeking validation from men. Plus, the world does not show any love for those who tell the truth or root out corruption--they are, more often than not, eliminated in one way or other. And yet, without those who exposed secrets or took the unpopular stand, who took the heat and bucked convention, we'd still be toiling in some medieval gloom.

I also loved how Høeg, in comparing Denmark to Greenland, underscores how the "progress" and "development" of the modern world have all but destroyed the integrity of ancient cultures, the beauty of the wilderness, and the deeply-ingrained rituals that lend meaning to life as well as binding people together. He weaves examples into the main plot as a kind of elegy to the world as it was before man's maniacal drive to improve it. Some improvements come to mind that did indeed improve the quality of life for mankind--fire, penicillin, and efficient farming methods--but there are so many more that can only make you weep. show less

I read Peter Høeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow" after being entranced by Julia Ormond as Smilla Jasperson in the movie. Smilla Jaspersen--half Greenlander, half Dane, an unconventional loner and brilliant scientist who struggles with her conflicted upbringing--is devastated when a young boy she has befriended mysteriously falls to his death from the roof of their apartment building. Unsatisfied that it was an accident, she follows a trail from Copenhagen to the bleak Arctic reaches to solve his murder. Since that time I've probably read it a half a dozen times--and not for the incantatory power of the prose. Don't get me wrong--the writing is terrific and the story is compelling, complex, and extraordinarily well-plotted--but what gripped show more me most about this book was the main character. And she still grips me today.

Smilla is undoubtedly the first contemporary fictional female character who isn't a wife, mother, saint, or a whore. Imagine a grown-up cross between Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking--if they'd been kicked out of every school they ever attended, hitchhiked around the world, maybe did some low-level smuggling, and somewhere along the way managed to pick up a couple of graduate degrees. Smilla is clever, bold, smart, independent, funny, adventurous, slightly reckless, and feels no qualms about telling the men who get in her way to shove off. She's a boat-rocker, whistle-blower, a rule-breaker who thumbs her nose at authority and refuses to submit, like a well-behaved girl, to the ancillary role society would like her to play (e.g., wife, mother, saint, whore). Which, of course, drive the men whose power she challenges into a fury that makes them want to annihilate her. The irony is that she was created by a man.

But Smilla's rebellion does not come without intense self-scrutiny and the painful knowledge that she's a lone wolf; at one despairing point in the book she even calls herself a loser. She admits her freakishness, the fact that she cannot find deep connections with others. She usually refrains from getting involved with men because she's terrified of becoming too dependent, of losing herself. She's terrified of being vulnerable, of being loved, of being left. And yet despite all of her fears she plods forward. She laments her inability to make a permanent place for herself in the world, and yet that doesn't deter her from what she feels is her duty--to solve the death of a little boy who may be the one person to whom she had what came close to a true connection. But the greater, unspoken challenge is how to live in the world as a black sheep, particularly if you are a woman.

Perhaps the intense dislike some feel towards Smilla stems from her daring to challenge the established structure of society which, despite all the advancements women have made, still places men on top and women underneath. Men dislike her because they can't abide a woman who doesn't know her second place; women dislike her because it forces them to address the power they give away by seeking validation from men. Plus, the world does not show any love for those who tell the truth or root out corruption--they are, more often than not, eliminated in one way or other. And yet, without those who exposed secrets or took the unpopular stand, who took the heat and bucked convention, we'd still be toiling in some medieval gloom.

I also loved how Høeg, in comparing Denmark to Greenland, underscores how the "progress" and "development" of the modern world have all but destroyed the integrity of ancient cultures, the beauty of the wilderness, and the deeply-ingrained rituals that lend meaning to life as well as binding people together. He weaves examples into the main plot as a kind of elegy to the world as it was before man's maniacal drive to improve it. Some improvements come to mind that did indeed improve the quality of life for mankind--fire, penicillin, and efficient farming methods--but there are so many more that can only make you weep. show less

I had heard of this book before - or perhaps the film adaptation, with Julia Ormond randomly cast in the title role - but had no idea what to expect. And to be honest, after slogging through the second half of the story, I'm still baffled. What began as a murder mystery set in 1990s Copenhagen but with a 30s noir feel suddenly turned into The Girl Who ... set aboard a cargo ship sailing towards Greenland, on the hunt for traces of an ancient meteorite? I think.

I loved the first two hundred pages, with spiky Smilla on the hunt for whoever forced her neighbour's six year old son to jump/fall to his death from a warehouse roof. Nearing forty, Smilla is far from the standard youthful, whiny narrator and she isn't always likeable, but I did show more find myself identifying with her attitude to life and highlighting random observations like: 'It’s just a little question. But the world is always so busy wondering why a single, defenceless woman, if she’s in my age group, doesn’t have a husband and a couple of charming little toddlers.' Her narration is darkly amusing too, like a Greenlandic Raymond Chandler: 'She looks pale and lovely and naughty, like an elf maiden turned stripper' and 'he’s wearing a very large grey coat with so much padding in the shoulders that he looks like a ten-year-old boy acting in a musical about the time of Prohibition.' The background history of Greenland and Denmark was also very revealing and a little depressing: 'And in this century the Inuit’s life has been a tightrope dance on a cord fastened at one end to the world’s least hospitable land with the world’s most severe and fluctuating climate, and fastened at the other end to the Danish colonial administration.'

Quotes aside, the actual mystery of Isaiah's death became more and more convoluted - again, very much like Chandler - involving scientists and a mining company - but I was determined to keep reading. The final chapters completely lost me, however, and I think I even fell asleep while pressing on my Kindle and lost a few pages, but couldn't be bothered to go back. Smilla also turned from an independent and determined woman into some sort of avatar from a computer game, surviving repeated attempts by the evil scientists and their henchmen to put her out of action.

Instructive, atmospheric and action-packed - but in the end, not for me. show less