This review is part of the Literature World Tour.
In Copenhagen this past weekend, I was surprised to learn from my guidebook that Greenland only voted for independence from Denmark in 2008, and that this will take effect from June 2009. What little I know about the relationship between the two countries comes mostly from Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow and the heroine’s difficulty in reconciling her father’s history – he is a wealthy doctor – with her mother’s – a Greenlandic explorer long passed away.
Smilla Jespersen’s voice is like nothing else I’ve ever read. Distant, stubborn and unapologetic, her narrative is fascinating and tremendously realised by Peter Høeg, a writer whose Nordic perfection (in his author photo, at least) was somehow no obstacle to his understanding of this burdened, half-Inuit, half-Danish woman.
Her friendship with Isaiah, a little boy who lives in a neighbouring apartment, is brought to a terrible end when he dies after falling from the roof. But Smilla can read snow-tracks better than the police; she knows it wasn’t an accident. She will put her life – her fiercely protected individuality and separateness, as well as her livelihood and safety – into jeopardy to bring Isaiah’s killer to justice.
It’s amazing how well this book did, considering it’s about solitude and violence, and its ending brings up more questions than it answers. But the elegance and intensity of the book, as well as the kick-ass persona of Smilla, make it a revelation.
Previously in Scandinavia: Steve Mitchelmore's review of Novel 11, Book 18
Next in Scandinavia: Susan Tranter's review of The Howling Miller
Next stop on the Literature World Tour: Russia!
