Search - Smilla's Sense of Snow

This one takes a lot of effort to read, as you'll no doubt stumble over the cumbersome translation. Perhaps that was what detracted so much from the story, as I could not make myself care about the characters or the plot. Hopefully, you'll have better luck.

One of the best books I've read this year. It's literate, unique, and has a fascinating heroine, Smilla. The only detriment are the several technical descriptions (ships, biology, construction of snow, etc.) which I felt could be cut down. But that's my opinion; another reader may enjoy these descriptions. The essential story is about a repressed woman who is determined to find out why her 11 year old neighbor was murdered. Even though the authorities state his death as an accident, Smilla can tell by looking at the tracks he made that he was murdered. Her pursuit of the truth leads to attempts on her life and eventually to a sea voyage where she gets the (surprising) answers she seeks. The movie is very good too.

Book really is a lot better than the film, and I liked the film.

Juxtaposing the sensibilities of Greenlander and Dane gives some depth to the suspense. Engaging narrative voice. If a book can be at once serious in tone and a light read, this is it.

Suspenseful and facinating. A Danish suspense novel in the vein of John Le Carré--A thriller with moral relevance and political insight.

Though it probably has the potential to be a good mystery, I just couldn't get into it. Since it was originally written in another language, it may have just lost something in the translation.

This book is an extremely fast paced, well written thriller with a little science-fiction thrown in! Much better than the movie!!

An interesting thriller that keeps the reader thoroughly engrossed. I loved it.

In this international bestseller, Peter Høeg successfully combines the pleasures of literary fiction with those of the thriller. Smilla Jaspersen, half Danish, half Greenlander, attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Her childhood in Greenland gives her an appreciation for the complex structures of snow, and when she notices that the boy's footprints show he ran to his death, she decides to find out who was chasing him. As she attempts to solve the mystery, she uncovers a series of conspiracies and cover-ups and quickly realizes that she can trust nobody. Her investigation takes her from the streets of Copenhagen to an icebound island off the coast of Greenland. What she finds there has implications far beyond the death of a single child. The unusual setting, gripping plot, and compelling central character add up to one of the most fascinating and literate thrillers of recent years.

The title of this quiet, absorbing suspense novel by a Danish author only suggests the intriguing story it tells. After young Isaiah Christiansen falls from a snow-covered roof in present-day Copenhagen, something about his lone rooftop tracks--and the fact that the boy had a fear of heights--obsesses Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen, a woman who had befriended him. Smilla is 37, unmarried, and, like Isaiah, part of Denmark's small Eskimo/Greenlander community. She is also a minor Danish authority on the properties and classification of ice. Her search for what had frightened the boy leads her to uncover information about his father's mysterious death on a secret expedition to Greenland, a mission funded by a powerful Danish corporation involved in a strange conspiracy stretching back to WW II. As related in Smilla's sober, no-nonsense narration, the plot acquires credibility even as its details become more bizarre. While the novel will probably be compared to Gorky Park , Hoeg has much more to offer, both in terms of his impeccable literary style and in the glimpses he provides of an utterly foreign culture. Its chief virtue, however, is the narrator: Smilla is never less than believable in her contradictions--caustic, caring, thoughtful, impulsive, determined and above all, rebellious. Smoothly translated by Nunnally, this is Hoeg's third novel, but the first to appear in English. A dark, taut, compelling story, it's a real find.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW

She thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. She lives in a world of numbers, science and memories--a dark, exotic stranger in a strange land. And now Smilla Jasperson is convinced she has uncovered a shattering crime....
It happened in the Copenhagen snow. A six year old boy, a Greelander like Smilla, fell to his death from the top of his apartment building. While the boy's body is still warm the police pronounce it an accident. But Smilla knows her young neighbor didn't fall from the rooftop on his own. Soon she is following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow. For her dead neighbor and for herself, she must embark on a harrowing journey of lies, revelation and violence that will take her back to the world of ice and snow from which she comes, where an explosive secret waits beneath the ice.....

Made me want to learn more about Greenland. Had some weird sexual stuff sort of slipped into the story (not in any way the main point of the story). Definitely not your typical mystery/crime novel!

From the Publisher
Smilla's Sense of Snow presents one of the toughest heroines in modern fiction. Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen is part Inuit, but she lives in Copenhagen. She is thirty-seven, single, childless, moody, and she refuses to fit in. Smilla's six-year-old Inuit neighbor, Isaiah, manages only with a stubbornness that matches her own to befriend her. When Isaiah falls off a roof and is killed, Smilla doesn't believe it's an accident. She has seen his tracks in the snow, and she knows about snow. She decides to investigate and discovers that even the police don't want her to get involved. But opposition appeals to Smilla. As all of Copenhagen settles down for a quiet Christmas, Smilla's investigation takes her from a fervently religious accountant to a tough-talking pathologist and an alcoholic shipping magnate and into the secret files of the Danish company responsible for extracting most of Greenland's mineral wealth - and finally onto a ship with an international cast of villains bound for a mysterious mission on an uninhabitable island off Greenland. To read Smilla's Sense of Snow is to be taken on a magical, nerve-shattering journey - from the snow-covered streets of Copenhagen to the awesome beauty of the Arctic ice caps. A mystery, a love story, and an elegy for a vanishing way of life, Smilla's Sense of Snow is a breathtaking achievement, an exceptional feat of storytelling.

From The Critics
Publishers Weekly
The title of this quiet, absorbing suspense novel by a Danish author only suggests the intriguing story it tells. After young Isaiah Christiansen falls from a snow-covered roof in present-day Copenhagen, something about his lone rooftop tracks--and the fact that the boy had a fear of heights--obsesses Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen, a woman who had befriended him. Smilla is 37, unmarried, and, like Isaiah, part of Denmark's small Eskimo/Greenlander community. She is also a minor Danish authority on the properties and classification of ice. Her search for what had frightened the boy leads her to uncover information about his father's mysterious death on a secret expedition to Greenland, a mission funded by a powerful Danish corporation involved in a strange conspiracy stretching back to WW II. As related in Smilla's sober, no-nonsense narration, the plot acquires credibility even as its details become more bizarre. While the novel will probably be compared to Gorky Park , Hoeg has much more to offer, both in terms of his impeccable literary style and in the glimpses he provides of an utterly foreign culture. Its chief virtue, however, is the narrator: Smilla is never less than believable in her contradictions--caustic, caring, thoughtful, impulsive, determined and above all, rebellious. Smoothly translated by Nunnally, this is Hoeg's third novel, but the first to appear in English. A dark, taut, compelling story, it's a real find.

A Danish suspense novel made into a movie.

A superb thriller with a combination of suspense narrative, Hemingwayesque prose, exotic setting and spellbinding central female.

She thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. She lives in a world of numbers, science and memories- a dark, ecotic stranger in a strange land. And now Smilla Jasperson is convinced she has uncovered a shattering crime....

One of my all time favorites. Much better than the movie.