Book Review
Nov. 20th, 2002 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaOK, so I'm about five years behind with "the book it's cool to be seen to be reading right now":
(Anyone know what the book of the moment is, at the ...er... moment?)
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Høeg
I picked this up in a second hand bookshop, mostly because I remembered a lot of people talking about it. It was translated from Danish. And that's pretty much all I knew about it.
For some reason, I was incredibly surprised to discover it was basically a whodunnit. Maybe because crime novels rarely get hailed as great literature.
I'm very bad at reading modern crime novels. Give me a nice locked-room, four-people-and-the-butler style whodunnit and I'm fine. But anything with a vaguely 20th-century realistic approach to crime, and I'm all at sea. They always seem to involve a ferociously large cast of characters, at least four continents and bewildering police procedure.
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow does hop about a bit, both geographically and temporally, but does so with sufficient clarity that it's not at all confusing. I did occasionally lose track of who was who, but I think that's just because I'm very bad at keeping track of characters. The police, thankfully, are barely involved.
To be honest, I'd have enjoyed it without the overarching plot (which is actually rather good). Firstly, there's the snow. This book does what it says on the tin. Central character: Miss Smilla. And she has an uncanny feeling for, and ability to read, snow. And ice. And other cold stuff. You know snow, the white stuff that hangs about in winter ?
No. It's much more than that. Smilla is part-Greenlander, and talks as someone who's lived both a Western lifestyle, and a traditional Greenlandic lifestyle. And provides endless, and fascinating, commentary on the snows and ices around her, mixing up meteorology, geology, folklore, the crystal structure of the stuff, and the practicalities of living with it.
Then again, I'm a sucker for listening to someone being enthusiastic about their own subject.
Secondly, there's Smilla herself. Høeg has written a heroine who is compelling, intriguing, and who had my sympathy with her all the way - despite not actually being desperately likeable in some ways. Not that she's nasty, or does unpleasant things, she's just someone who you can't imagine being an easy person to be around. And one of the most thoroughly drawn, and convincing, characters I've read in a while.
This isn't a nice, fluffy winter feelgood book. And it requires you to think occasionally. But it is very fine.
Available to borrow as of now :)
(Anyone know what the book of the moment is, at the ...er... moment?)
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Høeg
I picked this up in a second hand bookshop, mostly because I remembered a lot of people talking about it. It was translated from Danish. And that's pretty much all I knew about it.
For some reason, I was incredibly surprised to discover it was basically a whodunnit. Maybe because crime novels rarely get hailed as great literature.
I'm very bad at reading modern crime novels. Give me a nice locked-room, four-people-and-the-butler style whodunnit and I'm fine. But anything with a vaguely 20th-century realistic approach to crime, and I'm all at sea. They always seem to involve a ferociously large cast of characters, at least four continents and bewildering police procedure.
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow does hop about a bit, both geographically and temporally, but does so with sufficient clarity that it's not at all confusing. I did occasionally lose track of who was who, but I think that's just because I'm very bad at keeping track of characters. The police, thankfully, are barely involved.
To be honest, I'd have enjoyed it without the overarching plot (which is actually rather good). Firstly, there's the snow. This book does what it says on the tin. Central character: Miss Smilla. And she has an uncanny feeling for, and ability to read, snow. And ice. And other cold stuff. You know snow, the white stuff that hangs about in winter ?
No. It's much more than that. Smilla is part-Greenlander, and talks as someone who's lived both a Western lifestyle, and a traditional Greenlandic lifestyle. And provides endless, and fascinating, commentary on the snows and ices around her, mixing up meteorology, geology, folklore, the crystal structure of the stuff, and the practicalities of living with it.
Then again, I'm a sucker for listening to someone being enthusiastic about their own subject.
Secondly, there's Smilla herself. Høeg has written a heroine who is compelling, intriguing, and who had my sympathy with her all the way - despite not actually being desperately likeable in some ways. Not that she's nasty, or does unpleasant things, she's just someone who you can't imagine being an easy person to be around. And one of the most thoroughly drawn, and convincing, characters I've read in a while.
This isn't a nice, fluffy winter feelgood book. And it requires you to think occasionally. But it is very fine.
Available to borrow as of now :)
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no subject
Date: 2002-11-20 11:24 pm (UTC)I have heard some really bad reviews of the new Umberto Eco so I am actually rather nervous about reading it as I am a big fan of his work. I shall probably get it over Christmas so will be able to give a review in the New Year (if you havn't read it yourself before then).
Thing du Jour
You see, for maximum pretentious trendiness the Thing du Jour can never be by the same person twice. White Teeth has been and gone, so you can't 'discover' ZS anymore, since everyone knows who she is !
<wink>