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: 2002-11-21 06:37 am (UTC)Only just got round to "Exile on Coldharbour Lane". And I'm still busy being excited by the fact that it's got a cover of "The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness" on it.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-21 07:11 am (UTC)It's pretty good, on a scale of rubbish to Exile (which is absolutely fantastic and nothing short of genius).
Whose is the original of Speed of the Sound of Loneliness? And what style of music is it? And is it any good?
no subject
Date: 2002-11-21 09:16 am (UTC)I have no idea... I only know it as a song wot gets sung in folk clubs occasionally.
Google suggests it's written by John Prine, recorded by Nanci Griffith. If you go here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006J3WF/qid=1037898782/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-5007793-8303046) to Amazon, you can listen to a clip.
Then tell me, because I don't have realplayer installed :)
no subject
Date: 2002-11-21 09:21 am (UTC)Don't have Realplayer installed?
Luxury!
I don't have a sound card on this PC.
You kids don't know you're born etc etc.
I'm a big Nanci Griffith fan...
Date: 2002-11-21 01:04 pm (UTC)It's on the album 'Other Voices, Other Rooms', which I don't think I have, but I'm now tempted to get since I have the Alabama 3 song.
I saw her when she came to Oxford last, ages ago, with
It's on the album 'Other Voices, Other Rooms', which I don't think I have, but I'm now tempted to get since I have the Alabama 3 song.
I saw her when she came to Oxford last, ages ago, with <ljuser=ealuscerwen>. She's getting old and her voice is failing, but she's still one hell of a singer.
If either you or Steve want to borrow some albums, feel free. Her best songs are probably on <i>Storms</i> or <i>Late Night Grand Hotel</i>.