Smilla's Sense of Snow/Cassettes

Rating:
Summary: Fast-paced with a little bit of everything...
Review: I read Smilla with a couple of my on-line book buddies, and we all had different takes on the story. That shows me that Peter Hoeg is an extremely talented writer with a lot to offer. The book is extremely fast paced and provides entertainment for fans of fiction, thrillers, suspense and even science fiction.

Smilla is a thirty-something spinster complete with all sorts of mental hang-ups. Her favorite neighbor is a young boy named Isaiah, and they spend a lot of time together reading, playing and talking. One snowy day, Smilla comes home to find that Isaiah was allegedly playing on the roof and died attempting a jump from one building to the next. Knowing that Isaiah would never be on the roof for any reason, she realizes something's up.

With the help of another neighbor, Peter, the mechanic, Smilla begins her own investigation. With the determination of Grafton's Kinsey Millone, the smarts of Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the physical threshold of Mia Hamm, Smilla finally gets to the bottom of the mystery.

I thought the novel was very well written and entertaining. Despite some disjointedness and some rambling, I definitely recommend it for a quick read.

Rating:
Summary: Miss Smilla: A Weird Mix of 'Geisha' and Lara Croft
Review: This book was recommended to me by a colleague, and it sounded like a neat way to learn more about Greenland and its people. The beginning of the book was most promising; the narrator, Miss Smilla, talking about what it is to be a Greenlander in (almost) the same rich terms found in 'Memoirs of a Geisha' (..of course this book instead captures the Japanese psyche). But then Miss Smilla gets involved into a rather complicated thriller-type (espionage, bio-warfare) story and, well, much of the original goodness and purity of the character is wiped out. And Miss Smilla turns out to be a heartless (but not brainless) female Rambo. Ridiculous? Yes, but certainly not boring.

Peter Hoeg is obviously a gifted writer. The prose is of high calibre, which is especially remarkable considering it's an English translation. But in "Smilla's Sense of Snow" he is definitely trying to do too much and, as a result, almost ruins what could have been a truly remarkable book.

Bottom line: an interesting book which offers an insight into the rather complex people of Greenland. Just be advised that the bulk of this book turns into a Danish Tom Clancey-type thriller, and not a terribly good one at that.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, that ending...
Review: ...or lack thereof. It let the whole thing down a bucketful. Perhaps it's me, perhaps I'm just not sufficiently literate. Up to then, I had thoroughly enjoyed this very unusual thriller with its very unusual non-super but highly intelligent and doggedly persistent heroine, the wonderful atmospheres conjured up and the problems of the second-class Greenlanders in Denmark. I was furiously reading to find out what was there in Greenland and how Smilla would find her way out of THIS one, but no! A five-star read, if you can find a copy without the last page. Better to be disappointed at what you may have missed, rather than read what actually was there and be REALLY disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Smilla Spins out of Control
Review: I must agree with many reviewers in that the first half of the book is brilliantly intriguing. The style and character development are excellent. It is also fascinating to read about a culture (Greenlandic) that we don't usually hear much about. However, once Smilla hits the sea, this book takes a dive. It seems as if the story dashed away from Hoeg and he started snatching in the air for something. By the end of the book, I was thoroughly disappointed. Apparently, Hoeg had no idea how to end this story that had cycled out of control, so he just stopped. How frustrating, as the beginning of the book is truly captivating.

Rating:
Summary: Great until the end
Review: I thought Smilla was one of the best female characters in modern fiction. She isn't a 23 year-old corporate executive; she is a 37 year-old with a scattered life. She makes mistakes, and she takes some lumps. The mechanic could have been developed a little better, but the first person format doesn't really allow that. Through the skillful use of the first person, the reader develops a true sense of what it is like being both from Greenland, and being an outsider. The language is often almost like poetry. It is this very intimate form that draws us into the book, and makes us care. BUT that ending-he got tired of typing or what? That is not an end, but the opening of a sequel. If my dog had written this book I'd be saying, "Bad Dog! You know better than that." I liked it in spite of the ending, and will rent the movie to see how Hollywood deals with the characters and the end.

Rating:
Summary: Brooding and Building...to Nothing
Review: A postcolonial thriller set in Copenhagen and Greenland? Unlikely, but here it is, in all its broody frigidity. Unlike many others, I found Smilla to be a fascinating protagonist. Half-Inuit, half-Danish, she is rapidly approaching middle age, and although a world-class expert on ice, she can't hold a steady job. Plagued by something approaching self hatred, excessive introspectiveness, and stubbornness, she is either nasty or sarcastic to almost everyone, never allowing people to see inside her. Perhaps one of the best female characters I've come across that was written by a man, she is not a nice person, nor one would particularly care to know, but she is tough and resourceful heroine. When her one friend, a little neighbour boy falls to his death from the roof, she doggedly pursues the matter as a murder, rather than the accident the police say it is. Her tenacity leads her along a wending path to the Cryolite Corporation, who were involved in mining in Greenland, and eventually to some very powerful, shadowy figures. The semi-procedural tone of this first section works fairly well, as Smilla manages to get others to tell her what she wants to know, without ever kow-towing to them. Her strained relationship to her rich father is ably worked in, as is a potentially burgeoning love affair. Also woven into all this is the tale of Denmark's colonization of Greenland.

Having upped the stakes considerably, the second part of the book is a tension-filled high seas affair. She becomes part of the crew on an icebreaker headed way up north in bad weather, in an adventure that she hopes will uncover the reason for the boy's death. The cat and mouse games aboard the icebreaker with the crew and passengers are outstanding, as she tries to uncover the ship's mission. Unfortunately, the final act is the undoing of all that preceded it, as the book veers off into X-Filesish, sci-fi threats to the world, and then fails to end altogether! It's book rich in both human and natural detail, in an interesting, harsh setting, but due to the awful ending, I can't say that I'd recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled
Review: This novel that I wanted very much to like, and which came highly recommended by readers whom I respect. However, even though I tried and tried again, I simply could not get into Smila's Sense of Snow.

At first I thought I just wasn't getting it so I redoubled my efforts. The slow pacing, the symbolism, the endless philosophical musing - is there a point? Or am I just missing it? But in the end, this is a novel that tries to be everything at once but simply ends up spinning its wheels.

Hoeg tries a bit of everything, from veiled psychological motives to philosophy to action scenes complete with fiery explosions, and even a bit of sci-fi - but the net effect is simple boredom. It was sheer determination that kept me turning the pages. Summary: boring, pretentious, overwritten, unbelievable. Hoeg tries to pull the wool over our eyes hoping we'll mistake the glacial pacing and opaque philoso-babble for profound thought. Thoughtful readers won't be fooled.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read, left me cold
Review: Smilla is a fascinating, if obnoxious, character. Her journey to find out what the true cause of her little friend's death holds some real fascination. Frankly if the last two chapters had held up to the rest of the book, I'd be giving it five stars. Unfortunately the author fails to provide any resolutions. At the end all is known, but nothing is settled. Our heroine is stranded in more senses than one; vindicated, but unable to do anything about it. I wanted to send the author an excerpt from Orson Scott Card's book on novel writing - the section where he discusses how and when to end a book - because this wasn't the way to do it.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect read for snowy winter! Unsatisfying end...
Review: I was given this book and kept for about one year until I found the perfect opportunity: snowed-in, blizzard outside, in my bed on a cold chicago winter day. I read in one day and enjoyed it. Smilla's journey through her quest to discover who killed her little friend is intertwined with her flashbacks to her past and an all too familiar love story...Unpredictable, although a bit cliché, the book does manage to keep the reader interested till the end.

Some details become a little too tiring and the author gives away too much information about the characters instead of letting us feel who they are through their actions. The end would puzzle and piss off many people but, hey, if only we could design our own end.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting 'Till the Bitter End
Review: I have to give Hoeg credit for keeping the reader in suspense throughout the entire book, from the cookie cutter "murder mystery" beginning to the X-Files denouement. However, for all of Hoeg's brilliance at keeping the pages turning with his twists and turns, the ending is a sore dissapointment. Smilla does not appear to change all that much, and there is little resolution to the development of the interesting characters.

I recognize Hoeg's talent at developing the characters and weaving social commentary into the novel, but 450 pages is a lot to slosh through for the dissapointment that comes on "The Ice".