A touch of quiet beauty
Set in Copenhagen, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow opens with the unexplained death of a small boy which the authorities are keen to ignore. Smilla Jaspersen, eponymous heroine and friend of the child, proves unwilling to let the matter drop and, perhaps inevitably, determines to resolve the case herself. Not blindingly original by any means but the novel is a wonderful example of Høeg's incisive writing and expansive vision.
The mystery revolves around unexplained expeditions to Greenland undertaken by the Cryolite Corporation Danmark and resulting in the death of the young boy's father. With the help of a tall engineer, a Ministry of Justice employee and an elusive linguistics expert by the name of Andreas Fine Licht, Smilla begins piecing together the many elements of an extremely complex and ingenious tale.
Chief amongst Høeg's many achievements is the creation of Smilla, a character of sparkling intelligence and insight who revels in her Arctic solitude and who possesses a keen eye for both detail and snow. It's this knowledge of snow, gleaned from a childhood in Greenland, which first arouses her suspicions and which provides Høeg with his greatest difficulty:
Reading snow is like listening to music. To describe what you've read is to try to explain music in writing.
But Høeg pulls off this feat with aplomb, Smilla's expertise revealing and fascinating in equal measure.
As in A History of Danish Dreams and Tales of the Night, other works in the author's much-vaunted canon, the plot is meticulously constructed and expertly handled, but without placing unnecessary constraints upon the novel. Høeg allows himself ample scope for observations of a much more general nature, not just on the subtle intricacy of snow and ice, curiously compelling though they may be, but on the grieving process, love and Danish society. 'Grief is a gift, something you have to earn', whilst 'deep within every blind, absolute love grows the hatred towards the beloved, who now holds the only existing key to one's happiness.'
This is a taut, well-paced and deftly handled thriller, developed with fluidity and purpose and full of information that seems almost to have been divulged as an incidental aside. With so many names and so many places merged seamlessly in amongst childhood memories, understated profundities and Greenlandic myth, the reader could easily become lost in a wealth of information so great as to be indigestible if it wasn't for the assurance with which we are guided.
Høeg's subtle, sometimes rather bleak, sense of humour is also much in evidence, and by brilliantly evoking a sense of wintry coldness akin to, say, Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, he has imbued the novel with a quiet, poetic beauty. 'December darkness rises up from the grave, seeming as limitless as the sky' and later the sun, on the verge of leaving, seems to discover 'qualities in the world that are now causing it to have second thoughts about departing.'
A truly engrossing novel, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow is the work of an author who possesses not only a profound insight but also a keen appreciation of the expert craftsmanship required to write a truly great crime novel such as this.
nb
14th Oct 1999