I read Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg (1992) many years ago and loved the book but it’s been a while and my memory of the plot details were a little fuzzy so I decided to read it again. I still liked the book but I was less enthusiastic than I was before. Smilla is an interesting character. Like Stieg Larsson’s character Lisbeth Salander in the Millennium series, Smilla is a tough cookie and a bit of a Mary Sue, meaning she seems to be able to do anything, cope with anything, and get away with things that are a bit unrealistic – i.e., she’s a little too perfect in an imperfect way. She is an outsider – part Greenlander/part Danish, fiercely independent, strong and fit, and a loner. Yet, she is able to insert herself into various situations with aplomb.

The book was interesting as a mystery – Smilla was trying to figure out how and why a neighbor’s 6-year old child died after falling off an apartment building’s roof, despite being afraid of heights. Smilla knew that there was something wrong with what she was told by police and others. The “others” were a mix of corporate and government/public authorities who wouldn’t normally look into a child’s death. All of these things aroused Smilla’s suspicions and she would not let go of investigating the child’s death. This little boy was one of the few people who was close to Smilla. She cared for him when his mother was too busy or too high or just not home. They understood each other. So, she followed the trail to find out why this child died – and she was successful. However, the trail seemed more cumbersome than it really needed to be and brought together her physical strength, her contacts, and her skills and knowledge as a scientist and a Greenlander. In fact, I wondered whether which came first – the character or the plot. I ended up thinking this was an iterative process where the character’s traits and the plot needs were interwoven, i.e., if a plot point came first, the character was adapted to achieve the goal; if a character trait came first, the plot incorporated it.

The book was interesting as a cultural exploration – Smilla drew on all sides of her personality and heritage to achieve her goals. The incorporation of her Greenlandic heritage (from her mother’s side) was fascinating and helped to explain some of her abilities and knowledge. The “sense of snow” component (or more accurately in some cases, her sense of ice) was interesting – she was able to read the environment better than the other characters so had an advantage in operating in the cold and icy conditions. She also had a strength to her that was more believable once it was disclosed that she grew up in harsh and challenging environments and needed to learn to cope. The times when she drew on her memories and her culture were more interesting to me than the actual plotline.

To me, the book fell short in that some of it seemed physically impossible. There was one point toward the end when it mentioned it had been 6 days since she boarded the ship that took her to their target area (where they discovered what they were after). In that time, she had been in a few fights, had a sprained ankle (though modified to a mild sprain – I’m guessing someone told the author that sprains reduce mobility) and took multiple body blows, and yet was able to traverse a large cargo ship multiple times, including climbing flights of stairs. Maybe I’m a wimp, but when I sprained my ankle a couple of years ago, I was certainly happy to sit on the couch. There was one scene where she was hanging on to the side rail of the ship outrunning three men – she was able to jump, pull herself up, and otherwise outmaneuver these guys despite the icy and rough water conditions. Really? Wow! Later in the week, she was able to skate across a large expanse of ice to get to the shore despite just having her nose broken (on top of her other injuries). I think in my first read, I thought “Wow, she’s tough!” but this time it just didn’t read true. It felt like a movie or TV show where someone is shot in the leg but manages to run full-out for miles to catch the bad guy. But Smilla wasn’t the only one with superhuman strength, several other characters were able to carry on despite being physically injured. It seemed ridiculous after a while – there’s a fine line between suspension of disbelief and losing all sense of reality.

The plot was sometimes too detailed or convoluted and could have been edited to be more interesting and realistic. In places, there was just too much on one thing or another – it reminded me of the Moby Dick section on whaling (may have been a really long chapter or multiple chapters – I may have passed out at some point). I could have lived without certain highly detailed narrative passages. I skimmed some sections. The overall plot and Smilla’s contacts with this person and that person seemed to go on a little too long and, to me, seemed repetitive. A good editor could have made it seem fresh and allowed the story to build momentum. One place where perhaps too much momentum was built was in identifying their target – not going to say what this is to preserve the mystery. A lot of speculation was in play in the last third of the book but the final payoff felt a little anti-climactic to me. This is unfortunate because the potential “real” impact of this mysterious find could be substantial. Yet, I was a bit disappointed.

So, I could see reading this book again but would have to be in the right mindset. I think I was too optimistic for an exciting adventure. It was exciting in a sense but the balance seemed to be off. The story had interesting characters and the plot was just a little over-the-top here and there. There was so much focus on the middle section of the book – the chase to identify the culprits and the sea voyage – that the end game seemed to get short shrift.