Ice, Ice, Baby (Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg)

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Product:	Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg
Date:	16/10/01 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully fuid prose, well crafted plot

Disadvantages: Deprived me of sleep for a couple of days!

I’m still not quite sure why I started reading this book, strangely enough. I had seen the trailer for the film of the same name a while back, but it didn’t appeal to me – and then out of curiosity, I read the back cover of the book when I saw it lying on the table at a mate’s flat not long ago. It might not have sounded too auspicious, being the story of Smilla Jaspersen, a single lady of Greenlandic descent who lives in Copenhagen and investigates the mysterious death of Isaiah, the boy who lives in the flat above hers, but the critics’ comments made me take a closer look.

All the reviews I have read of ‘Smilla’ praise the fluid prose style of Peter Hoeg, and it is only rarely that you can say that a really magical sense of the original text has been retained in a translation. Seems strange to say it, but that is something I notice even more now, as I have been working as a translator for the past 2 years. I normally try to avoid reading a translation of a German book, and I steer clear of English texts translated into German. The job gives you quite a keen sense of when something is not quite right, when a word chosen just misses the sense of the original, but in the case of the translation of ‘Smilla’ almost everything seems to hit the right note.

There are a few rough edges, borne out of my own prejudices and experiences – I am duty bound to translate my work into American English, which naturally goes against the grain for an Englishman, and it is clear that this book has been translated by an American because where I would use ‘tap’ or ‘toilet’, I see references to ‘faucet’ and ‘john’. Another problem is one that is common to anyone attempting to translate from German as well – how to put across the subtle nuances of politeness suggested by the two forms of address that are both expressed as ‘you’ in English. In this
case, the difference has to be explicitly explained, which is probably the best way to do it. But these are just minor quibbles. The amazingly fluid style of Peter Hoeg shines through in every page, as the reader is really drawn into Smilla’s inner world.

Particular attention is paid throughout the book to the preparation and enjoyment of food and drink, and there are some beautifully detailed descriptions of landscape and city. I don’t know Copenhagen very well, having only been there once, but some of what I had seen came back to me quite vividly thanks to reading this book. Of course there is special emphasis on descriptions of snow and ice, which probably doesn’t sound too interesting! However, the Inuit people of Greenland have an amazing number of words for all the different types of snow, and the unpredictable forces of the Arctic weather play a huge role in the development of the story. Just read the passages where Smilla describes the luminescent effect of snow during the Arctic winter, and you will see what I mean.

However, this is far more than a simple murder story. There are many strands to this tale, as it deals with alcoholism, loneliness, love and fear, and delves deeply into the troubled relationship between Denmark and Greenland. In many respects, the history between the colonial power and its sparsely populated possession is a painful tale of repression and coercion. Greenland is only now becoming more independent as a nation (a national Greenland football team recently played a match against a Tibetan XI, emphasising the loosening of ties to Copenhagen), and Peter Hoeg reveals many details that I was unaware of. The gaping chasm that exists between Danes and Greenlanders, both physically and mentally, and the gradual erosion of the ancient Inuit way of life, the much-resented assimilation of the Inuit people into Danish culture by forced learning of the Danish language and adoption of European religion to the
detriment of centuries of Eskimo civilisation. This takes its most obvious form in the names of the settlements scattered along the coast of Greenland – the intrusion of the American Air Force is centred on the base at Thule, but the town itself is called Qaannaaq in Greenlandic.

Smilla’s father attempted to bridge these huge divides between two completely different civilisations when he married a Greenlander, but the union seemed doomed to failure from the outset, leaving his daughter stranded. Smilla is at home neither in Greenland nor in Denmark, losing her grasp on her mother tongue and unable to blend in to the new environment of Copenhagen, permanently subjected to open and covert racism in her daily life. This is the background against which the story is played out, and the reader is gradually drawn into her mind and given an idea of what it is like to be an outsider wherever you go.

That is why she takes such an interest in the strange circumstances of Isaiah’s death, and why she goes to such lengths to try and find out how the lonely, quiet little boy who was so afraid of heights fell to his death from the roof of her apartment block. The tale takes many unexpected turns, contains plenty of shocks and some fairly clinical descriptions of physical violence, and is so well written that it will take your breath away. Quite simply, you will not be able to put this down until you have accompanied Smilla right to the end of her journey in search of the truth, and you will enjoy every minute of the ride.

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