Smilla's Sense of Snow, by Peter Høeg

Bibliography, Peter Hoeg

• Forestilling om det tyvende århundrede (1988) The History of Danish Dreams
• Fortællinger om natten (Short stories) (1990) Tales of the Night
• Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne (1992) Smilla's Sense of Snow
• De måske egnede (1993) Borderliners
• Kvinden og aben (1996) The Woman and The Ape
• Den stille pige (2006) The Quiet Girl

Prizes

• Weekendavisens litteraturpris (1988)
• The Glass Key Award from the Crime Writers of Scandinavia (1992) for Smilla's Sense of Snow
• Kritikerprisen (1993)
• Herman Bangs Mindelegat (1993)
• De Gyldne Laurbær (1994)
• Silver Dagger (1994) for Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow

See also our review of the movie Smilla's Sense of Snow (DVD).

(Also known as "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow.") This murder mystery/thriller takes place between Denmark and Greenland. Smilla Jaspersen is on of the strongest, most intriguing female characters to appear in fiction in a very long time. The novel is filled with action, suspense, and mystery.

Six year old Isaiah, a Greenlander like Smilla, leaps to his death from the roof of the apartment building in which he lives with his mother. While the boy's body is still warm, the police pronounce it an accident. But Smilla, who lives in the same building and has come to love the little boy as her own, knows her young neighbor didn't fall from the rooftop on his own. She knows that he was very afraid of heights. Although there is only one set of footprints on the roof, she still suspects foul play as supported by her "reading" of the footprints. 

Her investigations begin in Copenhagen, but eventually lead to an adventure on an ice breaking ship and then to an island in the northern part of Greenland and a very surprising ending. The motive of her initial investigation lies in the kindred spirit she shares with Isaiah, both having been born in Greenland and then brought to Copenhagen after a parent died. But as she learns more, the more intent she is to find the real answer behind this boy's death.

Smilla's Sense of Snow is an adventure in the grand tradition, with all the intrigue and occasional scenes of violence and disaster this suggests. I highly recommend it. It's a real page turner. 

This book was selected as "Book of the Year" for 1993 by Time, People, and Entertainment Weekly.

Other great books by Høeg include The Woman and the Ape: A Novel and The Quiet Girl: A Novel. Order from amazon UK: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, The Woman and the Ape (Panther), and The Quiet Girl. You can also by the movie about Smilla: Smilla's Sense of Snow [1997] (REGION 1) (NTSC).

Links to Peter Hoeg's books at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Borderliners, by Peter Hoeg

In Borderliners, Hoeg portrays the closed world of Biehl's, a Danish private school also attended by children of the upper classes, in the early 1970s. The narrator, Peter, is a student at Biehl's after spending all of his life in children's homes and reform schools. He is a borderline case.

Peter is a bit psychotic, and wrestles with the demons of anxiety and despair that "the absolutely normal pupils" around him can hardly guess at. He is drawn to Katarina, whose parents both died in the past year. And he feels a need to protect August, who is severely disturbed after killing his abusive parents. Together these three form a little band of misfits. They are “borderliners” because they have academic and social problems.

The three grow closer, Peter falls for Katarina, and they begin struggling, first to reveal the evil they feel is taking place, and then to break free of the strange experiments in social Darwinism being performed at the school.

Peter Hoeg masterfully tells this tale of childhood. And Borderliners may be more than an ordinary novel - there is much evidense suggesting that this is an auto-biographical novel. Peter, the narrator, is 14. Later we learn that he is adopted by a family named Hoeg.

Despite a number of differences, the novel reminds me of another autobiographical novel by a Scandinavian author, namely Evil by Swedish author Jan Guillou. They both describe challenging circumstances encountered in private schools – one in Denmark, the other in Sweden. Both are haunting, to some extent surreal, and quite disturbing.

Borderliners is a wonderful book, at times difficult to read, but very rewarding. It is not nearly as accessible as Smilla’s Sense of Snow, and some of the excursions into the nature of time are hard to follow. But it is a book of considerable beauty, and a book that lingers in your head after you have finished it. At times the book is very moving. An unforgettable story and a worthwhile read!