Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season416 pages, about 8 hours: the length of 1.3 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbIsaiah’s funeral opens the book, and Smilla refuses to accept the Greenlandic boy’s fall from a Copenhagen roof as accidental.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesKirkus Reviews compares it to Gorky Park, on the shelf at 393 pages.
The case for it
on Smilla’s expertise
“Smilla Jaspersen is a world-class expert on ice and snow”
Unsigned review · Kirkus Reviews, 1993 on the translation
“the wonderfully successful translation which allows the original meanings to shine”
Jill Murphy · TheBookbag, 2009 on Smilla as detective
“Smilla herself is one of the most original amateur detectives I have come across.”
a book blog on being a Greenlander
“the impression of what it is to be a Greenlander that seeps from every page”
five stars · a book blog
The case against
on Høeg’s prose
“opaque slush: intricately convoluted, intermittently incomprehensible, and with stultifying plotting”
a book blog on Smilla’s father
“Smilla ended up spending so much time with her super-wealthy Danish father”
a book blog on Smilla’s luck
“with a lot, largely on moxie, the curiosity of her opponents, and hellish good luck”
a book blog on the plot’s likelihood
“there are points in the story at which I had to stretch my imagination”
a book blog
