was killed on an expedition to Greenland. She finds an ally in Peter Fojl, whom she calls the mechanic, a man who had also befriended Isaiah; where Smilla had provided the boy with education, reading to him from Euclid’sElements and other adult texts and sometimes feeding him, the mechanic had given him training in manual arts. Smilla finds quickly that the autopsy that declared Isaiah the victim of an accident had been performed by a doctor named Johannes Loyen, and that the pension that allowed Isaiah’s mother to feed her alcoholic habit came from the Cryolite Corporation, which has extensive mining interests in Greenland, native home to Smilla and Isaiah. Loyen, she finds, had been involved in two mysterious expeditions to the west coast of Greenland under the aegis of the Cryolite Corporation. In his autopsy report, he failed to note that a muscle sample was taken from Isaiah’s body after the boy was dead.

With the help of the former auditor of the Cryolite Corporation, a religious woman named Elsa Lubing, Smilla finds that the corporation’s expeditions involved a number of people who had at one time or another spent time in the Far East, where they were apparently involved in the drug trade. She locates Andreas Fine Licht, an Inuit who has a doctorate in linguistics and is now the curator of the Arctic Museum, located on a refitted sailing ship in Copenhagen’s harbor. Licht, who had been on the earlier trips, provides Smilla with more information, but before revealing very much he is killed. Smilla nearly dies in the fire that destroys the museum; she must swim through icy waters to save her life.

Smilla is helped in her search for information by an honest medical examiner named Lagermarn, by Ravn, a prosecutor’s investigator who has been told to lay off the case, and by her father, Dr. Moritz Jaspersen, who gives her money reluctantly but also provides her with information about others in the medical profession. Through Birgo Lander, shipping broker and part owner of a casino, she meets Captain Sigmund Lukas, who is about to take a ship to an unknown destination. Lukas agrees to hire her as a stewardess for the trip. Waiting for the sailing date, she is warned by Ravn that the police are looking for her, and she takes refuge at her father’s house. There she is betrayed by her father’s young lover, Benja, a twenty-two-year-old ballerina who is jealous of Smilla and tells the police where she is. Her father spirits her away, and Lander gets her aboard the Kronos just before it sails. No one, not even Captain Lukas, knows the ship’s destination.

The Kronos has been reinforced structurally to make it seaworthy in icy seas, and Smilla becomes convinced that she is right in thinking that the ship is headed for Greenland. As the ship plows through the North Sea and then the North Atlantic, she finds more and more oddities on board. The hold has been enlarged and strengthened, and has a highly expensive heating and cooling system. The crew seems to consist mainly of cutthroats, including Verlaine, the bosun, the deck hands, and two Asian women, although Smilla finds a reluctant ally in the deck hand Bernard Jakkelsen, a heroin addict who, like the captain and most of the crew, suspects that she is a police agent. Three mysterious passengers are hidden from Smilla for a while. Eventually she identifies two of them; the third proves to be Torkk, leader of the expedition, a man of uncanny and formidable power and authority.

While the Kronos is still on the way to Greenland, Verlaine and his two musclemen try to kill Smilla by wrapping her in a rug and throwing her into a deep cargo hold. On the final stage of the voyage they try to throw her into the icy ocean. On both occasions a combination of foresight, agility, and cleverness enables Smilla to save her life. In fighting them, she comes to realize that it was Verlaine and another man who had killed Andreas Licht and tried to kill her in the Arctic Museum.

The Kronos docks briefly at the Greenland Stor, a huge construction on the west coast of Greenland which is a loading port for super-tankers. While they are there, the final passenger arrives. It is Fojl, the mechanic, and with him come wet suits, dry suits, and other equipment for use in underwater diving. Before the ship leaves, Smilla follows Jakkelsen ashore and finds the young man’s body only minutes after he has been killed. Later, when the ship is under way, she finds that someone, presumably Verlaine, has stuffed Jakkelsen’s body in a locker so that it can be carried out to sea and dumped. She shows the body to the mechanic, but this evidence that he is involved in a criminal and dangerous scheme does not convince Fojl to abandon his part in whatever scheme is being carried out.

The Kronos makes its way through deepening ice and eventually arrives at Gela Alta, a small island off Greenland’s west coast. Smilla has confronted Tork and has realized that he was Isaiah’s murderer. She realizes that Fojl has been part of the conspiracy all along, and that despite his affection for Isaiah and his love for Smilla he had been a kind of watchdog for Tork, keeping watch on Isaiah and later reporting on Smilla’s activities. The mechanic does help her find the cache of heroin that Tork will use to pay off Verlaine and his two henchmen for their part in the present expedition. He also helps her contact Ravn by radio; she informs Ravn of what she has discovered and learns from him that Torkk had killed his daughter, a policewoman. Like Isaiah, she was killed in a fall.

Smilla is temporarily imprisoned in the ship’s infirmary, but she escapes and, with the help of the cook and Captain Lukas, makes her way to the island, where Tork awaits her. She learns that the object of the expedition is a meteorite sunk in an ice cave, where it gives off heat that makes a lake around it. She also learns that in addition to containing metals, diamonds, and minerals not found on Earth, the meteorite has apparently caused a mutation in a wormlike organism that makes it deadly to humans. This organism had been the cause of the death of Isaiah’s father and his companions. The company had pensioned his widow and looked after Isaiah to see whether the worm would be fatal to the boy. Despite the dangers it poses, Tork is determined to maneuver the meteorite out of its cave and slide it across the ice and onto the ship. He intends to kill Smilla and the mechanic and claim that they died in accidents. The violence comes to a head with a confrontation in the ice cave; its ultimate result is deliberately left somewhat uncertain. In Smilla’s final words, “There will be no resolution.”

Smilla’s many brushes with death create continuous excitement and suspense in Smilla’sSense of Snow. On board the Kronos she feels herself, justifiably, to be menaced at all times, both by persons she knows and by others she does not know. She does feel safe with the mechanic once their affair begins, even reveling in the feeling of being in love, but she eventually finds out that the mechanic is a hollow man who may have loved her but was always in the service of people who wished her ill. Tork’s quiet menace is a further source of suspense. Underlying the violence and the sense of foreboding that mark Smilla’s Sense of Snow is also a paradoxical sense of light and darkness. The ice and snow and the whiteness associated with them are set against the darkness of the Arctic winter; when the lights on the Kronos and the Greenland Star are suddenly extinguished, the sense of danger that will climax with Smilla’s discovery of Jakkelsen’s body is almost unbearable. The bitter cold in which the action takes place adds a further element of tension. Høeg’s descriptions of these phenomena are fully evocative.

Important as these elements are, the major reason for the spectacular achievement of Høeg’s novel is his depiction of character. Each of the secondary characters, from the mechanic to Tork to Captain Lukas to Urg the cook, is made individual and memorable. Most memorable of all, of course, is Smilla herself. She is a true original, tough mentally as well as physically, hard without being cynical, able to adapt to almost any circumstance. At the same time she is a bundle of paradoxes. Highly educated, she has never finished a degree program. She has been a guide on Greenland with an infallible sense of direction, but she feels lost and frightened at sea. She has worked with four fellow scientists studying the formation, structure, and behavior of ice for an international syndicate. She understands snow as few people can, but she has trouble understanding people. Above all, she has always been a stranger in the world, never at ease in her father’s Copenhagen, estranged since her mother’s death in her native Greenland. She lifts Smilla’s Sense of Snow to a level far above that of the usual thriller.

Sources for Further Study

Chicago Tribune. September 9, 1993, V, p.3.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. September 26, 1993, p.3.

The New Republic. CCIX, November 1, 1993, p.39.

New Woman. XXIII, September, 1993, p.24.

The New York Times Book Review. XCVIII, September 26, 1993, p.12.

The New Yorker. LXIX, September 20, 1993, p.118.

Newsweek. CXXII, September 6, 1993, p.54.

Publishers Weekly. CCXL, June 28, 1993, p.56.

Time. CXLII, September 13, 1993, p.77.

The Wall Street Journal. September 29, 1993, p. A16.

To fully grasp the narrative of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, it's important to understand the cultural and historical ties between Greenland and Denmark. Although Denmark granted Greenland Home Rule in 1979, a decade before Høeg started writing his novel, the events leading up to this political shift and its consequences significantly shape the story.

Greenland has been inhabited for approximately four thousand years. The first Europeans arrived around 985 CE, when Norwegians established two farming settlements. These settlements eventually vanished for reasons that remain unclear. Some scientists speculate that disease or a climatic disaster may have led to their downfall, which intriguingly connects to Høeg’s theme of “neocatastrophism.” Høeg's use of a massive meteorite in the plot suggests climatic change, while the introduction of a deadly parasitic worm implies that such factors might have contributed to the Norwegians' inability to sustain life on Greenland. Høeg seems to caution contemporary Europeans against recklessly unleashing unforeseen consequences on the world.

Evidence suggests that early Europeans interacted with the Inuit people as soon as they settled. In the sixteenth century, explorers and whalers frequently visited Greenland and engaged with the Inuit. However, lasting contact wasn't established until the eighteenth century, when Hans Egede, a Danish-Norwegian priest, traveled to Greenland's west coast seeking earlier settlements. Acting as both missionary and trader, Egede and his team learned the Inuit language and successfully converted the indigenous people to Christianity. In 1776, the Danish government created the Royal Greenland Trade Company to manage trade with Greenland. For two centuries, Denmark maintained colonial rule over Greenland, keeping the island both isolated and shielded.

Ironically, the end of colonial rule in the early 1950s disrupted Inuit culture more than colonization itself. Smilla often reflects on this era; during the 1950s and 1960s, Greenlanders were viewed as “Northern Danes” and thus received social reforms and modernization in health, education, and welfare. While this provided opportunities for many Greenlanders, it also eroded their language, as “Northern Danes” were expected to learn and use Danish. Many Inuit were compelled to abandon their traditional homes and lifestyles due to Denmark’s push to modernize them.

In Smilla’s Sense of Snow, readers discover that Smilla was part of the Young Greenlander’s Council, a group of Greenlandic students in Denmark advocating for Greenland's Home Rule. Due to pressure from this and other activist groups, Denmark set up a Home Rule Commission in 1975, and by 1979, Home Rule was in place. Notably, the Greenlandic Inuit became the first Inuit group worldwide to govern themselves following the era of colonialism.

Høeg, through the character of Smilla, highlights the paradoxical nature of Home Rule. It requires the Inuit to adopt European forms of self-governance, involving a parliament and a central government. Smilla observes that Danish influence on Inuit life is not simply good or bad. While the arrival of Western technology in Greenland disrupted traditional Inuit lifestyles and led to issues like disease and alcoholism, it also improved their material conditions. Høeg conveys this complexity through Smilla’s words:

The challenge in attempting to despise the colonization of Greenland with complete hatred is that, despite any negative aspect you might abhor, the colonization undeniably enhanced the material needs of a life that was among the most challenging in the world.

Høeg effectively engages readers with the intricacies of the colonial dynamic and prompts them to reflect on the circumstances of other indigenous polar communities worldwide. Without historical and cultural context, readers may miss some of the depth in "Smilla’s Sense of Snow" as a postcolonial work.

Genre
The word "genre" denotes the classification of a literary piece based on its form or content. Specific genres come with particular conventions. For instance, detective fiction typically features a crime and an individual attempting to solve it. Although a book like "Smilla’s Sense of Snow" is undeniably a novel, it defies easy categorization by content and convention. It seems as if Høeg is deliberately challenging the concept of genre in his creation of this work.

The narrative begins with elements typical of a murder mystery: a suspicious death, a main character equipped with the knowledge and motivation to investigate, an array of clues, and a diverse cast of intriguing characters. Concurrently, the novel also fits into the "thriller/suspense" category. Neither Smilla nor the reader has sufficient information to crack the case at any point, placing her in constant danger and uncertainty about whom to trust. Additionally, it is a love story featuring the unlikely couple of Smilla and Føjl. The tale is both tender and gritty. Readers accustomed to traditional love stories might expect the relationship to redeem the characters, but Høeg subverts this by disclosing near the book's conclusion that Føjl has been aiding the antagonists. Despite this, he seems to still love Smilla, and she might continue to love him.

Less apparent is that the novel also serves as a philosophical exploration of mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. Through her reflections, Smilla reveals her search for meaning, turning to philosophy and science for answers that her experiences have not provided. The novel also acts as a historical account and critique of Danish colonial practices in Greenland. It tells the story of Smilla, a marginalized "other" who struggles to find belonging in either culture of her ancestry. The book criticizes the impact of Western technological capitalism on the Arctic environment and its people. The story then shifts again, evolving into a science fiction thriller about a mysterious meteorite and deadly life forms that have caused and will continue to cause death.

By the novel's conclusion, Høeg intentionally dismantles all genre-related expectations of the reader. For some, these genre shifts are unsettling and perplexing, as indicated by critical feedback. However, Høeg’s resistance to genre classification parallels Smilla’s defiance of classification by ethnicity, gender, or age. Consequently, Høeg has crafted a postmodern novel that consistently transcends its boundaries, much like Smilla herself.

Setting
One of the most captivating aspects of "Smilla’s Sense of Snow" is its setting. From the biting cold of a Danish winter in the opening scene to the final, frantic skate across Greenland's ice, Høeg uses vivid and specific language to convey a sense of cold, ice, and snow, reflecting Smilla’s feelings of isolation and alienation.

Høeg carefully selects three distinct settings for his novel. The first is Copenhagen, Denmark. To Smilla, the Danish winter feels colder than anything she has experienced in Greenland. The coldness of city life impacts her significantly; she resides in a sterile apartment building known as “The White Palace,” a place where neighbors live side by side yet remain strangers. For Greenlanders who have moved to the city, Copenhagen feels like a prison, a place of both social and physical chill.

The second part of the book is set on the open waters of the North Atlantic. This environment is more perilous and terrifying for Smilla than Copenhagen. Ironically, despite her upbringing among seafaring people, she dislikes the sea. The Kronos, the vessel transporting her from Europe to Greenland, represents a transition for Smilla. It is where she sheds her elegant clothing and the trappings of civilization, adopting the attire of a survivor. On the ship, Smilla almost loses her life and her sense of stability; she is more at ease with ice than with water. Ice, with its predictable and mathematically identifiable crystal structures, is familiar to her. In contrast, the sea is in constant motion and inherently unpredictable. Similarly, although she has adapted to dealing with the Danes in Copenhagen, aboard the Kronos, she finds that the people are as unpredictable and dangerous as the ocean itself.

The final section of the story unfolds on the icy landscape of Greenland. Once again, Høeg captures the harsh cold and the alien nature of the frozen terrain. However, Smilla feels more secure here. She possesses the scientific understanding of snow and ice acquired in Europe, coupled with the intuitive knowledge from her upbringing. In the climactic scene, it is Smilla’s familiarity with this environment that offers her a chance at survival:

The ice provides its own kind of night-time hospitality. I have no flashlight now, but I’m running as if on a smooth road. With ease, with assurance. My kamiks grip the snow differently than his boots do.

Ultimately, it seems to be the environment itself that is on the verge of defeating Tørk: “His strength is about to give out. If you haven’t grown up in this landscape, it uses up your strength.” The novel concludes amidst the ice and darkness, leaving the story unresolved. Even after the final paragraph, the vivid depiction of the setting lingers in the reader's mind.

The novel "Smilla’s Sense of Snow" was transformed into a movie in 1997 by Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by Bille August, the film featured Julia Ormond as Smilla, Gabriel Byrne as Føjl, and Richard Harris as Moritz. It is available in both video and DVD formats.

The film's soundtrack was released on CD by Elektra/Asylum in March 1997.

An abridged audiobook version of "Smilla’s Sense of Snow," narrated by Rebecca Pidgeon, was published by Harper Collins in August 1993.

A reading group guide for "Smilla’s Sense of Snow" can be found at www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/smillassense_bgc.html (last accessed October 2002). This guide includes an interview with the author, discussion questions, an author biography, and links to related sites.

Another reading group guide is available at www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/smillas_sense_of_snow.asp (last accessed October 2002), which also offers interviews, a biography, questions, and additional links.

Sources
Bell, Pearl, “Fiction Chronicle,” in Partisan Review, Vol. LXI, No. 1, Winter 1994, pp. 80–95.

Eder, Richard, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 26, 1993, pp. 3, 11.

Hazleton, Lesley, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in the Seattle Times, October 3, 1993, p. F2.

Henry, William, III, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in People Weekly, Vol. 40, No. 14, 1993, pp. 32–34.

Kennedy, Thomas E., and Frank Hugus, Introduction, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 7–10.

Leithauser, Brad, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in New Republic, Vol. 209, No. 18, November 1, 1992, p. 39. Loose, Julian, Review of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, in London Review of Books, Vol. 16, No. 9, May 12, 1994, p. 27.

McCue, John, Review of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4720, September 17, 1993, p. 20.

Meyer, Michael, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in New York Review of Books, Vol. XL, No. 19, November 18, 1993, p. 41.

Møller, Hans Henrik, “Peter Høeg or The Sense of Writing,” in Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 69, Winter 1997, pp. 29–51.

Nathan, Robert, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in New York Times Book Review, September 26, 1993, p. 12.

Norseng, Mary Kay, “A House of Mourning: Frøken Smillas Fornemmelse for Sne,” in Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 69, No. 1, Winter 1997, pp. 52–83.

Satterlee, Thomas, “Peter Høeg,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 214: Twentieth-Century Danish Writers, edited by Marianne Stecher-Hansen, The Gale Group, 1999, pp. 178–87.

Schaffer, Rachel, “Smilla’s Sense of Gender Identity,” in Clues: A Journal of Detection, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring–Summer 1998, pp. 47–60.

Shapiro, Laura, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in Newsweek, Vol. 122, No. 10, September 6, 1993, p. 54.

Simonds, Merilyn, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in the Montreal Gazette, December 11, 1993, p. 12.

Smiley, Jane, Review of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, in Washington Post Book World, October 24, 1993, pp. 1, 11.

Whiteside, Shaun, Review of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, in Manchester Guardian Weekly, Vol. 149, No. 19, November 7, 1993, p. 29.

Williams, John, Review of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, in New Statesman and Society, Vol. 6, No. 268, September 3, 1993, p. 41.

Further Reading
Caufield, Richard A., “The Kalaallit of West Greenland,” in Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive, edited by Milton Freeman, Greenwood Press, 2000. Caufield offers an accessible history of Greenland's Inuit people, spanning from the past into the modern age.

Nuttal, Mark, “Greenland: Emergence of an Inuit Homeland,” in Polar Peoples: Self-Determination & Development, edited by Minority Rights Group, Minority Rights Publications, 1994. Nuttall’s chapter in this comprehensive overview of polar communities provides a brief history of Danish colonization in Greenland along with future implications.

Satterlee, Thomas, “Peter Høeg,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 214: Twentieth-Century Danish Writers, edited by Marianne Stecher-Hansen, The Gale Group, 1999, pp. 178–187. Satterlee offers an insightful introduction to Peter Høeg’s literary work for those interested in learning more about him.

Schaffer, Rachel, “Smilla’s Sense of Gender Identity,” in Clues: A Journal of Detection, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring–Summer 1998, pp. 47–60. In a well-written critical essay, Schaffer employs feminist theory to analyze the novel.