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Title: Dull, more or less
Review: This book wants to be several things at once: a thriller, a political commentary, a philosophical treatise, an evocation of the aesthetics of snow. Unfortunately for the reader it succeeds in none of these genres. The book is at least two hundred pages too long; the plot is unrealistic and, for long patches, quite boring. Hoeg has succeeded in creating a compelling character, mainly because Smilla is so perpetually cranky and cynical. One also learns about the status of Greenlanders of Denmark, which mirrors that of many other immigrant populations in countries around the world. Overall, however, I found this book immensely disappointing and more or less a waste of time. I did learn that one can appreciate subtleties in the world of ice but had little enjoyment while doing so. For a _real_ novel that successfully marries politics with a stirring story and fine, evocative writing, read Charles Powers's "In the Memory of the Forest."
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