Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

It does end very strangely but I would recommend reading it. The character is so strong. I remember there was a big controvesy when the film came out. I thought the film was good too.

A failure of translation...maybe. In any case, a book worth reading, but maybe not finishing?

A failure of translation? No, I don't think so. Maybe Hoeg was under pressure to meet a deadline, or maybe he just lost confidence in his protagonist. I have to say that I found Smilla to be uncharacteristically - and unpleasantly - brutish in the final scenes of the book.

Fair enough. It's on my bookshelf (and reading list), so I was wondering whether to cut Hoeg some slack.

I've read some fairly dire translations before now and it would be a shame if a lapse was to put me off a good story.

I agree that the book lost its way towards the end, and at this point Smilla was - for me - no longer convincing. I think I've made the point elsewhere on these boards that I am yet to discover a man who can write convincingly from a female perspective - with the notable exception of William Trevor.

Do you think that might have been a failure of translation?

I read this book some years ago. When it came out in its Swedish version not long after it wash published in Danish. I was absolutely captivated by the heroine of the book. Quite soon a love story began to emerge between myself as a reader and Miss Smilla as a character. When she falls for a man in the book I actually felt betrayed... But as the love story fell apart so does the book which unravels into a chilly (literally) thriller but without the energy.