The detective -crime kind of thriller is one of my favorite genres, after maybe science fiction. Reading through Stieg Larsson's millennium trilogy I was always thinking that I had met his heroine before, in other books. But one night the realization came to me that Lisbeth Salander did not just remind me parts of other female characters I had encountered in other books in general, but in a specific book: Smilla's Feeling for Snow, by Peter Hoeg. Both Smilla and Salander are female, outcasts from the supposedly well functioning society that they live in. Smilla in Denmark, Salander in Sweden, they are both geeks, passionate, knowledgeable for their expertise, but have more or less elected to live on the fringe of society. In both stories they are the vehicle by which the plot moves forward, where we get to see a mystery /crime solved, the guilty punished. The creeping feeling in both stories is that they are not really about crime and crime fighting, but about narrating and exposing the hellish ligaments that hold parts of the Swedish and Danish societies together respectively. We get to see that not all is good in the North, that there also there are people made from Hell, engulfed in sinister, evil incarnations.We get to see that these countries can indeed become very hostile as environments. Finally in both books, snow and cold weather are prominent features, even part of the plot, perhaps in Smilla's Feeling for Snow more than in the millennium Trilogy. So if you ever have the need to meet two great heroines of crime fiction and need to meet with the cultures of Denmark and Sweden, but upside-down, go read the books. I know I ll keep thinking of these two as I take the Snow in, somewhere alas in Central and North Europe.
pure as snow
Snowboard
it is simple, you strap your legs unto a wooden board and go dancing on snow crested mountaintops, and glide, and fall and glide and fall, and glide glide glide with music surrounding your eyes from the flop of white powder, and even though you fell your legs have become one the tango just keeps on rolling and falling and the cold engulfs the very essence of the place: unfriendly, menacing, slippery, and your sight keeps bearings far away unto tree tops, flaying in the wind swooshing in your ears the directives to your body ,please follow me down the hill.
ps: sorry,no photos. the monster-residing-in-the-other-computer-ate them!
it is simple, you strap your legs unto a wooden board and go dancing on snow crested mountaintops, and glide, and fall and glide and fall, and glide glide glide with music surrounding your eyes from the flop of white powder, and even though you fell your legs have become one the tango just keeps on rolling and falling and the cold engulfs the very essence of the place: unfriendly, menacing, slippery, and your sight keeps bearings far away unto tree tops, flaying in the wind swooshing in your ears the directives to your body ,please follow me down the hill.
ps: sorry,no photos. the monster-residing-in-the-other-computer-ate them!
fresh, from the Island of Macau
A cultural Antropologist take on Architecture As Media. It is refreshing (mostly because no Architect would dare do it) an dI like it.
http://tablechairwall.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=1033
ps: Ben, do open up the comments! it's a shame I have to do a blog post just to respond to your post!
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