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39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kasper's Sense of Sound, November 4, 2007
The new novel by the author of SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW is demanding, elliptical, tangential, confusing, and not always grounded in reality. In other words, it's difficult to read. Set in Copenhagen in the near future, after a natural disaster has destroyed much of the city, it concerns Kasper Krone, a 42-year-old circus clown/violinist/psychic healer/gambling addict/con artist/womanizer/tax dodger/Bach fanatic (I'm not making this up) with a rare form of ESP: he can "hear" the natural "music" that emanates from everyone and everything (I'm not making this up, either). He is particularly good at psychic healing, and his gift works best on children. One child in particular--a little girl who shares his powers of ESP, who is being held against her will by a secret government organization that wants to use her abilities for sinister purposes. She gets a message to Kasper, and he decides to locate her and rescue her from the bad guys using all of his talents (listed above), with the help of his dying father, some weird circus colleagues, and at least three angry ex-girlfriends. Meanwhile, some *other* sinister people are trying to deport him or imprison him, apparently for unpaid taxes. Did I mention the group of kids straight out of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED who can manipulate the time/space continuum? Well, he has to rescue them, too....
As you can see, the plot is convoluted, and Hoeg's writing style is not always easy to follow, even in Nadia Christensen's (presumably) faithful translation from Danish. And Kasper Krone is, by any definition, a creep and a loser. But--like Smilla before him--he's oddly fascinating, and his story is full of surprises. I stayed with this offbeat novel long after I would normally have given up in despair, and I'm glad I did. It's not as enjoyable as SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW (which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5), but it's definitely worth a look. If you're in the mood for a bizarre, maddening, challenging, exciting suspense story unlike anything else on the market, try it.
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32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps another translator?, January 5, 2008
Peter Høeg's previous novel, SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW, is on my top ten list of all time favorite novels. THE QUIET GIRL won't be, not because of the plot but because of the English language. SMILLA was translated by Tiina Nunnally for the US market and GIRL by Nadia Christensen. SMILLA'S US translation turned the unknown Høeg into an international best-seller and won Nunnally the top prize given by American translators, a prize not given every year. I happened on a copy of the UK translation of SMILLA in London a few years ago and read it to compare to Nunnally's. Nunnally's English was more fluid, less awkward and beautifully poetic in places, that all-too-rare synchronicity of author and translator. Logic would have dictated that Nunnally should have translated GIRL but Høeg, who does not speak English well, had not liked Nunnally's translation so another translator was chosen. A large mistake, I feel, for the same problem of language that is awkward, flat or imprecise that marked the UK edition of SMILLA afflicts GIRL. An author is always at the mercy of a translator; it's too bad that Høeg didn't appreciate the "mercy" Nunnally showed SMILLA.
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I had a deal with SheAlmighty. To play all the notes. Including the black ones.", November 5, 2007
Peter Hoeg's first novel in ten years takes the reader on a trip through an almost psychedelic world of circus clowns, children with mystical abilities, powerful nuns, evil financiers, mysterious security agencies, and bizarre foundations. Kasper Krone, a circus clown, has discovered that "SheAlmighty has tuned each person in a musical key," and he is able to hear the music that SheAlmighty has created for each person. By tapping into the music of people's psyches, he can understand their moods and thoughts. Often the music he hears emanating from those around him is that of Bach, the ebb and flow of a person's inner spirit paralleling the changing moods of specific Bach masterpieces.
Complex and sometimes mystifying, The Quiet Girl builds its non-linear "story" through impressionistic scenes, presented seemingly at random from the past, present, future, and even the imagination. It is up to the reader to create a narrative from scenes-out-of-sequence as the thinly drawn characters overlap and additional information is revealed, an often frustrating effort.
Kasper is being investigated for tax evasion and is about to be deported from Denmark to Spain. As he deals with governmental officials from Department H and other mysterious departments, people from the circus who may or may not want to help him, and the mysterious Rabia Institute, a convent of Praying Sisters, he, like the reader, tries to make sense of the world around him. When he sees a small girl, KlaraMaria, with her "family," she claims, almost telepathically, that she has been kidnapped and wants Kasper to help her. Eventually, he learns that the nuns from the Rabia Institute have been protecting a group of children, including KlaraMaria, believing that "Some children are born with a gift for coming close to God faster than others." All are possessed of mystic gifts, and a group of evil men, wanting to use these children for their own unstated purposes, have kidnapped six of them from around the world. The nuns seek Kasper's help.
As he searches for the missing children, Kasper encounters mortal dangers. He does not know whom he can trust, and neither does the reader. A large cast of characters, none of whom are fully developed, keeps the mystery high but the reader's ability to identify with Kasper low, and when the grand finale finally occurs, and the loose ends get tied up, the reader may feel a sense of letdown by the coincidences. Hoeg's exploration of the science of sound as the key to understanding man's connections to the universe shows us a reality that is often violent and discordant. Love is fragile and fraught with peril, and the answers to life's biggest questions are often tantalizingly out of reach. Still, man must soldier on, trusting that SheAlmighty has a grander plan, a greater symphony underlying our individual fates. n Mary Whipple
The Woman and the Ape
Borderliners: A Novel
The History of Danish Dreams
Smilla's Sense of Snow
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