"Love has something to do with peace."
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I'd love to be able to write like this. At the start nothing is explained, things just happen, but there are already so many weirdnesses and questions before two pages are read, and the central character is already so contradictory, normal and unusual all at once - well it hooked me, and I'm not easily hooked. I soon realised I couldn't follow all the plot, or the flashbacks, nor keep track of all the characters (too many athletic blonde women), and at the end I'm not quite sure why the whole tale started at all, but for me that's quite normal, and I just carried on reading and enjoying the performance, and the search for truth.
I'll read it again in a year or two.
Although there is lots of movement and action, reading the book made me very quiet and concentrated - I did not want to miss anything - so it was an enjoyable read. And now it's done I miss it - always a good sign.
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Sheer disappointment (spoiler)
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I loved "Miss Smilla" and waited a long time for this book. And it was about children with special powers (Great!), and Bach's music (Brilliant!).
The book was sheer disappointment and indeed an embarrasment to a widely acclaimed author such as Hoeg. The plot is senselessly garbled, sprinkled with lots of embarrassing truisms ("Hell is not a place. Hell is transportable"), and ends in the silliest possible way (Kids did the earthquake because they don't like how adults rule the world, notably their wars, KlaraMaria turns out to be his own daughter, etc.). Last but not least, translation is downright appalling. "It is a long way down the list from you to the customer who pissed next-most on me" (pg 150). Huh???
Surprised at the glowing reviews here, I Googled to see what critics wrote on this book. Vast majority of critics seem to think "The Quiet Girl" is a sad waste of time. I wholeheartedly agree.
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Do Not Disturb
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Hoeg is back on form with The Quiet Girl. To appreciate the magical pared down writing that he is so good at you really must remove all distractions, clear your mind. Its rich and velvety like dark chocolate and equally bitter. Makes you want to wander around Copenhagen and listen to the church bells. I was gripped from the outset.
Other reviewers have told you the story; but it is told you will have to find ot for yourself
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Baffling
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I loved Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, and was looking forward to this, but I found it truly baffling. Some of it had a page-turning quality, but at the end of the day, I'm not sure it was good enough to stay up late reading.
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"I had a deal with SheAlmighty. To play all the notes. Including the black ones."
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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 the scenes presented as the characters overlap and as additional information is revealed.
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, virtually telepathically, that she has been kidnapped and wants Kaspar 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, keep 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. Mary Whipple
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