The Quiet Girl by Peter Høeg - one of the most peculiar novels any reader will encounter. Many reviewers dislike the story, the characters, the weirdness. Upon finishing the book's 400+ pages, some reviewers have even asked themselves: What the hell did I just read? Yet there's something about this inventive, uncanny literary work set in Denmark that resonates.
Why are readers frequently thrown off by this Danish novel? Answer: the Copenhagen of The Quiet Girl is as solid and as realistic as the London of David Copperfield or the Chicago of Sister Carrie or the New York of The Goldfinch, every bit as solid, realistic, and predictable - BUT (capitals for emphasis) Peter Høeg injects elements of the fantastic.
As by way of example, take the prime fantastical element: the tale's protagonist, forty-two-year-old world-renowned circus clown Kasper Krone possesses a miraculous ability to hear sounds and music. We're told each person is tuned to a musical key and Kasper can hear it. And the following is Kasper explaining to a friend that he waited until sunset to make a telephone call so he could use the background sounds on the other end of the line to pinpoint the location of the person answering the phone:
"The city is a sound map. Grundvig Church. Tuned in D. And above that, the F-sharp is heard just as strongly. The church has only the one huge bell. Its chimes could never be confused with those of the Church of Our Savior. Each is unique in its own way. So if you talk on the phone at sunset, and listen beyond the voice and compensate for the flat sound picture, you get an impression of where the person at the other end is located on the sound map."
Extraordinary acrobatics are also part of Kasper's repertoire. At one point during his interrogation by members of the Ministry of Justice for tax evasion, Kasper launches himself into a series of movements bringing to mind Houdini. I suspect those Danish officials never witnessed such a breathtaking display of somersaults and circus skills by anybody attempting to exempt themselves from paying taxes.
Deep into the story, police do their best to catch Kasper during a car chase. Kasper looks out the window and sees there are motorcycle police on every corner and enough armored cars to drive straight into a war zone. What in the world is going on here? Answers are provided to Kasper (and readers) but not until the final chapters. There's ample reasons why the publisher's dust jacket blurb characterizes The Quiet Girl as a fast-paced philosophical thriller.
One thing that makes this novel a page-turner: right at the outset Kasper learns a girl by the name of KlaraMaria has been kidnapped, a nine-year-old possessing special gifts of sound and silence. Kasper sets out to find out why and by whom - and rescue KlaraMaria.
Such a remarkable novel. Questions to keep in mind while reading: What does Kasper's perceptions and ability say about our common human experience? What would be the consequences if a sizable portion of humans were capable of hearing like Kasper? To share a more complete rasa of what a reader can look forward to with The Quiet Girl, here are a trio of direct quotes:
"He felt with his hearing. Behind him were rows of small houses leading toward Bagsvaerd, behind them the night traffic on the main highways. To his right, the wind in Lyngby Radio's installations. From the lake, the sound of the last ice that had broken up and was tinkling at the shore, like ice cubes in a glass. Ahead of him, dogs had awakened one another somewhere around the regatta pavilion. He heard the rushes rustling. The night creatures. The wind in the trees in Slotspark. in just one place, a voice in a garden. An otter fishing near the canal connecting to Lyngby Lake."
"Some children weren't children; they were very old. Kasper had begun to hear this twenty years ago. Some children were ancient souls with a thin infantile veneer. The boy was at least twelve hundred years old; his sound rang like one of Bach's great pieces."
"A feeling of no escape is in D-minor. It was Mozart who discovered that. And developed it. In Don Giovanni. Around the statue. Before Mozart, there had always been a way out. One could always pray to God for help. Doubt about the Divine begins with Mozart."
Danish author Peter Høeg, born 1957
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