Mathematics

Mathematics may seem like an unlikely theme for a book that is about the murder of a young child and the dangerous path the narrator must take to discover the motives of those responsible for the murder. Yet Smilla's Sense of Snow is nothing if not unpredictable. Smilla finds in mathematics the certainty and stability she lacks in herself. She says, "I'm not perfect. I think more highly of snow and ice than love. It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings." In addition, when Smilla first meets Isaiah, she reads to him from Euclid's Elements. Smilla says, "There is the feeling that always comes over me at the mere thought of that book: veneration. The knowledge that it is the foundation, the boundary. That if you work your way backwards, past Lobachevsky and Newton and as far...