For mine, this is an excellent novel on any terms, but there are two things that particularly stand out about it - the vividity with which it creates both its chilly settings (the city, the sea, and the ice) and the delightful eponymous character from whose perspective we see its events (the grab on the back blurb, describing her as 'a wonderfully unique creation of snow and warmth and irony ... shimmer[ing] with intelligence', is spot on), and the way in which it completely obliterates any distinction between 'genre' and 'literature', at least as those labels might apply to it.
The plot never stops moving forward, even when Smilla finds her investigation temporarily stymied at various points, and the mystery builds before being satisfyingly resolved, and Høeg doesn't mind throwing in a bit of action as he goes, but the novel's concerns are serious, as is the way in which it explores them, and the way in which it ends, after tying up all the loose ends of the mystery, is satisfyingly unresolved; the novel takes its central mystery seriously, but doesn't treat it as the be all and end all.
The language in which it's written is a feature, too - the first person present tense voice gives the reader ready access to the indefatigable Smilla and to events as they unfold, and is apt to the landscapes, both physical and emotional, in which it unfolds.
(I was interested, incidentally, to read a week or so ago that the people of Greenland had voted in a referendum to take what looks to be a large step towards complete independence from Denmark - see also here.)
