Something similar to Miss Smilla’s feeling for the snow novel, The quiet girl talks about a special person, a famous Danish clown Kasper with an extraordinary gift, an acute hearing that allows him to make a sound map of an entire city, determine from a phone call where the person he was talking to is, and determine it by the surrounding sounds from the speaker alone.
For Kasper, each person has a particular sound; a quiet person is as close to the divine as possible, and he meets one such girl, young KlaraMaria, his physical comedy student whom he uses as therapy for troubled children. KlaraMaria, bruised, slips him a note saying she was kidnapped and asks for his help.
Kasper has problems of his own, having avoided paying taxes for quite some time. This means that he needs to escape the authorities while searching for KlaraMaria, and soon he will not be looking for her alone, it seems that there are several children with special abilities, several children from all over the world who are like KlaraMaria, and they are all missing. (a girl is killed and mutilated). Time is running out, how long can these wonderful children survive?
Although in the form of a thriller, The quiet girl occasionally it becomes surreal, looking like magical realism, which makes it somewhat difficult to follow. The episodes of Kasper’s past intervene in such a way that it can be difficult to determine what happened, when, how or why. The mystery is more or less solved by the end of the book, but reading it is not an easy journey, although it is rewarding.
It is unusual for a thriller to have such a mystical atmosphere and yet in The quiet girl it works, probably due to Kasper and his unique perception of the world. While there is nothing wrong with your eyes or other senses, you mostly use your hearing. Hear in shadows and see in tones, or at least that’s how you think about things. That is also the way he thinks about people, which sometimes makes it difficult for him to communicate with others.
Children in The quiet girl they’re adorable. They are gifted and very special, but at the same time they are very childish, with very kind wishes, and also with wishes that remind readers of spoiled brats. Although they have such special gifts that they inevitably make them different, their actions and desires are easy to understand, because they are first and foremost children.
All the characters grow up at the end of the book. Everyone learns something. Kasper is perhaps the one who learns the most, from his dying father who continues to help him, from the woman he loves and who left him because she believed he was so special that he should dedicate his life to serving him, and from the children, in the end, he discovers that there is a child who has to compensate a lot.
The quiet girl It may not be an easy read, due to its mysticism and meandering storytelling and the protagonist’s unique perspective, but the mysterious world and compelling characters are well worth the effort – the book grabs your attention and refuses to let go.