Mirror, Shoulder, Signal in 100BestWIT

Jun 02, 2019 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: el, nordic, decade-2010s, novella, scribd, booker-international, 2019, women-in-translation, denmark

[4.5] Dorthe Nors is popular in Denmark, but sometimes it feels as if the only English-language readers who like her are a handful of publishers, prize judges (three nominations for this one!) and me. In fairness, a few other people on GR did like Minna Needs Rehearsal Space, a favourite of mine, published in the US in the collection So Much For That Winter - but Mirror Shoulder Signal was disliked by everyone I know on GR and in the blogosphere who read it because of its International Booker li [4.5] Dorthe Nors is popular in Denmark, but sometimes it feels as if the only English-language readers who like her are a handful of publishers, prize judges (three nominations for this one!) and me. In fairness, a few other people on GR did like Minna Needs Rehearsal Space, a favourite of mine, published in the US in the collection So Much For That Winter - but Mirror Shoulder Signal was disliked by everyone I know on GR and in the blogosphere who read it because of its International Booker listing in 2017. Even a friend whom I thought would like Nors, as a writer of slightly awkward solitary female characters, abandoned Mirror Shoulder Signal.

For me, the writing has a texture that feels exactly like the mundane bits of life. This may seem odd to friends who’ve been reading my GR reviews for years, as I’ve also said that life and friends often feel to me like an early-to-mid Nicola Barker book; Barker can be zany and frenetic, and Nors rather minimalist. But there is something ineffable here which clicks: Nors, via her translator Misha Hoekstra, captures the precise feeling of everyday activities conducted alone at times when nothing especially remarkable is happening and mood is more or less in neutral. The English translations of Nors’ work use s-apostrophe a lot for “is” in narrative, contrary to most UK publishers’ style guides, and I think this adds to my sense of its sounding like inner experience - whereas to some readers, it may jar because it’s unusual.

And like Minna of the Rehearsal Space, I find Sonja relatable. Her inner thoughts during the conversations with the massage therapist she attends, essentially about managing conversations and modulating social distance; the way that working on other people’s writing (for her translating, for me editing or ghosting) can get under your skin; her attempts to connect with family members who just aren’t on the right wavelength to really get her; agreeing to go on an excursion that isn’t quite her sort of thing. The last perhaps isn’t fully explained, and so won’t chime with readers who don’t instinctively get it, but the decision reminded me very much of how, when I was younger and had just moved to a new place, I would go along to almost anything, even if it sounded dull... It was just obviously a good idea, treating it like first term at university. This interview with Nors may explain to some extent why her characters connect with me so well; she describes herself as “a strange combination of extrovert and introvert. I love to talk onstage, I’m happy talking to you now, and then I withdraw”. This seems like the way I feel, not midway between introvert and extrovert, but being both to some degree of extreme.

This sense of connection with the character meant that, unfairly, my provisional rating for the book would drop suddenly at times when she made bad decisions I wouldn’t have. (Examples that will only make sense if you’ve read it: Not talking to Jytte was something I’d have done in my twenties but I learned better how to deal with that kind of thing later. I couldn’t fathom why she ended up at Avedøre with Folke, despite her awareness; the trick with the bags of books was totally something I’d have done albeit I wouldn’t have volunteered to be in that situation in the first place. I was surprised that by 40 she hadn't accepted that driving with her medical condition might not be a good idea... but not everyone processes stuff at the same speed.) If I were a character in a book I would do things that might seem ridiculous too, just different things. And if she were a friend I would mostly just listen, so still 4.5.

There is enough nature-writing here to enhance enjoyment if you’re a fan of it, but not so much that it’s a primary component of the book: it feels like exactly the right amount to reflect someone who lives in a city but likes the countryside. And likewise there’s quite a bit of humour but probably not so much you’d call it a comic novel; it’s very sympathetic, it’s not making fun of Sonja. It’s a friendly sense of the ridiculous, as one might have about oneself or a good friend. (However, Nors certainly knows how to poke fun: Gösta Svensson, the bestselling Swedish crime writer whose violent novels Sonja translates, is roundly mocked. I only wish I knew the field better as I’d love to know who he’s based on. As it was, I imagined a more dapper Jo Nesbø.) And despite this being a book about mild social awkwardness, the minimalist writing has a way of making everything seem more orderly, and this makes reality seem a little easier to parse too.

Maybe I’ve talked it up too much here; I can’t really recommend Mirror Shoulder Signal, because it may well be a 2-star book for you as it was for several of my GR friends - but I liked it a lot. I was glad this list, self-imposed last year during Women in Translation Month, reminded me to read it - and I really want to get round to the remainder of Nors’ work available in English. ...more

45 likes · Like · see review

Apr 10, 2017 Agnese rated it it was ok

Shelves: translation, fiction, wit

Sadly, this one just didn't work for me.

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal follows Sonja, a forty-something-year-old woman living in Copenhagen and working as a translator of crime novels, and the novel basically focuses on her struggle to get her driver’s license. We get to hear her thoughts about her everyday frustrations and the current state of her life, and how she’s trying to change the course of it. She feels stuck so through the small, symbolic act of learning to drive, she seems to be making her Sadly, this one just didn't work for me.

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal follows Sonja, a forty-something-year-old woman living in Copenhagen and working as a translator of crime novels, and the novel basically focuses on her struggle to get her driver’s license. We get to hear her thoughts about her everyday frustrations and the current state of her life, and how she’s trying to change the course of it. She feels stuck so through the small, symbolic act of learning to drive, she seems to be making her first steps toward becoming more in control of her life. She also suffers from a form of positional vertigo that she’s trying to hide.

The novel explores the life of a woman, who lives on her own and isn’t defined by her relationships with other people. In some ways, it is also an existential novel. Sonja is superstitious and fatalistic and she believes that her misfortune is predetermined by an encounter with a fortuneteller. She spends a lot of time worrying about her future and struggling to find a way out of her situation.

Sonja spends a lot of time looking back at events from her past, especially returning to her childhood growing up in a rural area where she felt a very spiritual connection to nature that she can’t seem to find in the big city, and one of the major themes of the novel is urban isolation. Sonja doesn’t enjoy living in Copenhagen and she wants to reconnect with her sister Kate, who stayed and made a life for herself close to her hometown. The novel discusses how young people from rural areas, who have received a good education, are encouraged to leave their hometown to pursue a career in a big city. Urban life is seen as a way to fulfilment, but for some people, it only leads to loneliness and isolation. It’s an interesting idea and can imagine that many people feel this way, but as a city girl, born and raised, I couldn’t really relate to that on an emotional level. And overall, while the author explored some interesting themes, the novel didn’t really work for me.

I felt very emotionally disconnected from the characters and some of Sonja’s actions felt very juvenile. She’s the kind of person that wants other people to reach out to her but is kinda insensitive and judgmental about the weird quirks and beliefs of others. And I don’t like saying this, but for me, this novel was just kinda boring and my mind would constantly drift away to something else while I was reading it. I don’t think it’s a bad book, the tone is lighthearted and sometimes witty, but I felt like there wasn’t much there on the surface. The style of the prose is minimalistic and I felt like the author was inviting me to try to read between the lines and find some hidden meaning, and sometimes that works, but in this case, I didn’t care enough to search for it. I know that the author is better known for her short stories and, even though it’s not a long novel, I think this story might have worked better in short story form. I don’t want to discourage you from picking it up, it’s a quick read that explores some interesting topics, but it just wasn’t my kind of story. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 18, 2017 Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2017-reading-challenge, translated-from-danish, 2017-intl-booker-longlist, 2017-intl-booker-shortlist

In English translation we have grown accustomed to thinking of Danish writer Dorthe Nors as a minimalist and miniaturist with her experimental list-based novellas in So Much for That Winter and short-short stories in Karate Chop: Stories. "Mirror, Shoulder, Signal" takes a further turn with minimal plot and drama, which presents its own challenges for the writer and reader.

Lead character Sonja is the Danish language translator of (fictional) Swedish crime novelist Gösta Svensson (the grisly-soun ...more

2 likes · Like · see review