I wasn’t sure what to make of this novel, and it took me a while to get into it and realise what the author was trying to get across. I think it just reminded me of situations I have allowed to control me, and that which inspires me to find a way out of that.

A strange, and rather appealing book. Sonja is a translator of violent crime-fiction, and we learn about her current work alongside her past relationship with a fellow-translator and current undertaking of attempting to pass her driving test. Sonja really got under my skin, and I enjoyed seeing how her own life was being, ironically, translated from the original into a new 'language'.

I don't think that I've ever read anything quite as disorientating yet alluring; maybe it's due to it being a translation from the original Danish?

Part of my quest to read the entire International Man Booker Shortlist from last year. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to say about this book. It left little impression on me. Set in Denmark – translated from the Danish – a middle aged woman is learning to drive. Sonja holds many of the marks of an unremarkable drift into adulthood. And I drifted quite unremarkably through the chapters.

I found this an unusual read, centred around the process of a woman learning to drive. Through the process we learn about her background and her urgently unhappy life. The happy ending when it comes, however, was, I thought, rather sudden and trite.

Hmmm. I think this is just too clever for me. I didn't get it. There were bits that I enjoyed during the driving lessons and I like the concept of this woman learning to drive but not being able to change gear. Overall I can appreciate that it is very clever and finely crafted, just was lost on me.

Nominated for the 2017 International Man Booker Prize, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is the story of a 40-something translator Sonja and her attempts to bring movement to a stagnating life. The anxiety, isolation and off-kilter sensations that can come from living in a busy city are key themes to the novel as Sonja’s sometimes idyllic childhood in rural Jutland has given way to a life without grounding in the comparatively overwhelming city of Copenhagen. As a young woman Sonja had tremendous potential but instead of writing her own novels ended up translating the works of others, particularly those of a graphically violent Swedish author. Sonja’s main focus is to learn to drive but her driving instructor will not let her change gear and shows no intention of teaching Sonja to drive. Sonja suffers from positional vertigo and the attacks she suffers reflect her feelings about her life – nothing seems to be where it should. She desperately wants to take control but those around her seem to rob her of her power, while she drifts off into self-protecting daydreams.
Dorthe Nors has a unique voice and has created a wonderful character in the timid, kind but ultimately off-balance Sonja. Sonja is alien to her family and friends who cannot comprehend her existential ponderings or why they come about. The book has a wonderful rhythm to it as you follow Sonja through her daily life. A highly enjoyable read.

The story of “Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” by Dorthe Nors is fairly simple on the surface. Sonja is in her 40s living in modern-day Copenhagen and working as a translator of sensational Scandinavian crime fiction by Gosta Svensson (who is compared to Steig Larsson). Her occupation as a translator allows the author to explore thoughts about the nature of writing: “Language is powerful, almost magic, and the smallest alteration can elevate a sentence or be its undoing.” Sonja is learning how to drive at an academy although she’s self-conscious that she’s older than most of the people in her class. The story follows her lessons on the road, her experiences receiving treatment from a New Age-type masseuse Ellen and reflecting on memories of her family/childhood. Sonja feels in some curious way cut off from both her past and future so struggles to navigate her way through a nebulous present. What begins as a light and comic tale gradually turns much darker and soul-searching.

The beginning of this book reminded me of the start of Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Scoop” which shows a socialite’s madcap car ride through the streets of London. Sonja isn’t a very good driver and from Nors’ descriptions you can almost feel the car careering through the streets of Copenhagen narrowly escaping multiple accidents. Her education is not helped by her instructor in the passenger seat Jytte who smokes, frequently seizes control of the car and makes xenophobic/racist comments. As she’s disturbed by this behaviour she switches instructors to the centre’s owner Folke and a romantic tension forms. As Sonja’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic it becomes clear how lonely and troubled she really is although on the surface she appears completely calm.

It feels like Nors wrote this novel partly as a self conscious foil to the kind of Scandi crime that Sonja translates. Her character feels slightly contemptuous of the genre and the people who avidly read it. She remarks that politicians who like taking these books on holiday will happily “rub themselves in SPF 50 and wallow in evil like it’s a party.” In contrast to the tales of violence and intrigue that she translates, Sonja’s story is something much more considered and subtle. Nothing extraordinary happens to her, but the schism which exists between her and her family – especially her sister Kate is intensely felt: “If Sonja and Kate were apples, you’d say that they’d fallen on two different sides of the tree.” Rather than explosive action, it’s only in unsent letters she writes and a telephone call to Kate that you’re really given a sense of how unhinged Sonja really is.

Sonja obsessively mulls over details of her childhood. There is a feeling of nostalgia and sense of loss that I think a lot of people feel especially if in adulthood they’ve moved away from where they were raised: “the place you come from is a place you can never return to. It’s transmogrified, and you yourself are a stranger.” Some descriptive details come up multiple times (such as a sandwich made from brown sugar pressed into bread). In particular, she frequently recalls a past visit to a strange fortune teller in a curry tunic that somehow obstructed her moving forward in her life: “If you don’t believe in the occult, you can’t guard against it, Sonja realizes. And if you do believe, you’re in deep shit.” I couldn’t quite make out why this encounter was so significant to Sonja, but it’s disallowed her from maturing into a healthy adult. Instead she’s trapped in this slightly infantile state where she can’t emotionally relate to many people or, indeed, drive no matter how earnestly she tries to learn. As it progresses the story has a curiously melancholic and haunting effect. Although “Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” didn’t feel entirely satisfying, it was an intriguing and thoughtful novel.

This is a haunting, and vaguely sad novel about a Danish woman who translates crime fiction novels. (This is an English translation itself!) She is learning to drive with a very strange woman, who won't let her change gear for herself, and eventually asks for the driving school manager to teach her.
She is also suffering from optopositiona.vertigo, and is afraid this will stop her passing her test. She is also estranged from her sister,and rarely sees her parents, who live in Jutland, which she escaped from a doomed relationship.
The characters in this book are vividly drawn, and although the plot occasionally wanders, it is drawn to an abrupt conclusion.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for the chance to read this book.

I would describe this book as quiet and unassuming. It focuses on a Danish woman who is trying to make sense of her life and reconnect with her family. It is not brash or overpowering, but a gentle exploration of life.

Although that gentleness was beautifully written, I felt the novel lost pace in the middle and it became more difficult to keep engaged.

Overall, it was a good read but probably not something I'd read again.

Unusually for me, I gave up 1/8th of the way through.

I find most Danish tV hits boring but thought it would be good to read the novel rather than have TV adaptations. It wasn't. Nothing happened and I wouldn't have cared if it had.

I enjoy Dutch fiction, but know not to attempt Danish again

This novel is quite different from anything I've read before. It is very introspective revealing the mindset of the main character and how she came to be living alone in Copenhagen and her relationship with her sister.
The ending was very abrupt as if the writer ran out of steam and was pretty disappointing and off the wall.

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is a book about struggle.
Sonja 40+ is learning to drive and struggling with even the most, simple aspects of driving. She’s also struggling with her relationship with her sister. In fact the learning to drive seems to me a metaphor for life and Sonja is struggling in general.
I found it difficult to engage with Sonja and thus difficult to engage with the book. I prefer books that are plot driven and this one certainly isn’t. Perhaps it was just a bit too quirky for me.

An interesting aspect of this book which I read in translation into English from Danish, is that the main character, Sonja, translates crime novels into Danish. Sonja's life is lived somewhat vicariously through her proximity as translator to a popular Swedish novelist. Aside from this she is trying, as a woman in her 40s to find her niche. This is somewhat hampered by her limited relationships, her lone work situation and her hereditary balance problem which she tries to hide from the world. This novel is well written but Sonja's somewhat claustrophobic life, in which she writes letters to her sister which she never sends, did not really grip me. The ending when it came seemed somewhat abrupt and left me thinking that nothing changed for Sonja and she never would pass her driving test - maybe that was the point.

A strange little book that I found quite difficult to read, yet still somehow interesting. Intriguing, and will probably be love-it-or-hate-it for many readers, but I can think of several friends I would recommend it to.

This was ok - I'd heard a lot about the author and was interested to see what she was like. I think it might work better as an audiobook - the gentle humour might work if tied to the nationality but as it reads in my English mind, it is an ok read but not absorbing, gentle but not overly funny. I felt for the main character and her dreadful friends, especially the driving instructor - it's a nice pleasant read where not much happens.

I’m fairly certain this is the first book I’ve read in which the plot centres around the main character learning to drive. It makes me wonder if I (and writers everywhere) are missing a trick, because the premise is fantastic. From the opportunities for comedy to the claustrophobic power dynamics of the practical lessons to the philosophical implications of movement, control and freedom, ‘Mirror, Shoulder, Signal’ shows quite how good this set up is when it comes to exploring individuals, relationships and the complex twenty-first century.

We begin with Sonja sitting in front of the wheel trying to feel confident about the hour ahead. ‘Her driving lessons have been plagued with problems. The biggest of them is sitting in the car right now, next to Sonja. Her name is Jytte, and it’s her smoke that clings to the theory classroom. Surfaces at the driving school are galvanized with cigarette smoke, and most of it took a trip through Jytte’s lungs first.’ Sonja’s time with Jytte is very very funny and it almost feels a shame when Nors takes pity on her heroine and allows her to escape.

By escape, of course, I mean suddenly appear in a new chapter with what appears to be very little agency when moving from one set piece moment to another. In structure, ‘Mirror, Shoulder, Signal’ reminded me of Rachel Cusk’s ‘Outline‘ in which another lost protagonist jerks from one awkward social encounter to another, cumulatively building up our understanding of her history and character. For contrast, the other book that came to mind during reading was Høeg’s ‘Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow‘ Sonja may not be from Greenland, but she is extremely conscious of her status as an outsider, always trying to identify accents in others and mournfully remembering ‘when she was six, maybe seven. Back then she spoke Jutlandic without irony. Now she no longer knows what language she speaks.’ I suspect in the original Danish, the regional language variations are an integral part of the narrative, complementing Sonja’s own conflicted personality.

There is much to enjoy in ‘Mirror, Shoulder, Signal,’ not least the comedy of many of the situations Sonja finds herself in. I can’t help feel it is an odd choice for Man Booker International shortlist however. I read a lot of translated literature, but it is rare for me to feel so strongly that I am missing key elements in a novel. From Sonja’s job as a translator to her difficulties communicating with those closest to her, this book felt like it should be all about language. Misha Hoekstra’s translation is engaging and extremely readable, but it never gave me the impression that these themes were being engaged with on a stylistic level. Or maybe I was just looking for something that wasn’t there, a worrying appropriate response to a witty, concise book entitled ‘Mirror, Shoulder, Signal,’ if so, the joke is definitely on me.

A brilliant book. The brief story of a person taking driving lessons, somehow wrought into a bolt of lightning illuminating what is is to live and to age. Very funny as well, with nothing wasted.

This slim novel, is a witty and moving depiction of the disconnect between contemporary urban life and the human need for wild, natural places. A study in alienation and loneliness. You can never get back to the place you come from, because ‘it no longer exists’… ‘and you yourself have become a stranger.’
Sonja is taking driving lessons, and her teacher won’t show her how to change gear. Brought up on a farm, her mother always told her: ‘it’ll work out’, but, living in Copenhagen as a translator of graphic crime novels, Sonja is in her 40s and still doesn’t fit in. There are too many demands on her and, ‘if you’re not careful, you stop getting it all to fit together, and then suddenly you’re a helpless piece of meat trying to catch up to your driving instructor.’
There has always been a problem with ‘the things Sonja says and the way she says them’. Even as a child she was ‘complicated’ compared to her ‘approachable’ sister, Kate who is always too busy to speak to her. Sonja attempts phone calls and letters to her sister and mother but ‘it’s hard to find words to fit the people you love.’ She is always rejected.
Sonja longs for her childhood when she could escape to her own ‘hidey-hole’ deep in a rye field to be alone, and where ‘the sky is endless’ and ‘whooper swans lifted the landscape up’. One of her happiest memories is when she collected wild oats growing in her father’s field of rye ‘like a little field mouse’ and her father ‘placed his warm hand on her head.’ Now she’s literally out of touch. Her existential malaise manifests itself in physical symptoms: her tense jaw and aching neck (eased by regular massages), and positional vertigo – a condition in which sudden movements can make her dizzy, where the tiny stones in her inner ear move like ‘a murmuration of starlings’ and she faints.
In what could easily be a bleak novel, Dorthe Nors gives us some wry, funny moments: Sonja muses on the fact that she’s never come across any of the ‘mutilated women and children’ depicted in Svensson’s novels ‘lying and rotting everywhere on Scandinavian public land’. And men lounge around on holiday, slapping on sun cream and reading Swedish noir: ‘a crossword puzzle with sperm and maggots.’ Nors also pokes fun at the fashion for mindfulness – on a country walk Sonja and a group of women and are instructed to ‘open our senses to nature. Touch the moss. Pluck the grass… make yourself heavy in the pelvis.’
Her failure to learn to drive is a well-used metaphor for life, but in Mirror, Shoulder, Signal the approach is subtle and fresh. Sonja stands up to Jytte, her female driving instructor because she won’t let her ‘take any responsibility in the car’ and rejects the male owner of the driving school’s clumsy attempts at a relationship. Eventually she realises she can change: ‘you’re allowed to flee the blows you’re being dealt,’ and she makes a bid to escape. On her way to a concert Sonja impulsively gets off the train to help an older woman who is in Copenhagen to visit a niece and seems lost. Her kindness is rewarded with kindness and, at the end of this excellent novel there is at last a sense of hope – if Sonja goes back to the village where she was born, there’s only one traffic light so she doesn’t even need to be able to drive.
In this wonderfully subtle translation by Misha Hoekstra, the language is extraordinary. Funny, sad but moving. A strong contender for the Man Booker International prize.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It was very readable, surprisingly so considering the often very mundane subjects being covered. I wasn't always sure, though, if I was enjoying it or not! The ending was the downfall for me...it left me a little cold, just wondering what on earth I'd read. I'd hoped for more of a resolution in the story, and so ultimately the whole thing felt a little disappointing.

Sonja is currently engaged in translating a popular, but very gritty Swedish crime author. She is over forty, unmarried and realizing she’s fallen into the type of complacency that’s really leading her nowhere. So Sonja’s started driving lessons and is attempting to engage with meditation. But getting to grips with moving out of her comfort zone is a little more demanding than she had anticipated. The driving lessons are stressful at the best of times and the meditation group highlights just how much Sonja is out of touch with her people skills.
Can she succeed in getting her life out of its rut and escape the confines of Copenhagen for the expanses of her childhood landscape far out in the country?
On the surface the minutiae of this insignificant woman does not seem to have a great deal to offer the reader. But right from the start there is a bitter-sweet flavor to the stories as Sonja's anxieties are layered in along with humour (her foul-mouthed driving instructor Jytte is a hoot, but at the same time would make the most competent driver nervous).
Dorthe Nors has a tremendous grasp of the many difficult social situations we have to weave our way through as a result of living cheek-to-jowl with other people. She brilliantly captures the sense of someone who is a highly-skilled and very private woman trying to feel her way out of the rut she has slid into. There is no doubt Sonja is excellent at her job, but this genteel woman has to deal with the horrific descriptions and concepts of a crime writer's imagination, as she has to get intimately involved in the words of the translation on a daily basis. The outside world is equally as relentless.
The reader is very much ‘the fly on the wall’ as Sonja's life is minutely detailed and proves to be every bit page-turning as the crime novels she translates.