The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 17 August 2020
by Dorthe Nors
Some of us are late bloomers. We don't make our mark on our communities until we've reached a certain age. It is just in some people's nature to move a little more slowly through the landmarks of life. Sometimes there are outside forces, health or other markers of well-being, that slow us down. Sometimes it is innate, a hesitancy about life. We take our time getting through college, marry late, settle down in one place later, put off career goals, set aside aspirations. We skip or delay rites of passage. Most of us want a driving license as soon as we reach a legal age. Some of us wait a little longer. Some of us for quite a long time. Late bloomers, we are.
In this intense little novel by Danish author Dorthe Nors, we meet Sonja, who is in the midst of her driving lessons well after reaching that certain age. Life has taken a little extra time for her. She is unmarried, a successful translator of a Swedish writer of bloody potboilers. She grew up in Jutland farming country, and is now living in Copenhagen, where life still hasn't really picked up for her. A victim of positional vertigo, it is of questionable wisdom whether she should be driving at all, and she is terrified of being discovered. Check your Mirror. Look over your Shoulder. Use your Signal to make the turn. But her first driving instructor is self-absorbed and chatty. The head of the driving school seems to be on the prowl among the women students, but later reveals an unknown depth. The classes aren't going well. Her brief social engagements fall apart in her hands. Overall, Sonja is dissatisfied with where she has come and what she might want to do now.
But that sounds simpler than this slightly impressionistic text ultimately reveals about Sonja's inner life, her reluctant relations with family and city acquaintances. Her massage therapist seems to know more about Sonja than anyone, but Sonja herself is unsure she wants that kind of emotional intimacy. She longs for the days walking in the fields of her childhood farm. Indeed, there is an earthy awareness of body and environment throughout the book that give it a poetic quality. Sonja's yearning is familiar, both tragic and wonderous at the same time. Nors's book is a brief window into the directionless emotional yearning that so many late-bloomers experience. Quite beautifully done.