Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

This was another of T's book that I read just because it was there, since she had taken my tablet for her weekend in Elqui and I got her e-reader in exchange. It is a first person non-eventful narration by a 40 something single woman in Copenhagen. Two themes stood out for me. One is related to what it means to be a single woman.The protagonist seems to want a relationship but her life is not defined by a lack of partner, nor is she unhappy. Nevertheless, she is to some extent defined by her single-ness, because that's what society does. I really like one passage (I cannot copy it here because I gave back the e-reader) where she reflects on the difference between being single in her home village vs being single in the big city, aka Copenhagen. While single women in the village are viewed as I they have failed at life, people nevertheless talk to them as people. Whilst in the city being single is a thing, to the point that a whole industry has sprung up around it. It made me think of how there is a 'cool' way of being single, meaning mainly if you date around a lot, but also if you travel or have some super career, as if you needed to make your single-ness be worth it. Which brings me to the other theme, i.e. the confusing feelings towards one's home place, particularly when home is a small village and one is attracted by the city's freedom, the permission to be 'weird', until one realises there are rule on how to be weird, and that village communities are tough but tight, more forgiving that one gives them credit for, or maybe that's just what they look like from the vantage point of the city. The book has a light, amusing tone to it, but there is a Scandinavian bleakness to it, as if death and loneliness were never far.