On the Bookshelf: Range offers a journey of discovery on several levels

'What do I know? What do I know that I don't know? What would I like to know?' I had never heard of Dorthe Nors before a recent New York Times review expanded my range. These phrases seduced me: Danish writer, luminous novel, astrophysics professor and oddball. Nors is a Booker Prize finalist. Range is her sixth book and for me a new writer to explore – so exciting! Range is ostensibly about a middle-aged academic who has never felt comfortable unless discovering, collecting and thinking about data. This is her simple mantra to the complicated life in this and other cosmological spaces. What do I know? What do I know that I don't know? What would I like to know? These commandments help steer her course. She struggles constantly with the 'we' of societal conformity and is most engaged and happy when studying the night sky, which she describes as 'a paradise of signs' and 'a piece of living archeology'. The novel is a world full of words, sentences and theories which slide down into your soul and settle. The plot is simple on the surface. An academic, Gunn Haven, who studies gamma ray bursts, takes a break when she inherits a cabin in the country. She moves there and realizes very quickly that she does not understand the codes of behaviour that keep everyone in their proper gravitational space. 'Of all forces in the universe, gravity, on a cosmological level, was stronger than most.' she says. I think about gravity often and collect metaphors from reading about it. Gunn and I might not be on the same page (I'm real), or live in the same country, but we inhabit similar curiosities as I inadvertently follow her 'what do I know?' mantra in my own life. Unlike her though, I struggle with the scientific and mathematical concepts and equations, but I'm building those muscles. One of her few authentic human relationships is mentoring young students who may be able to solve long equations in their head and pick up social graces by watching discussion programs on TV, but who are basically alone in a world they can't decode. She acts like a step-parent, but in doing so becomes the target of biological parental jealousy. Interestingly she feels this same emotion when her students actually lift off and start life without her. Gunn has a mini-collision at the end of the novel with a very unfriendly neighbour. In fact, a bit of violence ensues as they figure out how to orbit each other. Krista, unhappy and working in a potato factory and Gunn, lonely and working as a professor, evoke the worst in each other. It is up to you to pull together the nuances of this story to decide how it actually ends. Years ago, a friend mentioned that she was asked this question in her MFA oral exam. 'What is the difference between a sign and a symbol?' In the human realm Gunn Haven ponders this throughout. She may even help you understand what you know, what you know that you don't know and what you want to know. What do high heels signify in this world anyway? But in the realm of astrophysics and mathematics, she is unconfused and focussed. There's a lot for the reader to discover!