On the Calculation of Volume (Book II)

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On the Calculation of Volume
(Book II)

by
Solvej Balle

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

Title:	On the Calculation of Volume (Book II)
Author:	Solvej Balle
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2020 (Eng. 2024)
Length:	167 pages
Original in:	Danish
Availability:	On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) - US
	On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) - UK
	On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) - Canada
	Le volume du temps - 2 - France
	Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts II - Deutschland
	Il volume del tempo II: In viaggio - Italia

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Danish title: Om udregning af rumfang II
Translated by Barbara J. Haveland
The second book of a septology
Nordic Council Literature Prize, 2022

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Our Assessment:

B+ : fine middle volume of a larger series

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
NZZ	.	28/8/2024	Jan Koneffke

From the Reviews:

"Band II des Romans von Solvej Balle endet mit einer atmosphärisch dichten, rätselhaften Prosa von unheimlicher Ruhe." - Jan Koneffke, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) begins, as did the first installment of the planned septology, on the eighteenth of November -- a day that narrator Tara Selter experiences over and over and over. A full year has now passed, and it is day 368 -- meaning: version 368 of the eighteenth of November -- that this novel begins with, as she continues to chronicle her day(s).
       While apparently everyone else in the world wakes to the eighteenth of November as if for the first time, Tara carries over her memories as well as any physical changes that occurred on the previous day. For her, time moves on as always, while apparently everyone else loops, without memory, through the same day. In Book One Tara suffered a burn that slowly heals; here she at one point sprains her ankle badly, hobbling her for a while. She can hold onto some physical objects from one eighteenth to the next -- generally, if she keeps them very close to her, though it's not exactly clear why some things remain and others disappear overnight.
       Tara also does not wake each eighteenth in the same place and situation as she did on the original one (as Bill Murray's character did in the similarly repetitive film, Groundhog Day), but rather wherever she went to sleep -- significant, because it allows her to travel. In Book One she returned home, to Clairon-sous-Bois, for a while, for example, but here she moves around much more. If Book One had her constantly, repetitively trying to figure out her peculiar situation, in Book Two she has come more to terms with it -- she literally tries to move on, to some extent, and does so fairly successfully, at least physically.
       Tara goes to visit her parents in Brussels; she also refuses to continue in the stand-still of 18 November, as she had for the first year -- the first 365 days of this experience. If 402 regular days had passed since that first eighteenth of November it would be Christmas Eve, and so she insists it is, and celebrates with her parents. In Book One she had told her husband what she was going through, and he had believed her -- but of course been unable to help her out of this loop, which she had to explain to him anew every morning, until she finally decided to go it on her own. Later, she had also told old friend Philip and his girlfriend, Marie, but they were unconvinced by her story. Her parents now do believe her, and more or less go along with her; briefly, she basks in the comfort of home and tradition -- but she also wants to move on, a restlessness driving her.
       If the day is always the same, down to the weather, then she will impose the natural changes she would normally expect for herself as month follows month, traveling first north in order to find cold and snow to give the feel and appearance of winter, and then south to capture the warmer seasons.
       She creates, for herself:

A life with seasons. It is not a truer year, moving in the depths under my day. It is a year that runs parallel to my eighteenth of November. I know that I am building something. A construction. A jigsaw puzzle, which I am putting together from the pieces I can find.

Among the amusing consequences of waking up wherever she went to sleep that night is that she has to be careful in making her choices: she can't book a hotel room unless she is certain that no one spent the previous night there and only checked out on the morning of the eighteenth, as otherwise she would wake in bed with that previous guest the next/same morning ..... She manages to avoid that complication, and also finds other places to stay -- renting rooms, breaking into an unoccupied house.
Of course, traveling around doesn't get her anywhere either, not as far as her big problem -- the inescapability of the day -- goes. With her living beyond the bounds of time, she also feels her very identity challenged, that of the Tara Selter who worked happily and successfully with her husband, building their business:

It is the Tara Selter with a future who is gone. It is the Tara Selter with hopes and dreams who has fallen out of the picture., been thrown off the world, run over the edge, been poured out, carried off down the stream of eighteenth of Novembers, lost, evaporated, swept out to sea.

       She gets into routines in her travels, and so too there are longer gaps between some of her entries in this record of her day(s), from 775 to 793 to 844, for example; this second volume, though only slightly longer than the first, also covers a much great period of time, coming to a close on day 1144. But, throughout, she still finds of her eighteenth of November that: "it is impossible to get a firm grip on it".
       As with first volume readers come to this one knowing that there are more volumes to follow (five, now), so there is no expectation of Tara breaking free of her cycle yet, but this volume does end with a very big cliffhanger. Tara doesn't let on much as she waits for someone in a café, as if afraid it might be too good to be true, but she does allow for the possibility: "That I am not alone" .....
       On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) is a middle volume in a longer series; it can't offer the fresh surprise of the premise that the first one did, nor can it offer resolution and so, as in so many middle volumes, the story spins its wheels here some. It does so well, Tara's restlessness and attempts to impose some order on a life she has lost control of well-related, with a variety of encounters and experiences -- including a near-death one -- expanding the story some. But -- as it also does Tara -- it all only gets us so far -- though that's certainly fine for a middle volume in a series.
       On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) could stand even on its own; On the Calculation of Volume (Book II) can't, it's part of a larger whole and really only makes sense as such -- but then readers surely understand and expect that. As such, as a next chapter and another piece of this puzzle, it is certainly successful as well.

- M.A.Orthofer, 26 October 2024

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Links:

On the Calculation of Volume (Book II):

New Directions publicity page
Grasset publicity page
Matthes & Seitz Berlin publicity page
NNEditore publicity page
Nordic Council Literature Prize, 2022
Q & A with Solvej Balle and translator Barbara J. Haveland at Words Without Borders

Reviews:

Other books by Solvej Balle under review:

On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Scandinavian literature
See Index of Series and Sequels under review
Index of Nordic Council Literature Prize-winning works under review

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About the Author:

Danish author Solvej Balle was born in 1962.

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