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Om udregning af rumfang #1
Om uträkning av omfång 1
Tara Selter bor i Clairon-sous-Bois i norra Frankrike med sin man Thomas. De handlar med antikvariska böcker. Den 17 november åker hon till en antikmässa, tar in på hotell, köper böcker och besöker några vänner. Där bränner hon sig på handen. Nästa morgon upptäcker hon att tidningarna i hotellmatsalen fortfarande har gårdagens datum och att samma saker händer som dagen före. Böckerna hon köpte är borta och hon går för att köpa dem igen. Sedan reser hon hem. Thomas undrar varför hon kommer redan och Tara förstår att hon är den enda som upplever den 18 november. Hela världen står still, vädret är detsamma, alla gör exakt samma sak dag efter dag. Men för Tara fortsätter tiden att gå. Såret på hennes hand läker och hennes hår växer. Varje dag förklarar hon för Thomas vad som händer och varje dag tror han henne. Till slut tröttnar hon och flyttar in i gästrummet. Thomas saknar henne inte eftersom han tror att hon ska komma hem nästa dag. Tara inleder olika strategier för att stå ut. Hon skriver och promenerar, hon köper en stjärnkikare och gör sig vän med himlavalvet, hon sätter ett streck i dagboken för varje dag som passerar och när 18 november närmar sig på nytt reser hon till samma mässa och tar in på samma hotell.
190 pages, Hardcover
First published February 2, 2020
2715 people are currently reading
54712 people want to read
About the author
Solvej Balle
19 books564 followersSolvej Balle er en særegen stemme i dansk litteratur. Hun var del af en gruppe hovedsageligt kvindelige forfattere, som debuterede eller slog deres navne fast i begyndelsen af 90’erne. Siden Balle debuterede i 1986 med romanen ”Lyrefugl”, har hun udgivet ganske få værker, så det var en overraskelse, da hun i 2020 annoncerede det ambitiøse og filosofiske syvbindsværk ”Om udregning af rumfang”, som hun i 2022 modtog Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris for, for de første fire bind
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November 20, 2025
Update 09.04 Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
I said at the end of my review that it has the potential to reach the shortlist and I was right. I do nto think it should win, but I still have two read 3 of the shortlisted books to form an opinion.
Book 1/13
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
Translated into English by Barbara J. Haveland
Audiobook narrated by Elizabeth Liang
And here starts my 2025 IB prize longlist adventure. I am looking forward to reading the list this year as it seems to be a lot stronger than it has been the past two years. Let’s hope I will feel the same after actually reading the books.
On the Calculation of Volume 1 is the first in a 7 parts series of novellas written by the Danish author Solvej Balle.
One morning, the narrator wakes up and realizes she is reliving the previous day, 18th of November. She was visiting Paris for an auction of rare books, when, at breakfast, she is surprised to see that she already lived the events she was witnessing. After remaining in Paris one more day and after she wakes up again to the same day, she decides to go home. She explains to her husband what happened and he reluctantly believes her. The days repeat over and over, but only for her. For some time, each day she talks to her husband and they try together to understand what happened. After a while, she gives up and keeps to herself.
The prose also changes a bit from crisp and precise to a bit more frantic as the narrator realizes that she cannot go forward to the next day, no matter what she does.
I do not usually like books who use this narrative tactic of repeating the same day over and over but it worked here. It made for some interesting discussions about time and other themes. It becomes meditative and philosophic. Since it only part 1 of many more to come, if feels unfinished and I do not see it as a winner. It has shortlist potential though.
I said at the end of my review that it has the potential to reach the shortlist and I was right. I do nto think it should win, but I still have two read 3 of the shortlisted books to form an opinion.
Book 1/13
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
Translated into English by Barbara J. Haveland
Audiobook narrated by Elizabeth Liang
And here starts my 2025 IB prize longlist adventure. I am looking forward to reading the list this year as it seems to be a lot stronger than it has been the past two years. Let’s hope I will feel the same after actually reading the books.
On the Calculation of Volume 1 is the first in a 7 parts series of novellas written by the Danish author Solvej Balle.
One morning, the narrator wakes up and realizes she is reliving the previous day, 18th of November. She was visiting Paris for an auction of rare books, when, at breakfast, she is surprised to see that she already lived the events she was witnessing. After remaining in Paris one more day and after she wakes up again to the same day, she decides to go home. She explains to her husband what happened and he reluctantly believes her. The days repeat over and over, but only for her. For some time, each day she talks to her husband and they try together to understand what happened. After a while, she gives up and keeps to herself.
The prose also changes a bit from crisp and precise to a bit more frantic as the narrator realizes that she cannot go forward to the next day, no matter what she does.
I do not usually like books who use this narrative tactic of repeating the same day over and over but it worked here. It made for some interesting discussions about time and other themes. It becomes meditative and philosophic. Since it only part 1 of many more to come, if feels unfinished and I do not see it as a winner. It has shortlist potential though.
April 19, 2025
I loveee a strange literary novel with philosophical commentary on time, finding joys in the mundane and the traces that we leave on the world!!!! on the calculation of volume was so unique and the fact that a new literary fiction series exists (when so little do) makes me so happy
This is absolutely a vibes > plot read and I would truly only recommend it to those who reach for these kinds of stories. following a protagonist who is stuck in a continuous loop of the eighteenth of November, the Groundhog Day can definitely feel repetitive.. however, the ways that solvej balle was able to capture such magic within all of the repetitiveness and mundanity, was superb! verryyy excited to read volume 2!
This is absolutely a vibes > plot read and I would truly only recommend it to those who reach for these kinds of stories. following a protagonist who is stuck in a continuous loop of the eighteenth of November, the Groundhog Day can definitely feel repetitive.. however, the ways that solvej balle was able to capture such magic within all of the repetitiveness and mundanity, was superb! verryyy excited to read volume 2!
March 9, 2025
i know this is The Point and all but it was so unbearably repetitive i wanted to poke my eyes out
January 27, 2026
I've heard that this series is brilliant, but right now nothing is making me want to read six more volumes of this story. This one was a mere 176 pages and it felt twice as long because we are stuck in the head of a boring person as she repeats a boring day over and over again.
It's repetitive, obviously. And nothing happens. I don’t think that’s a spoiler; I doubt it’s even surprising given that this is the first of seven volumes, but I needed a bit more of a hook to ignite my interest in reading on.
The praise seems to centre on the meditative nature of the novel and the philosophical discussions it fosters, but passages like this did nothing for me:
It's repetitive, obviously. And nothing happens. I don’t think that’s a spoiler; I doubt it’s even surprising given that this is the first of seven volumes, but I needed a bit more of a hook to ignite my interest in reading on.
The praise seems to centre on the meditative nature of the novel and the philosophical discussions it fosters, but passages like this did nothing for me:
I flow in and out of the house. I flow through the day. I am fluid. I let myself flow with the sounds, like a liquid, and liquids flow in to fill any available space.
November 9, 2025
SE IL TEMPO SI ROMPE
Copio-incollo una sinossi che ho trovato da qualche parte e che mi è sembrata particolarmente esaustiva nella sua brevità:
È il 18 novembre. Tara è una libraia antiquaria e si trova a Parigi per lavoro. Quando si risveglia il mattino dopo nella sua camera d'albergo, si accorge che è ancora il 18 novembre. Disorientata, torna a casa dal marito Thomas per cercare aiuto. Lui le crede , ma non è prigioniero del tempo. Così Tara ogni mattina deve spiegargli daccapo l'enigma che sta vivendo, le strane leggi che regolano il suo mondo - alcuni oggetti restano con lei, altri svaniscono misteriosamente. Confusa e sola, inizia a tenere un diario del suo unico giorno infinito, nel tentativo di comprendere la fisica indecifrabile che ha trasformato il suo tempo in uno spazio di cui è l'unica abitante. Finché, dopo un anno, decide di tornare a Parigi, dove tutto è iniziato, nella speranza di trovare il varco nel flusso del tempo e riconquistare il futuro.
Tom Cruise e Emily Blunt in “Edge of Tomorrow” di Doug Liman, 2014.
Telma è sola perché lei e Thomas sono prigionieri del tempo in modo diverso: per entrambi è un eterno 18 novembre – ecco perché lui non si stupisce di non trovarla, sa che è a Parigi per lavoro e tornerà il 19 – ma Thomas è inconsapevole del reiterarsi della stessa giornata, mentre Tara ne è perfettamente consapevole. È questa coscienza che cambia la situazione tra i due.
Solvej Balle è brava perché sa rendere la ripetizione di giornate 18 novembre quasi piacevole, confortante, rassicurante, piacevolmente lenta: direi che dura finché Tara e Thomas collaborano, sono insieme, si sostengono. Ma poi, quando lei sente che metterlo al corrente, ricapitolare e spiegare diventa sempre più difficile e lungo – perché sono aumentati i 18 novembre da raccontare e decifrare - è brava a farci sentire che il buco nel tempo è un incubo. Senza bisogno di calcare le tinte, di crescere nel tono, fa capire a chi legge che la ripetizione è una gabbia dalla quale voler scappare.
A prima vista ci si muove tra due film di successo: Edge of Tomorrow – Senza domani dove Tom Cruise era costretto a combattere gli alieni ricominciando ogni volta dalla sua ultima morte (ma avendo il piacere di risvegliarsi sempre accanto alla guerriera Emily Blunt, fascinosa compagna), e l’altro, più vecchio, commedia e non drammatico, Groundog Day – Ricomincio da capo, con Bill Murray e Andie McDowell.
In entrambi i film, e qui nel romanzo di Solvej Balle – il primo di una prevista settilogia, se così si può dire, intendendo che alla fine saranno sette romanzi collegati (per ora sono cinque) – il protagonista finisce in una loop di tempo, costretto a vivere più e più (e più) volte lo stesso giorno, le stesse situazioni.
C’erano delle anomalie nel tempo, ed era impossibile individuare uno schema che avesse un senso.
Bill Murray e Andie McDowell in “Groundog Day” di Harold Ramis, 1993.
Qui la protagonista e io-narrante è Tara, che spiazza subito il lettore perché la distopia viene raccontata stando attenta soprattutto ai rumori, che sono comunque suoni, a dettagli minuscoli, alle emozioni, a stati d’animo descritti con minuzia, affrontati attraverso piccoli momenti, situazioni apparentemente insignificanti. Tutto ciò contribuisce a rendere l’aspetto per così dire fantascientifico confinato in una situazione ‘realistica’, quotidiana, possibile, verosimile, come se la si potesse toccare con mano. E, per me che non amo la fantascienza, è un fattore di importante e raro valore.
Copio-incollo una sinossi che ho trovato da qualche parte e che mi è sembrata particolarmente esaustiva nella sua brevità:
È il 18 novembre. Tara è una libraia antiquaria e si trova a Parigi per lavoro. Quando si risveglia il mattino dopo nella sua camera d'albergo, si accorge che è ancora il 18 novembre. Disorientata, torna a casa dal marito Thomas per cercare aiuto. Lui le crede , ma non è prigioniero del tempo. Così Tara ogni mattina deve spiegargli daccapo l'enigma che sta vivendo, le strane leggi che regolano il suo mondo - alcuni oggetti restano con lei, altri svaniscono misteriosamente. Confusa e sola, inizia a tenere un diario del suo unico giorno infinito, nel tentativo di comprendere la fisica indecifrabile che ha trasformato il suo tempo in uno spazio di cui è l'unica abitante. Finché, dopo un anno, decide di tornare a Parigi, dove tutto è iniziato, nella speranza di trovare il varco nel flusso del tempo e riconquistare il futuro.
Tom Cruise e Emily Blunt in “Edge of Tomorrow” di Doug Liman, 2014.
Telma è sola perché lei e Thomas sono prigionieri del tempo in modo diverso: per entrambi è un eterno 18 novembre – ecco perché lui non si stupisce di non trovarla, sa che è a Parigi per lavoro e tornerà il 19 – ma Thomas è inconsapevole del reiterarsi della stessa giornata, mentre Tara ne è perfettamente consapevole. È questa coscienza che cambia la situazione tra i due.
Solvej Balle è brava perché sa rendere la ripetizione di giornate 18 novembre quasi piacevole, confortante, rassicurante, piacevolmente lenta: direi che dura finché Tara e Thomas collaborano, sono insieme, si sostengono. Ma poi, quando lei sente che metterlo al corrente, ricapitolare e spiegare diventa sempre più difficile e lungo – perché sono aumentati i 18 novembre da raccontare e decifrare - è brava a farci sentire che il buco nel tempo è un incubo. Senza bisogno di calcare le tinte, di crescere nel tono, fa capire a chi legge che la ripetizione è una gabbia dalla quale voler scappare.
A prima vista ci si muove tra due film di successo: Edge of Tomorrow – Senza domani dove Tom Cruise era costretto a combattere gli alieni ricominciando ogni volta dalla sua ultima morte (ma avendo il piacere di risvegliarsi sempre accanto alla guerriera Emily Blunt, fascinosa compagna), e l’altro, più vecchio, commedia e non drammatico, Groundog Day – Ricomincio da capo, con Bill Murray e Andie McDowell.
In entrambi i film, e qui nel romanzo di Solvej Balle – il primo di una prevista settilogia, se così si può dire, intendendo che alla fine saranno sette romanzi collegati (per ora sono cinque) – il protagonista finisce in una loop di tempo, costretto a vivere più e più (e più) volte lo stesso giorno, le stesse situazioni.
C’erano delle anomalie nel tempo, ed era impossibile individuare uno schema che avesse un senso.
Bill Murray e Andie McDowell in “Groundog Day” di Harold Ramis, 1993.
Qui la protagonista e io-narrante è Tara, che spiazza subito il lettore perché la distopia viene raccontata stando attenta soprattutto ai rumori, che sono comunque suoni, a dettagli minuscoli, alle emozioni, a stati d’animo descritti con minuzia, affrontati attraverso piccoli momenti, situazioni apparentemente insignificanti. Tutto ciò contribuisce a rendere l’aspetto per così dire fantascientifico confinato in una situazione ‘realistica’, quotidiana, possibile, verosimile, come se la si potesse toccare con mano. E, per me che non amo la fantascienza, è un fattore di importante e raro valore.
March 17, 2025
Nicely written, but subject to a problem that afflicts a large proportion of contemporary fiction, especially speculative novels and stories. Namely: the 'presenting' -- rather than the 'building' -- of a world that subsequently runs the risk of failing to suspend the reader's disbelief, as happened in this instance. I've had the same problem with some award-winning novels, so these books are clearly landing elsewhere, and I always go in wanting to be taken along by such works.
When you're dealing with -- as this short novel (part of a series) does -- a day that continually recurs for no apparent reason (November 18, which resets for the narrator at the end of each basically identical iteration) it surely behooves the writer to make such an outlandish setup as believable as possible. But here, what you get instead is an immediate acceptance by the partner of the protagonist that her explanation of what she is experiencing, a looping, repeating 24hrs, is almost undoubtedly the case. Very few questions asked: just shared disconcertion. This is admirable from the partner's point of view--he trusts what she's saying--but (for me) it doesn't work in fiction. It 'presents' an immediately accepted case on behalf of the reader, rather than 'building' one. It's 'baffling' to both protagonist and partner, but such bafflement is quickly and casually dispelled. Which consequently means that the protagonist's partner -- who doesn't experience repeating days, but lives each November 18 as though it's the first -- feels like little more than a prop, as opposed to a flesh and blood character, despite shorthand descriptions of an 'atomic' connection the couple apparently share.
The central conceit is initially intriguing, and there are some thought-provoking moments that consider how we allow time to become a homogenous mass, and fail to truly see things for what they are, since we're rolled into a series of run-on days. But for this reader such moments were broadly hampered by the author's insistence that we simply go along with the concept, an urging that doesn't feel earned. As a younger reader, I could easily go along with such writing. 'He's a werewolf, so it's probably a good idea to watch out when there's a full moon.' That may well have sufficed -- then. Now I need a bit more -- I need convincing substance to enable me to furnish my delusion that a man has grown full body hair and fangs. It's not enough, in this case, to tell us that Groundhog Day is really happening, so that we can move on to other plot points. We need to feel more jeopardy and more external pressure on such a seismic central idea, or, for this reader, the whole project represents no more than a slack line along which numerous ideas are haphazardly hung.
When you're dealing with -- as this short novel (part of a series) does -- a day that continually recurs for no apparent reason (November 18, which resets for the narrator at the end of each basically identical iteration) it surely behooves the writer to make such an outlandish setup as believable as possible. But here, what you get instead is an immediate acceptance by the partner of the protagonist that her explanation of what she is experiencing, a looping, repeating 24hrs, is almost undoubtedly the case. Very few questions asked: just shared disconcertion. This is admirable from the partner's point of view--he trusts what she's saying--but (for me) it doesn't work in fiction. It 'presents' an immediately accepted case on behalf of the reader, rather than 'building' one. It's 'baffling' to both protagonist and partner, but such bafflement is quickly and casually dispelled. Which consequently means that the protagonist's partner -- who doesn't experience repeating days, but lives each November 18 as though it's the first -- feels like little more than a prop, as opposed to a flesh and blood character, despite shorthand descriptions of an 'atomic' connection the couple apparently share.
The central conceit is initially intriguing, and there are some thought-provoking moments that consider how we allow time to become a homogenous mass, and fail to truly see things for what they are, since we're rolled into a series of run-on days. But for this reader such moments were broadly hampered by the author's insistence that we simply go along with the concept, an urging that doesn't feel earned. As a younger reader, I could easily go along with such writing. 'He's a werewolf, so it's probably a good idea to watch out when there's a full moon.' That may well have sufficed -- then. Now I need a bit more -- I need convincing substance to enable me to furnish my delusion that a man has grown full body hair and fangs. It's not enough, in this case, to tell us that Groundhog Day is really happening, so that we can move on to other plot points. We need to feel more jeopardy and more external pressure on such a seismic central idea, or, for this reader, the whole project represents no more than a slack line along which numerous ideas are haphazardly hung.
April 29, 2025
2.5 stars
Granted, I'm in a real reading rut at the moment, in which nothing feels fresh or interesting. And granted, if I wasn't so grouchy, I could bump this up to three stars.
The grouchiness speaks to my disappointment though. I absolutely loved the concept here: a sort of literary Groundhog Day, one that wouldn't be about getting the girl but about the philosophical nature of time and how we spend it. And I was excited by early readers' feedback that the first volumes of this septology were "compelling" and "beautifully written."
But I was supremely bored throughout. The writing was...fine, if very plain. But the story failed to hold my interest at all (though, to give the book its due, a few weeks later I'm still waking up wondering if time is repeating). The basic thesis seems to be that relationships will be changed when one of you is repeating the same day all year and one of you isn't. Which... I mean... DUH.
The narrator was possibly the most boring person I've read about all year. The fact that she spent an entire year doing nothing with her newfound fate, or opportunity, or doom, or whatever was... well, I am not reading six more books about her.
Granted, I'm in a real reading rut at the moment, in which nothing feels fresh or interesting. And granted, if I wasn't so grouchy, I could bump this up to three stars.
The grouchiness speaks to my disappointment though. I absolutely loved the concept here: a sort of literary Groundhog Day, one that wouldn't be about getting the girl but about the philosophical nature of time and how we spend it. And I was excited by early readers' feedback that the first volumes of this septology were "compelling" and "beautifully written."
But I was supremely bored throughout. The writing was...fine, if very plain. But the story failed to hold my interest at all (though, to give the book its due, a few weeks later I'm still waking up wondering if time is repeating). The basic thesis seems to be that relationships will be changed when one of you is repeating the same day all year and one of you isn't. Which... I mean... DUH.
The narrator was possibly the most boring person I've read about all year. The fact that she spent an entire year doing nothing with her newfound fate, or opportunity, or doom, or whatever was... well, I am not reading six more books about her.
May 4, 2025
Fuck this stupid book and fuck me too for being stupid enough to finish it. Hope this diva gets out of her time loop at some point in this seven part series. All the best, won't be following xoxo
April 8, 2025
As predicted in November 2024, now on the shortlist of the International Booker Prize 2025!
A fascinating, meditative literary version of Groundhog Day, and how being stuck in time isolates and alienates. I have so many questions still, so fortunately there are 6 more instalments coming!
Ik zeg niet dat ik de hoop heb opgegeven. Maar hij komt niet zo vaak langs. De hoop is vertrokken. Dat is zonder drama gebeurd, de hoop heeft niet met deuren gesmeten, is eerder als een dier naar andere jachtvelden geslopen, een kat die naar de buren is verhuisd, een plant die zijn zaden verspreid heeft op plekken waar die beter kunnen groeien.
Solvej Balle brings us the seemingly ordinary life of two antique book traders in the North of France, Tara and Thomas Selter. Tara her life is upended by a fracture in time, having her relive 18 November endlessly while Thomas does not experience this repetition at all. Stuck in a secondary bedroom to avoid narrating the experience every morning to incredulous Thomas, we learn at the start of the book 18 November has already occurred 121 times (18 November #121). Tara narrates in luminous prose her investigations and tests. Initially she enjoys the weightlessness of being stuck in time, but soon uneasy truths seep into her perception of her overly familiar surroundings.
I still have so many questions on the mechanics and limitations of this repeat day. Could she theoretically get pregnant? Does her bank balance change (apparently not, this gives her near infinite options)? What happens when someone is killed, are they just resurrected? Why doesn’t she and her husband stay up a whole night and see if/how a reset works (this was tested later on in the novel but could be further explored, imagine sleeping on a plane, how would the reset look then mid flight over the ocean?)
This first part of On the Calculation of Volume is a slow, meditative and philosophical work, on what it means to not be remembered and not share the same experiences as a spouse.
I am very curious to the next parts of this novel in 7 parts. I feel this will be a hit series, it is strangely addictive!
Dutch quotes, without fail excellent in my view:
Het vreemde ogenblik waarop de vaste grond onder je voeten verdwijnt en de wereld niet langer voorspelbaar lijkt, alsof er plotseling existentiële alarmbellen afgaan, er een stille paniek uitbreekt die je noch doet vluchten noch om hulp doet roepen en waarvoor geen ambulance hoeft uit te rukken. Het is alsof dit alarm ergens in het bewustzijn sluimert, bijna als een grondtoon die je in het dagelijks leven niet hoort, maar pas afgaat op het ogenblik dat de onberekenbaarheid van de wereld tot je doordringt, een besef dat alles in een oogwenk kan veranderen, dat wat niet kan gebeuren, wat we absoluut niet verwachten, toch een mogelijkheid is. Dat de tijd stil blijft staan. Dat de zwaartekracht wordt opgeheven. Dat de logica van de wereld en de natuurwetten niet langer gelden. Dat we onder ogen moeten zien dat onze verwachting ten aanzien van de bestendigheid van de wereld op een onzeker fundament berust. Er zijn geen garanties, en achter alles wat we dagelijks beschouwen als iets vanzelfsprekends, gaan onwaarschijnlijke uitzonderingen, plotselinge breuken en ondenkbare afwijkingen van wetmatigheden schuil.
Vreemd dat het onwaarschijnlijke je zo van je stuk kan brengen, denk ik nu. We weten immers dat ons hele bestaan berust op eigenaardigheden en onwaarschijnlijke toevalligheden. Dat het aan deze eigenaardigheden te danken is dat we hier überhaupt zijn. Dat er mensen zijn op wat we onze planeet noemen, dat we ons kunnen voortbewegen op een ronddraaiende bol in een immense kosmos vol onbegrijpelijk grote objecten met zulke kleine deeltjes, dat onze geest niet kan bevatten hoe klein en talrijk ze zijn. Dat deze oneindig kleine objecten stand kunnen houden te midden van het onbegrijpelijk grote. Dat we blijven zweven. Dat we überhaupt bestaan. Dat elk van ons één van die onmetelijk vele mogelijkheden is geworden. Het ondenkbare is iets wat we de hele tijd met ons meedragen. Het is al gebeurd: we lopen rond op aarde en zijn onwaarschijnlijk, we zijn uit een wolk van ongelofelijke toevalligheden gestapt. Je zou denken dat we door dit besef een beetje toegerust waren om het onwaarschijnlijke tegemoet te treden. Maar het omgekeerde is kennelijk het geval. We zijn eraan gewend geraakt zonder dat het ons iedere ochtend duizelt, en in plaats van voorzichtig en aarzelend te handelen in voortdurende verwondering, lopen we rond alsof er niets gebeurd is, nemen we de eigenaardigheid voor lief en duizelt het ons als het bestaan blijkt te zijn zoals het is: onwaarschijnlijk, onvoorspelbaar, eigenaardig.
Ik zou zijn onrust zien en zou snel zeggen dat hij zich geen zorgen hoefde te maken, dat ik nu hier was, we waren samen, er waren geen doden, geen gewonden gevallen. Ik was thuis, er was me niets overkomen, we leefden nog, alleen was de tijd ontwricht.
Er zaten onregelmatigheden in de tijd en we konden geen enkel patroon vinden dat hout sneed. Voor het eerst vond ik het angstaanjagend. Niet gewoon duizelingwekkend en merkwaardig en een beetje griezelig. Het was angstaanjagend, het was onzinnig en zonder magie, en de mist was volkomen verdwenen. Het was niet de onrust van het moment van het vallende stukje brood in het hotel, het was niet het gevoel van een schemergebied tussen ons. We waren geen wandelaars in nevelige landschappen, we waren geen duikers of schipbreukelingen. We waren geen tweeling of een span paarden, we waren geen bosarbeiders of twee dooiers in een ei. Waren we in Mesopotamië, dan hadden de rivieren een naam en stroomden ze terug in hun bedding. Het was helder weer, de zon brandde aan de hemel, de rivieren droogden uit, je kon troepenformaties vermoeden, scherpe silhouetten patrouilleerden langs de oever, het geluid van metaal. We leefden in twee tijden en we konden de verschillen niet langer negeren. Er waren territoria die tegen elkaar botsten, er waren grensconflicten en oncontroleerbare transacties dwars door de zones heen. We waren geliefden in landschappen vol conflicten, Thomas had geen herinnering aan onze dagen samen, we konden geen mistige dagen, overstromingen en nevelige ochtenden scheppen, we konden niet samen oplopen, we waren in het geheel niet dubbel of mistig of parallel. Ik kreeg geen helder beeld, ik zag geen patronen en ik wist niet hoe ik hier uit moest komen.
In feite ontbrak het ons niet aan verklaringen, we hadden er meer dan genoeg, maar verklaringen die onze kritische blik konden doorstaan en die tevens onze vele observaties omvatten, vonden we niet.
Ik wist nog niet wat er moest gebeuren, maar ik wist wel dat ik niet elke morgen kon vertellen over een steeds langere reeks variaties van dezelfde dag. We konden achttien november niet delen. Het was een dag die ik zelf moest dragen.
Ik zeg niet dat ik de hoop heb opgegeven. Maar hij komt niet zo vaak langs. De hoop is vertrokken. Dat is zonder drama gebeurd, de hoop heeft niet met deuren gesmeten, is eerder als een dier naar andere jachtvelden geslopen, een kat die naar de buren is verhuisd, een plant die zijn zaden verspreid heeft op plekken waar die beter kunnen groeien.
—-
Ik heb geen moeite om de dagen door te komen als ik me rustig houd. Dat wil zeggen, ik doe niets om de dagen voorbij te laten gaan. Ze gaan vanzelf voorbij. Ik hoef niets anders te doen dan ’s ochtends een getal in het notitieboekje te zetten. Ik hoef niets over de dagen te zeggen, de papieren blijven blanco en de tijd gaat sneller als ik niets zeg. Ik stroom door de dagen, of de dag stroomt, iets of iemand stroomt. Ik haal adem. Ik denk dat zinnen niet meer nodig zijn. Ik hoor de dag, die zijn patroon volgt, en voor ik het weet is de dag voorbij.
Ik zie hem niet naar buiten komen en ik weet zeker dat hij mij ook niet ziet, want ik loop in tegenovergestelde richting over de stoep. Maar ik hoor de deur die achter hem dichtvalt. De deur die zich sluit achter Thomas zonder pakketten. Thomas die zijn postkantoor verlaat. Thomas die de deur van geel metaal loslaat. Een deur te zijn. Aangeraakt te worden. En op rustige scharnieren langzaam weer terugdraaien en dichtgaan.
Maar ik ben geen deur. Ik ga niet dicht. Ik heb geen scharnieren. Er is geen enkel houvast. Ik blijf staan en draai me een beetje om terwijl hij om de hoek verdwijnt, en dan sta ik daar, half omgedraaid, want ik kan mijn benen niet bewegen, maar ik kan mijn lichaam draaien en hem om de hoek zien verdwijnen.
—-
Het is goed een plaats te kennen waar je niets kunt uitrichten.
Ik kon het aan hem zien. Hij vond het maar raar. Misschien had hij gelijk: ik was gek geworden. Maar hij had oorzaak en gevolg omgedraaid. Ik was niet zo gek geworden dat ik me inbeeldde dat ik al 339 keer achttien november had meegemaakt. Dat ik gek geworden was kwam doordat ik 339 keer achttien november had meegemaakt. Ik was vreemd geworden door achttien november. Ik wilde eruit
Het is moeilijk om geduldig te zijn als je niet weet waar je op wacht. Het is moeilijk om een verschil te zien in het dagelijkse gekrioel van de dingen
Longlist International Booker Prize 2025 ranking
Shortlisted books in bold
1 Under the Eye of the Big Bird - 4.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2 On the Calculation of Volume I - 4.5 stars rounded down, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3 The Book of Disappearance - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4 Eurotrash - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5 Perfection - 3.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6 A Leopard-Skin Hat - 3.5 stars rounded down, review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7 Reservoir Bitches - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8 Heart Lamp: Selected Stories - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9 Solenoid - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10 Hunchback - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11 On a Woman's Madness - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12 Small Boat - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13 There's a Monster Behind the Door - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A fascinating, meditative literary version of Groundhog Day, and how being stuck in time isolates and alienates. I have so many questions still, so fortunately there are 6 more instalments coming!
Ik zeg niet dat ik de hoop heb opgegeven. Maar hij komt niet zo vaak langs. De hoop is vertrokken. Dat is zonder drama gebeurd, de hoop heeft niet met deuren gesmeten, is eerder als een dier naar andere jachtvelden geslopen, een kat die naar de buren is verhuisd, een plant die zijn zaden verspreid heeft op plekken waar die beter kunnen groeien.
Solvej Balle brings us the seemingly ordinary life of two antique book traders in the North of France, Tara and Thomas Selter. Tara her life is upended by a fracture in time, having her relive 18 November endlessly while Thomas does not experience this repetition at all. Stuck in a secondary bedroom to avoid narrating the experience every morning to incredulous Thomas, we learn at the start of the book 18 November has already occurred 121 times (18 November #121). Tara narrates in luminous prose her investigations and tests. Initially she enjoys the weightlessness of being stuck in time, but soon uneasy truths seep into her perception of her overly familiar surroundings.
I still have so many questions on the mechanics and limitations of this repeat day. Could she theoretically get pregnant? Does her bank balance change (apparently not, this gives her near infinite options)? What happens when someone is killed, are they just resurrected? Why doesn’t she and her husband stay up a whole night and see if/how a reset works (this was tested later on in the novel but could be further explored, imagine sleeping on a plane, how would the reset look then mid flight over the ocean?)
This first part of On the Calculation of Volume is a slow, meditative and philosophical work, on what it means to not be remembered and not share the same experiences as a spouse.
I am very curious to the next parts of this novel in 7 parts. I feel this will be a hit series, it is strangely addictive!
Dutch quotes, without fail excellent in my view:
Het vreemde ogenblik waarop de vaste grond onder je voeten verdwijnt en de wereld niet langer voorspelbaar lijkt, alsof er plotseling existentiële alarmbellen afgaan, er een stille paniek uitbreekt die je noch doet vluchten noch om hulp doet roepen en waarvoor geen ambulance hoeft uit te rukken. Het is alsof dit alarm ergens in het bewustzijn sluimert, bijna als een grondtoon die je in het dagelijks leven niet hoort, maar pas afgaat op het ogenblik dat de onberekenbaarheid van de wereld tot je doordringt, een besef dat alles in een oogwenk kan veranderen, dat wat niet kan gebeuren, wat we absoluut niet verwachten, toch een mogelijkheid is. Dat de tijd stil blijft staan. Dat de zwaartekracht wordt opgeheven. Dat de logica van de wereld en de natuurwetten niet langer gelden. Dat we onder ogen moeten zien dat onze verwachting ten aanzien van de bestendigheid van de wereld op een onzeker fundament berust. Er zijn geen garanties, en achter alles wat we dagelijks beschouwen als iets vanzelfsprekends, gaan onwaarschijnlijke uitzonderingen, plotselinge breuken en ondenkbare afwijkingen van wetmatigheden schuil.
Vreemd dat het onwaarschijnlijke je zo van je stuk kan brengen, denk ik nu. We weten immers dat ons hele bestaan berust op eigenaardigheden en onwaarschijnlijke toevalligheden. Dat het aan deze eigenaardigheden te danken is dat we hier überhaupt zijn. Dat er mensen zijn op wat we onze planeet noemen, dat we ons kunnen voortbewegen op een ronddraaiende bol in een immense kosmos vol onbegrijpelijk grote objecten met zulke kleine deeltjes, dat onze geest niet kan bevatten hoe klein en talrijk ze zijn. Dat deze oneindig kleine objecten stand kunnen houden te midden van het onbegrijpelijk grote. Dat we blijven zweven. Dat we überhaupt bestaan. Dat elk van ons één van die onmetelijk vele mogelijkheden is geworden. Het ondenkbare is iets wat we de hele tijd met ons meedragen. Het is al gebeurd: we lopen rond op aarde en zijn onwaarschijnlijk, we zijn uit een wolk van ongelofelijke toevalligheden gestapt. Je zou denken dat we door dit besef een beetje toegerust waren om het onwaarschijnlijke tegemoet te treden. Maar het omgekeerde is kennelijk het geval. We zijn eraan gewend geraakt zonder dat het ons iedere ochtend duizelt, en in plaats van voorzichtig en aarzelend te handelen in voortdurende verwondering, lopen we rond alsof er niets gebeurd is, nemen we de eigenaardigheid voor lief en duizelt het ons als het bestaan blijkt te zijn zoals het is: onwaarschijnlijk, onvoorspelbaar, eigenaardig.
Ik zou zijn onrust zien en zou snel zeggen dat hij zich geen zorgen hoefde te maken, dat ik nu hier was, we waren samen, er waren geen doden, geen gewonden gevallen. Ik was thuis, er was me niets overkomen, we leefden nog, alleen was de tijd ontwricht.
Er zaten onregelmatigheden in de tijd en we konden geen enkel patroon vinden dat hout sneed. Voor het eerst vond ik het angstaanjagend. Niet gewoon duizelingwekkend en merkwaardig en een beetje griezelig. Het was angstaanjagend, het was onzinnig en zonder magie, en de mist was volkomen verdwenen. Het was niet de onrust van het moment van het vallende stukje brood in het hotel, het was niet het gevoel van een schemergebied tussen ons. We waren geen wandelaars in nevelige landschappen, we waren geen duikers of schipbreukelingen. We waren geen tweeling of een span paarden, we waren geen bosarbeiders of twee dooiers in een ei. Waren we in Mesopotamië, dan hadden de rivieren een naam en stroomden ze terug in hun bedding. Het was helder weer, de zon brandde aan de hemel, de rivieren droogden uit, je kon troepenformaties vermoeden, scherpe silhouetten patrouilleerden langs de oever, het geluid van metaal. We leefden in twee tijden en we konden de verschillen niet langer negeren. Er waren territoria die tegen elkaar botsten, er waren grensconflicten en oncontroleerbare transacties dwars door de zones heen. We waren geliefden in landschappen vol conflicten, Thomas had geen herinnering aan onze dagen samen, we konden geen mistige dagen, overstromingen en nevelige ochtenden scheppen, we konden niet samen oplopen, we waren in het geheel niet dubbel of mistig of parallel. Ik kreeg geen helder beeld, ik zag geen patronen en ik wist niet hoe ik hier uit moest komen.
In feite ontbrak het ons niet aan verklaringen, we hadden er meer dan genoeg, maar verklaringen die onze kritische blik konden doorstaan en die tevens onze vele observaties omvatten, vonden we niet.
Ik wist nog niet wat er moest gebeuren, maar ik wist wel dat ik niet elke morgen kon vertellen over een steeds langere reeks variaties van dezelfde dag. We konden achttien november niet delen. Het was een dag die ik zelf moest dragen.
Ik zeg niet dat ik de hoop heb opgegeven. Maar hij komt niet zo vaak langs. De hoop is vertrokken. Dat is zonder drama gebeurd, de hoop heeft niet met deuren gesmeten, is eerder als een dier naar andere jachtvelden geslopen, een kat die naar de buren is verhuisd, een plant die zijn zaden verspreid heeft op plekken waar die beter kunnen groeien.
—-
Ik heb geen moeite om de dagen door te komen als ik me rustig houd. Dat wil zeggen, ik doe niets om de dagen voorbij te laten gaan. Ze gaan vanzelf voorbij. Ik hoef niets anders te doen dan ’s ochtends een getal in het notitieboekje te zetten. Ik hoef niets over de dagen te zeggen, de papieren blijven blanco en de tijd gaat sneller als ik niets zeg. Ik stroom door de dagen, of de dag stroomt, iets of iemand stroomt. Ik haal adem. Ik denk dat zinnen niet meer nodig zijn. Ik hoor de dag, die zijn patroon volgt, en voor ik het weet is de dag voorbij.
Ik zie hem niet naar buiten komen en ik weet zeker dat hij mij ook niet ziet, want ik loop in tegenovergestelde richting over de stoep. Maar ik hoor de deur die achter hem dichtvalt. De deur die zich sluit achter Thomas zonder pakketten. Thomas die zijn postkantoor verlaat. Thomas die de deur van geel metaal loslaat. Een deur te zijn. Aangeraakt te worden. En op rustige scharnieren langzaam weer terugdraaien en dichtgaan.
Maar ik ben geen deur. Ik ga niet dicht. Ik heb geen scharnieren. Er is geen enkel houvast. Ik blijf staan en draai me een beetje om terwijl hij om de hoek verdwijnt, en dan sta ik daar, half omgedraaid, want ik kan mijn benen niet bewegen, maar ik kan mijn lichaam draaien en hem om de hoek zien verdwijnen.
—-
Het is goed een plaats te kennen waar je niets kunt uitrichten.
Ik kon het aan hem zien. Hij vond het maar raar. Misschien had hij gelijk: ik was gek geworden. Maar hij had oorzaak en gevolg omgedraaid. Ik was niet zo gek geworden dat ik me inbeeldde dat ik al 339 keer achttien november had meegemaakt. Dat ik gek geworden was kwam doordat ik 339 keer achttien november had meegemaakt. Ik was vreemd geworden door achttien november. Ik wilde eruit
Het is moeilijk om geduldig te zijn als je niet weet waar je op wacht. Het is moeilijk om een verschil te zien in het dagelijkse gekrioel van de dingen
Longlist International Booker Prize 2025 ranking
Shortlisted books in bold
1 Under the Eye of the Big Bird - 4.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2 On the Calculation of Volume I - 4.5 stars rounded down, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3 The Book of Disappearance - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4 Eurotrash - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5 Perfection - 3.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6 A Leopard-Skin Hat - 3.5 stars rounded down, review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7 Reservoir Bitches - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8 Heart Lamp: Selected Stories - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9 Solenoid - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10 Hunchback - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11 On a Woman's Madness - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12 Small Boat - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13 There's a Monster Behind the Door - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read
April 15, 2025Some books you can read desultorily and get away with it. Other books, desultory themselves, don't hold up so well under this treatment. Finally figuring this out, I made a rush of reading the second half of this book yesterday on the couch with some classical music and no one else in the house. I calculated the volume of my attention span well.
Thing is, this book is getting attention because it is a) unusual and b) ambiguous. Yes, ambiguity can be good if it leaves you wondering. Trouble is, some readers identify "wondering" as "frustrated," so if you want to know what the hell was going on when the day Nov. 18th (no groundhogs in sight) keeps looping for one woman named Tara and her only (everyone else is unaware that they're looping so, philosophically, they're not...am I right?), God help you.
Tell, tell, tell. Yes, we're told as writers to SHOW, but some writers are good tellers and if there's one thing author Solvej Balle is good at, it's description, especially minutiae, especially via sensory details. Thing is, you're parked in the protagonist's increasingly antagonized mind, making the narrator more and more unreliable.
Do you like unreliable narrators? Do you like psychological Rubik's cubes? Then twist and click away for 160 slow pages and have at it. You might find something to like -- or loathe. I leave it to you, Lady or the Tiger style...
Thing is, this book is getting attention because it is a) unusual and b) ambiguous. Yes, ambiguity can be good if it leaves you wondering. Trouble is, some readers identify "wondering" as "frustrated," so if you want to know what the hell was going on when the day Nov. 18th (no groundhogs in sight) keeps looping for one woman named Tara and her only (everyone else is unaware that they're looping so, philosophically, they're not...am I right?), God help you.
Tell, tell, tell. Yes, we're told as writers to SHOW, but some writers are good tellers and if there's one thing author Solvej Balle is good at, it's description, especially minutiae, especially via sensory details. Thing is, you're parked in the protagonist's increasingly antagonized mind, making the narrator more and more unreliable.
Do you like unreliable narrators? Do you like psychological Rubik's cubes? Then twist and click away for 160 slow pages and have at it. You might find something to like -- or loathe. I leave it to you, Lady or the Tiger style...
April 5, 2025
Danish author Solvej Balle’s novel, the first in an ongoing series, is structured like a diary but each entry is for the same day November 18th. A day that 29-year-old Tara Selter is inexplicably living over and over again. But, unlike commercial stories with similar plots – Happy Death Day or Russian Doll – the chronicling of Tara’s experiences isn't tied to solving a crime or similar mystery, instead it has a distinctly semi-philosophical, almost metaphysical flavour. When the novel opens, it’s already iteration 121 of the same day, Tara an antiquarian bookseller recounts how a visit to a Paris book fair somehow left her trapped, separate in time from everyone around her. Tara recalls how at first she returned home to her husband Thomas, convinced that together they could puzzle out what was happening to her. But when these attempts failed, Tara retreated further and further into isolation, caught up in the dilemmas presented by her predicament and their possible significance. So that she becomes part of a highly personal experiment, both scientist and subject, hoping to find some way back to her previous life.
It’s a very literary piece, detailed and reflective, and one which conjures a range of ideas and associations. There’s an obvious commentary on the banality and repetitiveness of many people’s everyday lives; but there’s also a plea for attentiveness, for the rewards that hyperawareness of time and space might bring – Tara is attuned to every sound, to the weather, to the sky, to the movements of the birds in her cottage garden, the minutiae of existence that’s so often overlooked. Tara’s confronted too with her individual impact on the outside world. Although each day’s technically the same one, her purchases deplete the stock in local shops, the vegetables she plucks from the earth are still gone when she wakes up. Balle is clearly thinking about the environment and climate change here. But equally contemporary consumption practices which themselves have brought about a different logic of time – the vegetables we eat no longer limited by seasons or even by specific countries and climate zones. Tara being out of sync with Thomas also opens up a series of meditations on intimacy versus distance. Isolation is, in some ways, liberating for Tara who’s free to pursue her own agenda but at the same time she’s cut off from her society and community in unnerving, potentially damaging ways. It’s a process of transformation that possibly marks her out as monstrous, both to herself and to the people she tries to confide in.
It’s a difficult piece to confidently interpret because there’s so much that might change in later instalments. Balle was partly inspired by her debut novel which also featured a woman abruptly estranged from the wider world, in that scenario stranded on a desert island where she's confronted with her feelings and her understanding of the nature of existence. Balle too is interested in exploring concepts of time relating to memory and nostalgia: moments which seem to take us back in time, days when we feel time has slowed or we’ve grown suddenly older. Another important theme is the connection between time and storytelling: the process of writing is central to the novel, as is the influence of books like Ulysses, The Arabian Nights, and works like Waiting for Godot. I found the intricacies of Balle’s narrative consistently intriguing, it might be a little dry for some, but I was quickly bound up in its rhythms. Translated by Barbara J. Haveland.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Faber for an ARC
It’s a very literary piece, detailed and reflective, and one which conjures a range of ideas and associations. There’s an obvious commentary on the banality and repetitiveness of many people’s everyday lives; but there’s also a plea for attentiveness, for the rewards that hyperawareness of time and space might bring – Tara is attuned to every sound, to the weather, to the sky, to the movements of the birds in her cottage garden, the minutiae of existence that’s so often overlooked. Tara’s confronted too with her individual impact on the outside world. Although each day’s technically the same one, her purchases deplete the stock in local shops, the vegetables she plucks from the earth are still gone when she wakes up. Balle is clearly thinking about the environment and climate change here. But equally contemporary consumption practices which themselves have brought about a different logic of time – the vegetables we eat no longer limited by seasons or even by specific countries and climate zones. Tara being out of sync with Thomas also opens up a series of meditations on intimacy versus distance. Isolation is, in some ways, liberating for Tara who’s free to pursue her own agenda but at the same time she’s cut off from her society and community in unnerving, potentially damaging ways. It’s a process of transformation that possibly marks her out as monstrous, both to herself and to the people she tries to confide in.
It’s a difficult piece to confidently interpret because there’s so much that might change in later instalments. Balle was partly inspired by her debut novel which also featured a woman abruptly estranged from the wider world, in that scenario stranded on a desert island where she's confronted with her feelings and her understanding of the nature of existence. Balle too is interested in exploring concepts of time relating to memory and nostalgia: moments which seem to take us back in time, days when we feel time has slowed or we’ve grown suddenly older. Another important theme is the connection between time and storytelling: the process of writing is central to the novel, as is the influence of books like Ulysses, The Arabian Nights, and works like Waiting for Godot. I found the intricacies of Balle’s narrative consistently intriguing, it might be a little dry for some, but I was quickly bound up in its rhythms. Translated by Barbara J. Haveland.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Faber for an ARC
November 22, 2025
Second read (November 2025) - in preparation for gaining some momentum and moving on to the second and third volumes.
--------------------------------
I am a fan of Groundhog Day and a massive fan of Palm Springs. I often come away from viewing those films with a host of additional questions that I mull over in my mind for days on end. This is one of the only “would you rather”esque ideas that remains with me. Flight or invisibility, infinite money or infinite health, immortality or power, none of that. What happens if you are living the same day over and over again?
I have thought of it all. You freak out. You go through bouts of intense depression and anxiety. You may lose your mind. If you don’t, you start having fun. Do you learn new trades? Languages? Read and watch everything? What the fuck is the point, if you are stuck in an endless loop of 24 hours? This book goes over most of my questions.
I have also messed up big time. Reading this book is addictive and it does not leave your mind when you are in it. The only issue is that it is the first volume of what is set to be a 7-volume series. 5 books have been published in Danish, and only 2 are currently available in English. I’m so cooked.
--------------------------------
I am a fan of Groundhog Day and a massive fan of Palm Springs. I often come away from viewing those films with a host of additional questions that I mull over in my mind for days on end. This is one of the only “would you rather”esque ideas that remains with me. Flight or invisibility, infinite money or infinite health, immortality or power, none of that. What happens if you are living the same day over and over again?
I have thought of it all. You freak out. You go through bouts of intense depression and anxiety. You may lose your mind. If you don’t, you start having fun. Do you learn new trades? Languages? Read and watch everything? What the fuck is the point, if you are stuck in an endless loop of 24 hours? This book goes over most of my questions.
I have also messed up big time. Reading this book is addictive and it does not leave your mind when you are in it. The only issue is that it is the first volume of what is set to be a 7-volume series. 5 books have been published in Danish, and only 2 are currently available in English. I’m so cooked.
September 25, 2023
November bjuder på karameller av granit.” /Tomas Tranströmer
Vem har inte en regnig och gråtrist novemberdag tröstat sig själv med att den snart är över. I morgon är en ny dag, säger man till sig själv. Men tänk om det plötsligt inte skulle vara det. För protagonisten Tara är det varje morgon när hon vaknar, som i Ulysses en och samma dag, den artonde november.
”Jag har kommit långt bort från den sjuttonde och jag vet inte om jag någonsin får se den nittonde. Men den artonde kommer om och om igen. […]
Det var därför jag började skriva. För att jag kan höra honom i huset. För att tiden har gått sönder. För att jag hittade en bunt papper i bokhyllan. För att jag försöker minnas. För att pappret minns. Kanske är det något helande med meningar.”
Vi kommer in i berättelsen (in media res) den artonde november nummer 121. Det är då hon börjar skriva om sin belägenhet och hur det hela började. Hon lämnade sin man Thomas och sitt hem för att åka på tjänsteresa den sjuttonde november. Den artonde genomförde hon bokinköp och träffade vänner, som planerat. Dagen avslutades med att hon kröp ner i sängen på hotellet. Vid frukosten ”morgonen efter” inser hon att allt omkring upprepar sig, vädret, människorna, tidningen visar att det åter är den artonde. Böckerna hon köpte är tillbaka hos handlaren. Alla andra tror att de upplever den artonde för första gången, bara Tara vet att det ständigt är samma dag.
Med en beskrivande detaljrik prosa som målar bilder och framställer ljud hypnotiserar den prisvinnande danska författaren Solvej Balle mig. Många upprepningar med små variationer håller spänningen vid liv genom hela det unika verket. Å ena sidan är det glasklart vad som händer och sker, å andra sidan är det fullkomligt obegripligt. Ungefär som med livet självt, gråzoner och obesvarade frågor hör till. Om uträkning av omfång är en existentiell och filosofisk mångbottnad roman om människans förhållande till universums märkligheter. Författaren överlämnar hela tolkningsarbetet åt läsaren. Tack för det!
Det ska – till min stora glädje – komma ytterligare sex böcker om Tara Selter. I den här första boken är hon helt fokuserad på revan i tiden och sin situation. Vi får veta väldigt lite om hennes tidigare liv och person.
När Balle skriver om Taras omständighet gestaltar hon enligt mig alienation, som i faktiskt utanförskap eller en känsla av detsamma. Således är temat något djupt mänskligt som rör oss alla. Som individ är du egentligen alltid ensam, det är bara du som är du, i din kropp, som tänker dina tankar och känner dina känslor. Att gång på gång behöva förklara för andra människor hur man har det och hoppas på att bli förstådd, men kanske aldrig fullt ut bli det, är allas vår verklighet. När Tara säger ”igår” avser ordets betydelse artonde november, till skillnad från Thomas tolkning av samma ord som betyder sjuttonde november. Jämför Sokrates som påpekade att samma vind kan kännas varm för en person och kylig för en annan. Beroende på vad man ätit innan kan sött vin upplevas surt. Surheten är alltså en avkomma av två föräldrar, vinet och den som smakar på det. På sätt och vis är varje människa sitt eget individuella mått för det som är.
”Vi var inga tvillingar eller något hästspann, vi var inga skogsarbetare eller dubbla gulor i ett ägg. Om vi var i Mesopotamien hade floderna fått namn och runnit tillbaka i sina bäddar. […].. vi kunde inte hitta tillsammans..”
Det här är ett konstverk som för mig också handlar om förlust och ensamhet. Balle ger form åt två älskande som skiljs från varandra. Tidigare försökte de som sant vetgiriga människor att lösa gåtan med revan i tiden tillsammans, de gör om vardagsrummet till ett ”kontrollrum” (haha!) men när 76 dagar har gått och hon varje morgon förklarat för Thomas att tiden stannat, klarar hon inte av det längre. Avståndet har blivit för stort. Då är det som att hon kliver ut ur Platons grotta och ser verkligheten för vad den är. Efter det börjar hon på ett mer noggrant sätt lägga märke till rummet omkring sig, ljuden, sinnesförnimmelserna. Hon känner av sitt humör. Hon vänder blicken mot himlen, som de gamla filosoferna, för att söka svar i stjärnorna. Det ser ut som att stjärnorna vrider sig men det är ju jorden som snurrar.
Tara drar sig undan och lever mol allena i gästrummet. Thomas jämförs med ett spöke som går igen och igen. Hon själv känner sig som ett monster som äter av världen, som tränger sig på och invaderar. Acceptansen, hoppet, humöret växlar men alltjämt är det den artonde november.
Balle skriver att ”..våra förväntningar på världens konstans vilar på ett osäkert fundament.” Plötsligt kan förutsättningarna ändras. Det kan bli krig och pandemi – det är väl i princip lika stora ingrepp i individers liv som om tiden stannade. Men i denna kafkaliknande loop finns det ändå något som beter sig som förväntat; kroppen. Taras hår växer och sår läker. Den fysiska kroppens förhållande till tiden, åldrandet, tycks vara ett obestridligt faktum.
Människan räknar och mäter men transcendentala värden kan inte uttryckas i varken siffror eller ord även om meningar verkligen kan vara lugnande.
Vem har inte en regnig och gråtrist novemberdag tröstat sig själv med att den snart är över. I morgon är en ny dag, säger man till sig själv. Men tänk om det plötsligt inte skulle vara det. För protagonisten Tara är det varje morgon när hon vaknar, som i Ulysses en och samma dag, den artonde november.
”Jag har kommit långt bort från den sjuttonde och jag vet inte om jag någonsin får se den nittonde. Men den artonde kommer om och om igen. […]
Det var därför jag började skriva. För att jag kan höra honom i huset. För att tiden har gått sönder. För att jag hittade en bunt papper i bokhyllan. För att jag försöker minnas. För att pappret minns. Kanske är det något helande med meningar.”
Vi kommer in i berättelsen (in media res) den artonde november nummer 121. Det är då hon börjar skriva om sin belägenhet och hur det hela började. Hon lämnade sin man Thomas och sitt hem för att åka på tjänsteresa den sjuttonde november. Den artonde genomförde hon bokinköp och träffade vänner, som planerat. Dagen avslutades med att hon kröp ner i sängen på hotellet. Vid frukosten ”morgonen efter” inser hon att allt omkring upprepar sig, vädret, människorna, tidningen visar att det åter är den artonde. Böckerna hon köpte är tillbaka hos handlaren. Alla andra tror att de upplever den artonde för första gången, bara Tara vet att det ständigt är samma dag.
Med en beskrivande detaljrik prosa som målar bilder och framställer ljud hypnotiserar den prisvinnande danska författaren Solvej Balle mig. Många upprepningar med små variationer håller spänningen vid liv genom hela det unika verket. Å ena sidan är det glasklart vad som händer och sker, å andra sidan är det fullkomligt obegripligt. Ungefär som med livet självt, gråzoner och obesvarade frågor hör till. Om uträkning av omfång är en existentiell och filosofisk mångbottnad roman om människans förhållande till universums märkligheter. Författaren överlämnar hela tolkningsarbetet åt läsaren. Tack för det!
Det ska – till min stora glädje – komma ytterligare sex böcker om Tara Selter. I den här första boken är hon helt fokuserad på revan i tiden och sin situation. Vi får veta väldigt lite om hennes tidigare liv och person.
När Balle skriver om Taras omständighet gestaltar hon enligt mig alienation, som i faktiskt utanförskap eller en känsla av detsamma. Således är temat något djupt mänskligt som rör oss alla. Som individ är du egentligen alltid ensam, det är bara du som är du, i din kropp, som tänker dina tankar och känner dina känslor. Att gång på gång behöva förklara för andra människor hur man har det och hoppas på att bli förstådd, men kanske aldrig fullt ut bli det, är allas vår verklighet. När Tara säger ”igår” avser ordets betydelse artonde november, till skillnad från Thomas tolkning av samma ord som betyder sjuttonde november. Jämför Sokrates som påpekade att samma vind kan kännas varm för en person och kylig för en annan. Beroende på vad man ätit innan kan sött vin upplevas surt. Surheten är alltså en avkomma av två föräldrar, vinet och den som smakar på det. På sätt och vis är varje människa sitt eget individuella mått för det som är.
”Vi var inga tvillingar eller något hästspann, vi var inga skogsarbetare eller dubbla gulor i ett ägg. Om vi var i Mesopotamien hade floderna fått namn och runnit tillbaka i sina bäddar. […].. vi kunde inte hitta tillsammans..”
Det här är ett konstverk som för mig också handlar om förlust och ensamhet. Balle ger form åt två älskande som skiljs från varandra. Tidigare försökte de som sant vetgiriga människor att lösa gåtan med revan i tiden tillsammans, de gör om vardagsrummet till ett ”kontrollrum” (haha!) men när 76 dagar har gått och hon varje morgon förklarat för Thomas att tiden stannat, klarar hon inte av det längre. Avståndet har blivit för stort. Då är det som att hon kliver ut ur Platons grotta och ser verkligheten för vad den är. Efter det börjar hon på ett mer noggrant sätt lägga märke till rummet omkring sig, ljuden, sinnesförnimmelserna. Hon känner av sitt humör. Hon vänder blicken mot himlen, som de gamla filosoferna, för att söka svar i stjärnorna. Det ser ut som att stjärnorna vrider sig men det är ju jorden som snurrar.
Tara drar sig undan och lever mol allena i gästrummet. Thomas jämförs med ett spöke som går igen och igen. Hon själv känner sig som ett monster som äter av världen, som tränger sig på och invaderar. Acceptansen, hoppet, humöret växlar men alltjämt är det den artonde november.
Balle skriver att ”..våra förväntningar på världens konstans vilar på ett osäkert fundament.” Plötsligt kan förutsättningarna ändras. Det kan bli krig och pandemi – det är väl i princip lika stora ingrepp i individers liv som om tiden stannade. Men i denna kafkaliknande loop finns det ändå något som beter sig som förväntat; kroppen. Taras hår växer och sår läker. Den fysiska kroppens förhållande till tiden, åldrandet, tycks vara ett obestridligt faktum.
Människan räknar och mäter men transcendentala värden kan inte uttryckas i varken siffror eller ord även om meningar verkligen kan vara lugnande.
March 5, 2025
[3.5 stars] Very cool concept. Wonderfully written and excellently translated. I just think it being the start of a series made me feel like, by the end, I wanted more (a good thing! I will continue) but that this one didn't satisfy as much as a 1st book in a series should, in my opinion. It's making me question whether this whole concept needs to be broken out into more volumes or could be instead one large volume or maybe 2-3 bigger ones. We shall see! Maybe I'll eat my words and see, in hindsight, why she ended this one where she did. But for now I liked, didn't love, and hope subsequent volumes provide a bit more meat.
December 5, 2025
But when Thomas is on his own nothing disappears. It was me who made things disappear. That must be it. I am living in a time that eats up the world.
I have to confess that this left me a bit cold. There's an interesting - if hardly original - premise of Tara being caught in a time-loop where every morning she wakes up and relives the same day, but the treatment is more Proustian than sci-fi. We, like Tara, don't really understand the rules of this anomaly in the universe: she is able, for example, to move around so that she doesn't wake up in the hotel where she was when the loop started and is usually at home; some of her possessions bought or moved during the day revert back to where they were the previous day, others travel with Tara. Oddly, food she purchases and eats then disappears from the shops even though it's the same day that she originally bought it, clearly an oblique commentary on human consumption and the eradication of earth's resources though the topic isn't treated further than in this marginal way. And a burn she got on the first day scabs over and heals so that her body still seems to be moving through time even while Tara is reliving the same day.
More pressing is the image of loneliness as Tara's time is out of synch with everyone else's, crucially separating her from her husband who has to be told each morning the same story of how Tara is reliving the same day - he can't remember the other iterations of this day that he has spent with her.
And that's kind of it. There is some progress as we move towards the 365th iteration of 18th November when Tara is convinced she can fall back through the 'door' that stopped time for her though the book ends without that resolution.
This reminded me, as noted, of Proust: the concern with memories and time, the interiority and subjectivity as Tara begins to conceive of herself as a monster. But, to tell the truth, I was underwhelmed with both the concept and the treatment. There's an emphasis on minutiae which may be a Scandinavian thing (it reminded me of The Details which I didn't enjoy) and a kind of balance between stasis and narrative momentum. I feel quite happy to end my journey here without going on to the further volumes.
May 22, 2025
This is one of those rare books that’s become a sleeper hit, its buzzy status steadily creeping up since its initial English translation last year. The basic idea is, I think, pretty well-known by now: a woman lives the same day, the 18th of November, over and over again, while everyone around her – and, seemingly, so far, everyone else in the world – remains ignorant of this phenomenon.
It’s easy to see why On the Calculation of Volume has become popular. Despite the high-concept premise and the literary cachet of ‘seven-volume novel in translation’, it's very easy reading. The style is straightforward and often repetitive – although I can imagine it being frustrating for some readers (and I got tired of a few recurring phrases), I thought this was a clever, effective way to underline the sheer boredom and disorientation of living inside a repeating day. I was gripped almost against my will. I was carried along. The funny thing was that even though I knew the time loop couldn’t possibly be resolved in this instalment (this is book 1 of 7!), I was on the edge of my seat rooting for Tara to escape it.
I had what at first felt like a slightly petty issue with the narrative: Tara reads as much older than late 20s; in fact, I only know that’s how old she’s supposed to be because a reading guide on the Booker Prize website told me so. While actually reading the book, I thought I was reading about a woman well into middle age. The more I thought about this, the more it expanded outwards into further questions about the story – some frustrating, some intriguing.
There’s an almost dystopian aspect to Tara’s existence with Thomas, which seems remarkably old-fashioned for two youngish people in what appears to be the present day. I guess this might be explained by the fact that the author worked on the book for many years before actually publishing it. It could also be an intentional choice to make the story feel, deliberately and uncannily, timeless and time-less, with the unavoidable side effect of making the characters seem older. Yet Tara and Thomas are cut off from the world in other ways, too. It strikes me as notable that Tara never (that we know of) contemplates visiting any relatives or close friends in a whole year of looping days.
I also found it interesting to read others’ reviews of the book (which I only looked at after finishing it). Everyone sees their own thing in this story, and the range of interpretations is much wider than usual. For me, it has a sci-fi premise and I want Things To Happen in future books. This is a story in which a woman can live inside the same day for a year; is it a story in which other things are strange too? Will any of the unanswered questions raised by part 1 be addressed in part 2? Are key elements of Tara’s life missing simply because, with six more books to go, something has to be held back? Will On the Calculation of Volume prove to be a speculative epic or, less interesting to me, a literary ‘meditation’ on something or other?
A lot rides on where Balle goes with this story next. But the ultimate proof of its success lies in the fact that I definitely want to read the next instalment.
It’s easy to see why On the Calculation of Volume has become popular. Despite the high-concept premise and the literary cachet of ‘seven-volume novel in translation’, it's very easy reading. The style is straightforward and often repetitive – although I can imagine it being frustrating for some readers (and I got tired of a few recurring phrases), I thought this was a clever, effective way to underline the sheer boredom and disorientation of living inside a repeating day. I was gripped almost against my will. I was carried along. The funny thing was that even though I knew the time loop couldn’t possibly be resolved in this instalment (this is book 1 of 7!), I was on the edge of my seat rooting for Tara to escape it.
I had what at first felt like a slightly petty issue with the narrative: Tara reads as much older than late 20s; in fact, I only know that’s how old she’s supposed to be because a reading guide on the Booker Prize website told me so. While actually reading the book, I thought I was reading about a woman well into middle age. The more I thought about this, the more it expanded outwards into further questions about the story – some frustrating, some intriguing.
There’s an almost dystopian aspect to Tara’s existence with Thomas, which seems remarkably old-fashioned for two youngish people in what appears to be the present day. I guess this might be explained by the fact that the author worked on the book for many years before actually publishing it. It could also be an intentional choice to make the story feel, deliberately and uncannily, timeless and time-less, with the unavoidable side effect of making the characters seem older. Yet Tara and Thomas are cut off from the world in other ways, too. It strikes me as notable that Tara never (that we know of) contemplates visiting any relatives or close friends in a whole year of looping days.
I also found it interesting to read others’ reviews of the book (which I only looked at after finishing it). Everyone sees their own thing in this story, and the range of interpretations is much wider than usual. For me, it has a sci-fi premise and I want Things To Happen in future books. This is a story in which a woman can live inside the same day for a year; is it a story in which other things are strange too? Will any of the unanswered questions raised by part 1 be addressed in part 2? Are key elements of Tara’s life missing simply because, with six more books to go, something has to be held back? Will On the Calculation of Volume prove to be a speculative epic or, less interesting to me, a literary ‘meditation’ on something or other?
A lot rides on where Balle goes with this story next. But the ultimate proof of its success lies in the fact that I definitely want to read the next instalment.
April 8, 2025
Winner of the 2022 Nordic Council Literature Prize, in the original and for Volume I-III
And in translation:
Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature
My name is Tara Selter. I am sitting in the back room overlooking the garden and a woodpile. It is the eighteenth of November. Every night when I lie down to sleep in the bed in the guest room it is the eighteenth of November and every morning, when I wake up, it is the eighteenth of November. I no longer expect to wake up to the nineteenth of November and I no longer remember the seventeenth of November as if it were yesterday.
On the Calculation of Volume I is Barbara J. Haveland's translation of Om udregning af rumfang #1 by Solvej Balle.
As the name suggests this is just the first instalment of a longer novel, to be published in 7 volumes, five of which have appeared in the Danish original, with this and the second Volume to be published on the same day in the UK in April 2025 (I read the US version, which was published last year). I'm a little surprised/disappointed that the International Booker judges didn't take the braver decision to nominate both Volume I and II together as one choice in the same way that the Nordic Council did.
The basic premise of the book is like that of Groundhog Day - although the author has said in an interview for Worlds Without Borders that she had the idea in 1987, and didn't watch the movie for sometime: "when I finally saw it, I realised, ah, that’s a lot of nice research for my idea, because I realised it was so different."
The novel is told from the perspective of Tara Selter, living in 'a two-story stone cottage on the outskirts of the town of Clairon-sous-Bois in northern France' with her husband Thomas, who she first met 5 years ago, both antiquarian book-dealers specialising in illustrated works from the eighteenth century.
I am the one who travels to auctions and visits antiquarian bookshops while Thomas takes care of cataloging and shipping. To begin with we did everything together, but we have gradually split the responsibilities between us. I’m not sure why it fell to me to do the traveling. Maybe because I don’t mind traveling so much and maybe because I very quickly developed a certain instinct for the books, a feel for the paper, an eye for the quality of the printing, for a well-crafted binding. I don’t know what it is, but it’s almost physical, like an inchworm testing whether a leaf is worth creeping across, or a bird listening to insects moving in the bark of a tree. It might be a detail: the sound when you flick through the pages, the feel of the lettering, the depth of the imprint, the saturation of the colors in an illustration, the precision of the details in a plate, the hues of the edges.
But Tara is locked into a repetition of the 18th November. As the novel opens she tells us I have counted the days and if my calculations are correct today is the eighteenth of November #121 ... That is why I began to write. ... Because time has fallen apart. Because I found a ream of paper on the shelf. Because I’m trying to remember. Because the paper remembers. And there may be healing in sentences.
The novel consists of a series of journal entries which Tara makes to document her experiences, over the first year and a day of her experience, starting on that 121st day, the first entries necessarily rather backward-looking and with lengthy explanations of her stories, but the later entries sporadic and sometimes quite brief.
We learn early on that Tara's first November 18th took place on a trip, via a book fair in Bordeaux, to Paris, where she was to spend the nights of November 17th and 18th, visiting book shops in search of certain works as well as seeeing her friend, Philip Maurel, at his antique coin shop, specialising in Roman coins (which, I believe, becomes more significant in later volumes). The only real incident of note that day is that, while spending the evening with Philip and his girlfriend Marie, she burns her hand on a heater:
I let out a cry, an expletive probably. Marie came over and managed to move the heater while I stood there, paralyzed by the pain for a moment. Having deposited our plates in the kitchen Philip promptly reappeared with a bowl of cold water into which I plunged my hand, and for the rest of the evening I sat like that, with my hand immersed in a bowl of water, although this did nothing to ease the pain. That was the only unusual thing to happen that night.
Tara's hand immersed in water is a link to Archimedes 'Eureka' moment, and gives the series its title, the author noting "however, she has to take a long journey towards understanding, while Archimedes only had to submerge himself for a moment to gain insight into how to calculate volume" (from an interview in Tank Magazine), although Balle herself seems unclear if this was or was not a crucial moment, and indeed one of the interesting things in this Volume, and the work generally, is the sense of a writer working through the implications of their ideas, alongside Tara, as each writes.
But when she wakes the next morning it is November 18th again, as she realised at the hotel breakfast, first noticing that the newspapers are the ones she read yesterday: It was only when one of the hotel’s other guests dropped a piece of bread on the floor that I began to worry. Not because I don’t know that this sort of thing happens again and again in hotels all over the world, but because the same guest had dropped a piece of bread at that same spot the day before.
Unlike Groundhog Day, Tara is free to escape the confines of Paris, and, crucially she doesn't start each day physically renewed, her burn healing rather than disappearing, even though she doesn't reenact the accident: This is the 121st time I have lived through the eighteenth of November and the burn is still visible as a slender scar on my hand. It started out as an angry, puffy weal. This soon began to weep, then a long, brownish scab formed over it. Little by little the scab loosened and fell off, leaving a shiny pink mark.
Her initial reaction on that first repeated day is to call Thomas, explain what had happened, and, both rather confused, return to him and their house in Clairon-sous-Bois. But when they both wake the next morning, it is November 18th again, and he has no memory of their conversation and indeed can't understand how she can be there given she was in Paris on the night of the 17th.
He didn’t doubt that I was telling the truth. He had spoken to me and had forgotten it. That was what scared him. It was one thing for me to have encountered a fracture in the normal progression of time, but the idea that he had played a part in my day and that he had had conversations and done things he could not remember obviously gave him the same feelings of faintness and unease which I had had when I saw that slice of bread drifting floorward. That strange moment when the ground under one’s feet falls away and all at once it feels as though all predictability can be suspended, as though an existential red alert has suddenly been triggered, a quiet state of panic which prompts neither flight nor cries for help, and does not call for police, fire brigade or ambulance ... that something which cannot happen and which we absolutely do not expect, is nonetheless a possibility. That time stands still. That gravity is suspended. That the logic of the world and the laws of nature break down. That we are forced to acknowledge that our expectations about the constancy of the world are on shaky ground. There are no guarantees and behind all that we ordinarily regard as certain lie improbable exceptions, sudden cracks and inconceivable breaches of the usual laws.
[which is an aside, is rather how most of us are feeling about the world in the new US administration]
At first, she starts each day explaining her predicament to Thomas (who doesn't doubt her, and who she is easily able in any case to convince with predictions of certain external events such as a neighbour passing by) and the two try to work through the implications of what has happened, and is happening, although only she retains memories of where they had got to in their thinking in previous days.
We could not find the mistake. We could not find the reason why time had fallen apart. There was no reason. I could not find a reason, Thomas could not find a reason. We could find patterns and we could find inconsistencies. Thomas was the pattern, I was disturbance.
We devised theories and frameworks which we compared to the events of the eighteenth of November. We debated perceptions of reality and mental dysfunctions, we considered whether I might be generating trains of fictional experiences or whether everyone else had been struck by some form of amnesia, or whether we had stepped into a wave of psychological incongruence. We propounded theories and mounted counterarguments. We read about parataxic views of time and variable chronometry, we unearthed descriptions of fractures in time and chronotoxic recurrence. We explored theories on parallel universes, multiple worlds and relative temporal structures. We found stories of the morphology of memory and of rare cases of amnesiac chronopathy. We discussed theories of repetition and mnemonic defects. We studied mental processes, the objects of the world, temporal sequences. We collected theories and explanations. Actually, though, we had no shortage of explanations, we had plenty of those, but explanations which could stand up to critical scrutiny and at the same time embody all our many observations, those we could not find.
And meanwhile she tries to prolong that sense of waking each morning, unsure if it really is November 18th
I don’t think it was an act of will, but slowly and almost imperceptibly I managed to extend my sense of neutral, indefinite morning. I concentrated it, intensified that pale-gray awakening and with each morning I found it possible to carry that sensation with me further into the day. After only a few mornings I could hold onto the moment long enough for it to encompass everything in the room around me: the bed linens and Thomas’s body beside me, the wall behind the bed and the wardrobe on the other side of the room, a chair with clothes on it, the morning light, the faint sound of a chimney flue door rattling in the wind. These are familiar sounds and sensations and it is still an ordinary morning, it is spacious and open, and I lie in bed while fragments of the world drift in and dissolve: a brief riff of birdsong, a blackbird defying the gray skies or a robin singing into a pause in the rain, three or four notes to start with, then six or seven, then eight, and each one as it burst forth dissolving in my fog.
But as time goes on, around the 76th day, she realises this is getting nowhere - "I stood in the kitchen with the notebook in my hand and knew that too many days had come between us" - and starts to withdraw, moving to a spare room, and trying to conceal her presence from Philip, observing but not interacting with him, as he goes about his daily routine, one which, of course, never varies.
She also develops their theory that "Thomas was the pattern, I was disturbance" to another "Thomas is the ghost and I am the monster", as she realises that while his actions leave no trace on the day (food he eats is there to be eaten the next day), that's not true of her own actions, realising that the local supermarket is gradually becoming depleted.
And as the 366th day approaches - the day that had time progressed normally would be, once again, November 18th of the following year - she decides to return to Paris and Philip's shop, reasoning that she may be able to break out of the cycle somehow. But given this is Volume I of VII it doesn't need a spoiler alert to say things don't work out that way.
This isn't a novel for those looking for science-fiction like explanations of what may have happened, but what distinguishes it is the wonderful prose, in Haveland's exceptional translation, and, as mentioned previously the sense of an author working through her ideas - on his Substack, Lincoln Michel appositely describes the novel as "Groundhog Day written by Rachel Cusk."
It's something of a frustating choice for a prize list, as this does feel like part of a larger work, rather than a whole, but still a fascinating choice, and this passes the test that I immediately wanted to read Volume II.
The judges' take
On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope – a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.
And in translation:
Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature
My name is Tara Selter. I am sitting in the back room overlooking the garden and a woodpile. It is the eighteenth of November. Every night when I lie down to sleep in the bed in the guest room it is the eighteenth of November and every morning, when I wake up, it is the eighteenth of November. I no longer expect to wake up to the nineteenth of November and I no longer remember the seventeenth of November as if it were yesterday.
On the Calculation of Volume I is Barbara J. Haveland's translation of Om udregning af rumfang #1 by Solvej Balle.
As the name suggests this is just the first instalment of a longer novel, to be published in 7 volumes, five of which have appeared in the Danish original, with this and the second Volume to be published on the same day in the UK in April 2025 (I read the US version, which was published last year). I'm a little surprised/disappointed that the International Booker judges didn't take the braver decision to nominate both Volume I and II together as one choice in the same way that the Nordic Council did.
The basic premise of the book is like that of Groundhog Day - although the author has said in an interview for Worlds Without Borders that she had the idea in 1987, and didn't watch the movie for sometime: "when I finally saw it, I realised, ah, that’s a lot of nice research for my idea, because I realised it was so different."
The novel is told from the perspective of Tara Selter, living in 'a two-story stone cottage on the outskirts of the town of Clairon-sous-Bois in northern France' with her husband Thomas, who she first met 5 years ago, both antiquarian book-dealers specialising in illustrated works from the eighteenth century.
I am the one who travels to auctions and visits antiquarian bookshops while Thomas takes care of cataloging and shipping. To begin with we did everything together, but we have gradually split the responsibilities between us. I’m not sure why it fell to me to do the traveling. Maybe because I don’t mind traveling so much and maybe because I very quickly developed a certain instinct for the books, a feel for the paper, an eye for the quality of the printing, for a well-crafted binding. I don’t know what it is, but it’s almost physical, like an inchworm testing whether a leaf is worth creeping across, or a bird listening to insects moving in the bark of a tree. It might be a detail: the sound when you flick through the pages, the feel of the lettering, the depth of the imprint, the saturation of the colors in an illustration, the precision of the details in a plate, the hues of the edges.
But Tara is locked into a repetition of the 18th November. As the novel opens she tells us I have counted the days and if my calculations are correct today is the eighteenth of November #121 ... That is why I began to write. ... Because time has fallen apart. Because I found a ream of paper on the shelf. Because I’m trying to remember. Because the paper remembers. And there may be healing in sentences.
The novel consists of a series of journal entries which Tara makes to document her experiences, over the first year and a day of her experience, starting on that 121st day, the first entries necessarily rather backward-looking and with lengthy explanations of her stories, but the later entries sporadic and sometimes quite brief.
We learn early on that Tara's first November 18th took place on a trip, via a book fair in Bordeaux, to Paris, where she was to spend the nights of November 17th and 18th, visiting book shops in search of certain works as well as seeeing her friend, Philip Maurel, at his antique coin shop, specialising in Roman coins (which, I believe, becomes more significant in later volumes). The only real incident of note that day is that, while spending the evening with Philip and his girlfriend Marie, she burns her hand on a heater:
I let out a cry, an expletive probably. Marie came over and managed to move the heater while I stood there, paralyzed by the pain for a moment. Having deposited our plates in the kitchen Philip promptly reappeared with a bowl of cold water into which I plunged my hand, and for the rest of the evening I sat like that, with my hand immersed in a bowl of water, although this did nothing to ease the pain. That was the only unusual thing to happen that night.
Tara's hand immersed in water is a link to Archimedes 'Eureka' moment, and gives the series its title, the author noting "however, she has to take a long journey towards understanding, while Archimedes only had to submerge himself for a moment to gain insight into how to calculate volume" (from an interview in Tank Magazine), although Balle herself seems unclear if this was or was not a crucial moment, and indeed one of the interesting things in this Volume, and the work generally, is the sense of a writer working through the implications of their ideas, alongside Tara, as each writes.
But when she wakes the next morning it is November 18th again, as she realised at the hotel breakfast, first noticing that the newspapers are the ones she read yesterday: It was only when one of the hotel’s other guests dropped a piece of bread on the floor that I began to worry. Not because I don’t know that this sort of thing happens again and again in hotels all over the world, but because the same guest had dropped a piece of bread at that same spot the day before.
Unlike Groundhog Day, Tara is free to escape the confines of Paris, and, crucially she doesn't start each day physically renewed, her burn healing rather than disappearing, even though she doesn't reenact the accident: This is the 121st time I have lived through the eighteenth of November and the burn is still visible as a slender scar on my hand. It started out as an angry, puffy weal. This soon began to weep, then a long, brownish scab formed over it. Little by little the scab loosened and fell off, leaving a shiny pink mark.
Her initial reaction on that first repeated day is to call Thomas, explain what had happened, and, both rather confused, return to him and their house in Clairon-sous-Bois. But when they both wake the next morning, it is November 18th again, and he has no memory of their conversation and indeed can't understand how she can be there given she was in Paris on the night of the 17th.
He didn’t doubt that I was telling the truth. He had spoken to me and had forgotten it. That was what scared him. It was one thing for me to have encountered a fracture in the normal progression of time, but the idea that he had played a part in my day and that he had had conversations and done things he could not remember obviously gave him the same feelings of faintness and unease which I had had when I saw that slice of bread drifting floorward. That strange moment when the ground under one’s feet falls away and all at once it feels as though all predictability can be suspended, as though an existential red alert has suddenly been triggered, a quiet state of panic which prompts neither flight nor cries for help, and does not call for police, fire brigade or ambulance ... that something which cannot happen and which we absolutely do not expect, is nonetheless a possibility. That time stands still. That gravity is suspended. That the logic of the world and the laws of nature break down. That we are forced to acknowledge that our expectations about the constancy of the world are on shaky ground. There are no guarantees and behind all that we ordinarily regard as certain lie improbable exceptions, sudden cracks and inconceivable breaches of the usual laws.
[which is an aside, is rather how most of us are feeling about the world in the new US administration]
At first, she starts each day explaining her predicament to Thomas (who doesn't doubt her, and who she is easily able in any case to convince with predictions of certain external events such as a neighbour passing by) and the two try to work through the implications of what has happened, and is happening, although only she retains memories of where they had got to in their thinking in previous days.
We could not find the mistake. We could not find the reason why time had fallen apart. There was no reason. I could not find a reason, Thomas could not find a reason. We could find patterns and we could find inconsistencies. Thomas was the pattern, I was disturbance.
We devised theories and frameworks which we compared to the events of the eighteenth of November. We debated perceptions of reality and mental dysfunctions, we considered whether I might be generating trains of fictional experiences or whether everyone else had been struck by some form of amnesia, or whether we had stepped into a wave of psychological incongruence. We propounded theories and mounted counterarguments. We read about parataxic views of time and variable chronometry, we unearthed descriptions of fractures in time and chronotoxic recurrence. We explored theories on parallel universes, multiple worlds and relative temporal structures. We found stories of the morphology of memory and of rare cases of amnesiac chronopathy. We discussed theories of repetition and mnemonic defects. We studied mental processes, the objects of the world, temporal sequences. We collected theories and explanations. Actually, though, we had no shortage of explanations, we had plenty of those, but explanations which could stand up to critical scrutiny and at the same time embody all our many observations, those we could not find.
And meanwhile she tries to prolong that sense of waking each morning, unsure if it really is November 18th
I don’t think it was an act of will, but slowly and almost imperceptibly I managed to extend my sense of neutral, indefinite morning. I concentrated it, intensified that pale-gray awakening and with each morning I found it possible to carry that sensation with me further into the day. After only a few mornings I could hold onto the moment long enough for it to encompass everything in the room around me: the bed linens and Thomas’s body beside me, the wall behind the bed and the wardrobe on the other side of the room, a chair with clothes on it, the morning light, the faint sound of a chimney flue door rattling in the wind. These are familiar sounds and sensations and it is still an ordinary morning, it is spacious and open, and I lie in bed while fragments of the world drift in and dissolve: a brief riff of birdsong, a blackbird defying the gray skies or a robin singing into a pause in the rain, three or four notes to start with, then six or seven, then eight, and each one as it burst forth dissolving in my fog.
But as time goes on, around the 76th day, she realises this is getting nowhere - "I stood in the kitchen with the notebook in my hand and knew that too many days had come between us" - and starts to withdraw, moving to a spare room, and trying to conceal her presence from Philip, observing but not interacting with him, as he goes about his daily routine, one which, of course, never varies.
She also develops their theory that "Thomas was the pattern, I was disturbance" to another "Thomas is the ghost and I am the monster", as she realises that while his actions leave no trace on the day (food he eats is there to be eaten the next day), that's not true of her own actions, realising that the local supermarket is gradually becoming depleted.
And as the 366th day approaches - the day that had time progressed normally would be, once again, November 18th of the following year - she decides to return to Paris and Philip's shop, reasoning that she may be able to break out of the cycle somehow. But given this is Volume I of VII it doesn't need a spoiler alert to say things don't work out that way.
This isn't a novel for those looking for science-fiction like explanations of what may have happened, but what distinguishes it is the wonderful prose, in Haveland's exceptional translation, and, as mentioned previously the sense of an author working through her ideas - on his Substack, Lincoln Michel appositely describes the novel as "Groundhog Day written by Rachel Cusk."
It's something of a frustating choice for a prize list, as this does feel like part of a larger work, rather than a whole, but still a fascinating choice, and this passes the test that I immediately wanted to read Volume II.
The judges' take
On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope – a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.
May 5, 2025
Very good — addictive even. I read most of it on a longish train journey, though I took frequent breaks so the repetitive nature (not a negative, but a fact of the novel) did not taint my overall experience by consuming it too quickly. Reading slower this year has done this for plenty of novels; I've discovered in the past, when I was reading 20 or so books per month, I was ruining my experiences with them by devouring them as quickly as I did. So, I read some Balle, then sat with it. Watched the scenery go by. Then I picked it up and read a little bit more. The 18th of November every day. Yesterday is no longer yesterday and tomorrow feels impossible, improbable.
I read that Balle 'disappeared' for about three decades (after an impressive debut in the 90s), and has returned to limelight with On the Calculation of Volume, which she has been self-publishing in Denmark. I cannot fathom what the next six books will explore. This one was quietly philosophical; I hope she dives deeper in the subsequent books. There was enough here for me to enjoy the novel and feel mentally stirred by it too, but I am hoping for more of the latter to come. That's my own reading tastes. Knausgaard is endorsing these books a lot, it seems, and I saw echoes of his writing in Balle (that's not to suggest I think she has been inspired by him, per se, but that they are somewhat similar regardless). Either way — Balle takes Groundhog Day and makes it interesting, gentle, poignant.
NB: I've never seen Groundhog Day.
I read that Balle 'disappeared' for about three decades (after an impressive debut in the 90s), and has returned to limelight with On the Calculation of Volume, which she has been self-publishing in Denmark. I cannot fathom what the next six books will explore. This one was quietly philosophical; I hope she dives deeper in the subsequent books. There was enough here for me to enjoy the novel and feel mentally stirred by it too, but I am hoping for more of the latter to come. That's my own reading tastes. Knausgaard is endorsing these books a lot, it seems, and I saw echoes of his writing in Balle (that's not to suggest I think she has been inspired by him, per se, but that they are somewhat similar regardless). Either way — Balle takes Groundhog Day and makes it interesting, gentle, poignant.
NB: I've never seen Groundhog Day.
November 28, 2024
It’s the 18th of November, and Tara Setter wakes yet again to the same day, every morning it’s precisely the same and so she no longer expects to get to the 19th of November as this day has been repeated 121 times so far. Along with her husband Thomas, Tara is an antiquarian book dealer. On the 17th of November she travels by train from her home in Clairon-Sous-Bous in Northern France to a book auction in Bordeaux, she buys a few books and takes the return journey, staying overnight in Paris as she has an appointment the next day. In addition Thomas asks her to collect and find a few rare book titles. The following day does not seem unusual, errands are run and appointments are kept and she spends a pleasant evening with a coin dealer friend and his girlfriend. Fast forward to the 364th Groundhog Day, can she break the pattern?
If you want to read something a little bit different that is well written than this book may very well fit the bill. However, it is worth noting that this is the first of a series of seven. Book one is comparatively short and although I think it’s a little bit slow it’s not in least bit dull, in fact it’s an intense read.
The sensation she feels of the state of stasis, of the constant repetition are beautifully described. It’s so unsettling with the improbability of it all. You witness how her feelings change with every repeated day, her close intense observations of other changes and the hunger for an answer accompanying the fears she inevitably feels.
It is obviously all on the same theme with the monotony of the repetition of each day and of course her inevitable desire to finally get to the 19th but I find something intriguing in the high-quality writing and of course, she does notice some tiny points of difference. I especially like how the author deals with Tara‘s relationship with Thomas which is a fascinating thing and you witness his bafflement and willingness to understand but also how things change between them.
The ending can be viewed in one of two ways, either it’s not at all satisfactory because …. spoiler… or you’ll be eager to see what happens next in the next volume. Where do I stand? I’m intrigued enough to want to continue to volume two, as to whether my enthusiasm will be sustained to volume seven entirely depends on what happens next!
Overall, I think this is a beautiful written novel with a terrific, smooth translation from the original Danish.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to the publishers for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
If you want to read something a little bit different that is well written than this book may very well fit the bill. However, it is worth noting that this is the first of a series of seven. Book one is comparatively short and although I think it’s a little bit slow it’s not in least bit dull, in fact it’s an intense read.
The sensation she feels of the state of stasis, of the constant repetition are beautifully described. It’s so unsettling with the improbability of it all. You witness how her feelings change with every repeated day, her close intense observations of other changes and the hunger for an answer accompanying the fears she inevitably feels.
It is obviously all on the same theme with the monotony of the repetition of each day and of course her inevitable desire to finally get to the 19th but I find something intriguing in the high-quality writing and of course, she does notice some tiny points of difference. I especially like how the author deals with Tara‘s relationship with Thomas which is a fascinating thing and you witness his bafflement and willingness to understand but also how things change between them.
The ending can be viewed in one of two ways, either it’s not at all satisfactory because …. spoiler… or you’ll be eager to see what happens next in the next volume. Where do I stand? I’m intrigued enough to want to continue to volume two, as to whether my enthusiasm will be sustained to volume seven entirely depends on what happens next!
Overall, I think this is a beautiful written novel with a terrific, smooth translation from the original Danish.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to the publishers for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
December 26, 2024
La propuesta que nos hace Solvej Balle es interesante, aunque no sea lo más original del mundo. Tema muy trabajado en la ficción de películas y novelas este de las brechas en el tiempo y la cuestión temporal: Regreso al futuro, Memento, G. H. Wells y su máquina del tiempo, y como no, resulta inevitable la comparación con esa magnífica película que protagonizó Bill Murray, traducida aquí como Atrapado en el tiempo, pero que todos conocemos como El día de la marmota. Aquí existen diferencias con la película que no explicaré para quien quiera leerlo, solamente que parece un poco más interior y recogido. Parece huir del tono de comedia de la película y entrar en algo más personal, narrado en primera persona busca la intimidad, parece que el detalle apenas perceptible y se hace preguntas más profundas.
De inicio te provoca curiosidad, ganas de entrar en lo que quiera que sea la historia y el mensaje que te quiera trasladar el autor. ¿Será bueno este libro? ¿Qué plantea? De momento no le da para 4* y me extraña que las buenas opiniones que ha cosechado (publicidad de lanzamiento de críticos y pocos lectores de a pie todavía) se basen exclusivamente en la lectura de esta primera entrega y no en la lectura completa. Como digo el arranque del libro es bueno, aunque luego se queda estancado en un punto en que no va ni para adelante ni para atrás: la protagonista y su circunstancia.
Para valorarlo hay que leer alguna entrega más de los próximos libros, aunque realmente no tengo nada claro que llegue a la finalización de los 7 libros, la propuesta es buena pero me parece un poco lento. Ahora no le puedo dar más de 3. El tema de la veta en el tiempo propone algo distinto que ese Día de la marmota que era muy nuevo y gracioso y con cierto contenido. Esto es más interior...ya veremos.
De inicio te provoca curiosidad, ganas de entrar en lo que quiera que sea la historia y el mensaje que te quiera trasladar el autor. ¿Será bueno este libro? ¿Qué plantea? De momento no le da para 4* y me extraña que las buenas opiniones que ha cosechado (publicidad de lanzamiento de críticos y pocos lectores de a pie todavía) se basen exclusivamente en la lectura de esta primera entrega y no en la lectura completa. Como digo el arranque del libro es bueno, aunque luego se queda estancado en un punto en que no va ni para adelante ni para atrás: la protagonista y su circunstancia.
Para valorarlo hay que leer alguna entrega más de los próximos libros, aunque realmente no tengo nada claro que llegue a la finalización de los 7 libros, la propuesta es buena pero me parece un poco lento. Ahora no le puedo dar más de 3. El tema de la veta en el tiempo propone algo distinto que ese Día de la marmota que era muy nuevo y gracioso y con cierto contenido. Esto es más interior...ya veremos.
March 18, 2025
Tara is at a booksellers conference and auction on the 18 November, and she spends the day buying books, meeting up with an old friend and then settling down in her hotel room to call her husband whom she will travel back to see the following day. But she never gets to the following day. She wakes up again on the morning of 18 November. And again, and again, and again.
This was an absolutely stunning book that I flew through and am obsessed with. Although it seems like your typical Groundhog Day plot, it tackles sadness and loneliness head on in that Tara has to explain her loop in time to her husband every morning and watch his memories vanish each time the day resets. We watch her experiment with the fracture in time as she wonders why some objects ‘stick’ and other objects are magically whisked back to their original place once the day starts over again. It has a very slight speculative feel to the plot but the musings on philosophy and isolation are absolutely beautiful.
I can’t wait to read the second volume and I am just astounded at how excited I am to read about one woman living the same day over and over again. It is wonderfully constructed and characterised and I feel it is going to leave me heartbroken by the end of the saga. Cannot recommend this enough and hope it gets its deserved recognition on the International Booker Prize 2025.
This was an absolutely stunning book that I flew through and am obsessed with. Although it seems like your typical Groundhog Day plot, it tackles sadness and loneliness head on in that Tara has to explain her loop in time to her husband every morning and watch his memories vanish each time the day resets. We watch her experiment with the fracture in time as she wonders why some objects ‘stick’ and other objects are magically whisked back to their original place once the day starts over again. It has a very slight speculative feel to the plot but the musings on philosophy and isolation are absolutely beautiful.
I can’t wait to read the second volume and I am just astounded at how excited I am to read about one woman living the same day over and over again. It is wonderfully constructed and characterised and I feel it is going to leave me heartbroken by the end of the saga. Cannot recommend this enough and hope it gets its deserved recognition on the International Booker Prize 2025.
January 2, 2024
Fin och filosofisk men aningens för långsam och repetitiv för min smak. Jag vill så gärna gilla det, men jag kan inte låta bli att känna att det blir lite tråkigt i längden.
December 13, 2024
Kokia gera idėja – Tara Selter įstringa lapkričio 18 dienoje. Sėdėjo sau Paryžiuj, o laikas kažkodėl sulūžo. Iš pradžių bandė surasti priežastį ir perprasti „schemą“, tačiau veltui. Gyvenimas eina toliau, o aplinkybės nesikeičia – ji tampa vaiduokliu savo pasaulyje. Kasdien kartojasi žmonių nuostabos, jų rutina ir ta pati lapkričio bjauruma. Tara vis dar ten.
Solvej Balle apie tai rašo septynių dalių kūrinį. Dėsto skaidriai, atmosferiškai, todėl su Tara lengva išbūti jos eilinėje lapkričio 18-oje. Iš pradžių mąsčiau, kad „Apie tūrio apskaičiavimą“ yra savotiška studija, apmąstanti šiuolaikinio žmogaus nerimą, tačiau pasakojimas nuolat mirgėjo įvairiais aspektais – socialiniu, egzistenciniu, filosofiniu, poetiniu. Jis liūdnas, bet nedepresyvus: kartotės ir ritmas įkalina, bet gali padėti išsipildyti. Tas pojūtis įkvepia. O taip pat skaityti literatūrą – pasirodo, dar įmanoma iš musės sukurti gerą dramblį.
Ir šiaip sveika tokius laiką stabdančius tekstus skaityti greiteigiame pasaulyje. Labai laukiu antros dalies. Man buvo atradimas, rekomenduoju.
Solvej Balle apie tai rašo septynių dalių kūrinį. Dėsto skaidriai, atmosferiškai, todėl su Tara lengva išbūti jos eilinėje lapkričio 18-oje. Iš pradžių mąsčiau, kad „Apie tūrio apskaičiavimą“ yra savotiška studija, apmąstanti šiuolaikinio žmogaus nerimą, tačiau pasakojimas nuolat mirgėjo įvairiais aspektais – socialiniu, egzistenciniu, filosofiniu, poetiniu. Jis liūdnas, bet nedepresyvus: kartotės ir ritmas įkalina, bet gali padėti išsipildyti. Tas pojūtis įkvepia. O taip pat skaityti literatūrą – pasirodo, dar įmanoma iš musės sukurti gerą dramblį.
Ir šiaip sveika tokius laiką stabdančius tekstus skaityti greiteigiame pasaulyje. Labai laukiu antros dalies. Man buvo atradimas, rekomenduoju.
May 21, 2025
Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.
4.5 Stars.
Somehow Tara Selta has slipped out of time. Tara can tell by the sounds as soon as she wakes, that she is again living the same day. This will be the 122nd time that she has experienced this day, the eighteenth of November. Everything is exactly the same, everything happens exactly the same.
Tara and her husband sell antiquarian books, but her husband has not slipped with her. Each day he wakes he has forgotten everything Tara has told him about her bizarre predicament, and he does not share the day again. Well he does but for him it is simply a new day.
The narrative takes the form of a numbered diary. I thought wouldn’t the diary just reset the same as everything else with the next iteration of November eighteenth. But there are things that do not revert back to their original state. If Tara eats something the next day it is missing from the supermarket shelf where she purchased it. If she takes a kettle into her room, the next day it is there in her room with her, not back in the kitchen.
There is something about this book, which is a series of seven, that just grabs you. You find yourself wondering along with Tara just how in the world she is going to get herself out of this situation. Also reliving the same day over and over has some sort of calming effect. Tara listens to the sounds, she buys a telescope and scans the constellations, always looking for a change.
I will be reading all of these!!! :-)
4.5 Stars.
Somehow Tara Selta has slipped out of time. Tara can tell by the sounds as soon as she wakes, that she is again living the same day. This will be the 122nd time that she has experienced this day, the eighteenth of November. Everything is exactly the same, everything happens exactly the same.
Tara and her husband sell antiquarian books, but her husband has not slipped with her. Each day he wakes he has forgotten everything Tara has told him about her bizarre predicament, and he does not share the day again. Well he does but for him it is simply a new day.
The narrative takes the form of a numbered diary. I thought wouldn’t the diary just reset the same as everything else with the next iteration of November eighteenth. But there are things that do not revert back to their original state. If Tara eats something the next day it is missing from the supermarket shelf where she purchased it. If she takes a kettle into her room, the next day it is there in her room with her, not back in the kitchen.
There is something about this book, which is a series of seven, that just grabs you. You find yourself wondering along with Tara just how in the world she is going to get herself out of this situation. Also reliving the same day over and over has some sort of calming effect. Tara listens to the sounds, she buys a telescope and scans the constellations, always looking for a change.
I will be reading all of these!!! :-)
August 26, 2024
Die Bücher haben mich stark an einen Film aus meiner Kindheit erinnert, und zwar an die US-amerikanische Filmkomödie „Und täglich grüßt das Murmeltier“ aus dem Jahr 1993. Der zynische TV-Wetteransager Phil Connors erlebt darin täglich wiederkehrend den 2. Februar, an dem in der Kleinstadt Punxsutawney der Tag des Murmeltiers gefeiert wird. Ekelpaket Phil wird erst wieder in den 3. Februar entlassen, als aus ihm ein freundlich zugewandter Zeitgenosse geworden ist.
Der Plot von „Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts“ erinnert an den Filmklassiker, aber damit enden die Parallelen auch schon. Die Dänin Solvej Balle hat eine Romanreihe über die Unwägbarkeiten des Lebens geschrieben, die ebenso verstörend wie klug anmutet.
Die Antiquarin Tara Selter aus der (fiktiven) französischen Kleinstadt Clairon-sous-Bois ist in einer Zeitschleife gefangen und erlebt den 18. November wieder und wieder. Sie gewöhnt sich nur widerwillig an den Gedanken, dass „die ganze Vorhersagbarkeit der Welt“ plötzlich aus den Angeln gehoben ist. Ihr wird die fehlende Konstanz von Zeit und Raum bewusst:
„Und hinter all dem, was wir gewöhnlich als sicher annehmen, liegen unwahrscheinliche Ausnahmen, plötzliche Risse und unvorstellbare Gesetzesbrüche.“
Würdet Ihr die Möglichkeit nutzen, einen Tag im Leben nochmal erleben zu können, wenn sie bestände? Ist es eher eine Verlockung oder Horrorvorstellung, ein wahr gewordener Albtraum? Für mich ist diese Vorstellung eine Verlockung, löst aber gleichzeitig auch Unbehagen in mir aus - letztendlich ist die Singularität der Zeit wahrscheinlich doch ein segensreiches Faktum. Es mutet doch ziemlich unheimlich an, dass der gleiche Tag immer wiederkehrt und es keinen zeitlichen Fortschritt gibt. Aber diese Vision ist eher unwahrscheinlich - oder vielleicht doch nicht?!
Tara zweifelt am Anfang der Geschichte an ihrem Verstand und sucht gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Thomas nach Auswegen aus der Zeitschleife. Aber letztlich führt der weitere Verlauf zu einer Akzeptanz der Situation ihrerseits. Doch zahlt sie einen hohen Preis dafür - die Entfremdung von ihrem Ehemann, die mit Fortschreiten der Bücher immer stärkere Ausprägungen annimmt. Sie setzt ihre ganze Hoffnung in den Tag, an dem sich die Zeitverschiebung jährt.
Mehr möchte ich nicht über das Ende des Auftakts des Romanzyklus verraten. Mir war bis zur letzten Seite nicht klar, warum die Ich-Erzählerin Tara in dieser Zeitanomalie gefangen ist. Und auch nicht, wie sie wieder zurück in die Normalität finden könnte.
Ich habe Taras Gedankenwelt in allen Stufen ihrer Verzweiflung, die Solvej Balle hier erschaffen hat, als philosophisch und einfühlsam zugleich empfunden.
Besonders beeindruckend beschrieben von Solvej Balle fand ich die Entwicklung Taras über die drei Bücher hinweg und die pointierte Integration von Elementen des Magischen Realismus. Ein ganz großes Stück Literatur. Die Bücher werden mich so schnell nicht loslassen und ich erwarte voller Ungeduld die Erscheinung von Teil vier.
Der Plot von „Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts“ erinnert an den Filmklassiker, aber damit enden die Parallelen auch schon. Die Dänin Solvej Balle hat eine Romanreihe über die Unwägbarkeiten des Lebens geschrieben, die ebenso verstörend wie klug anmutet.
Die Antiquarin Tara Selter aus der (fiktiven) französischen Kleinstadt Clairon-sous-Bois ist in einer Zeitschleife gefangen und erlebt den 18. November wieder und wieder. Sie gewöhnt sich nur widerwillig an den Gedanken, dass „die ganze Vorhersagbarkeit der Welt“ plötzlich aus den Angeln gehoben ist. Ihr wird die fehlende Konstanz von Zeit und Raum bewusst:
„Und hinter all dem, was wir gewöhnlich als sicher annehmen, liegen unwahrscheinliche Ausnahmen, plötzliche Risse und unvorstellbare Gesetzesbrüche.“
Würdet Ihr die Möglichkeit nutzen, einen Tag im Leben nochmal erleben zu können, wenn sie bestände? Ist es eher eine Verlockung oder Horrorvorstellung, ein wahr gewordener Albtraum? Für mich ist diese Vorstellung eine Verlockung, löst aber gleichzeitig auch Unbehagen in mir aus - letztendlich ist die Singularität der Zeit wahrscheinlich doch ein segensreiches Faktum. Es mutet doch ziemlich unheimlich an, dass der gleiche Tag immer wiederkehrt und es keinen zeitlichen Fortschritt gibt. Aber diese Vision ist eher unwahrscheinlich - oder vielleicht doch nicht?!
Tara zweifelt am Anfang der Geschichte an ihrem Verstand und sucht gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Thomas nach Auswegen aus der Zeitschleife. Aber letztlich führt der weitere Verlauf zu einer Akzeptanz der Situation ihrerseits. Doch zahlt sie einen hohen Preis dafür - die Entfremdung von ihrem Ehemann, die mit Fortschreiten der Bücher immer stärkere Ausprägungen annimmt. Sie setzt ihre ganze Hoffnung in den Tag, an dem sich die Zeitverschiebung jährt.
Mehr möchte ich nicht über das Ende des Auftakts des Romanzyklus verraten. Mir war bis zur letzten Seite nicht klar, warum die Ich-Erzählerin Tara in dieser Zeitanomalie gefangen ist. Und auch nicht, wie sie wieder zurück in die Normalität finden könnte.
Ich habe Taras Gedankenwelt in allen Stufen ihrer Verzweiflung, die Solvej Balle hier erschaffen hat, als philosophisch und einfühlsam zugleich empfunden.
Besonders beeindruckend beschrieben von Solvej Balle fand ich die Entwicklung Taras über die drei Bücher hinweg und die pointierte Integration von Elementen des Magischen Realismus. Ein ganz großes Stück Literatur. Die Bücher werden mich so schnell nicht loslassen und ich erwarte voller Ungeduld die Erscheinung von Teil vier.
August 18, 2025
So far there are five volumes of Solvej Balle’s dilemma-ridden story, longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. I read the first one and questioned how she could squeeze another four volumes from this rather prosaic start.
I mean, OK, the premise is fascinating. That is the repeating day syndrome, but it would be hard to beat in a literary sense the success that Groundhog Day had in its most populist cinematic form. In Balle's story, Tara Selter wakes every day to repeat the day that has gone before. She is at liberty to do what she wants, but the next day never arrives. In truth, I found Balle took any sense of wonder from a magical idea. Her protagonist rambles through a rather tedious daily routine ad infinitum and has a passable go at sifting through the mechanics of the time anomaly. However, any consideration of why Chronos might be treating her this way is not addressed. Maybe one of the succeeding four novels examines this. Unfortunately, I was so bogged down in ennui that I don’t think I can be bothered.
It’s not that I dislike slow self-reflection, quite the contrary, but Balle repeats a lot of what she’s already written, and when she doesn’t, what she writes is simply a nuance of what she’s already written. Nothing is especially interesting; there’s no drama, observation outside her experience, or expectation of a future. I’m assuming that Balle’s will eventually force the protagonist to experience, through her ordeal, a catharsis, just as Bill Murray has to do in Groundhog Day, but of course that’s just speculation.
This first volume only establishes her predicament and her initial attempts to exit it, and to be honest, they’re not that adventurous. She finds many ways to test and analyze her predicament, unfortunately, all of them quite predictable. Surely, there must have been other, more interesting ways to break out of her imprisonment and deliver something that has depth and a little more profundity. OK, I may be prejudging the complete set of volumes, but it’s inexcusable that this first volume can’t stand on its own. I’ll agree that it was brave of her to take this on, since I imagine expectations would be high with a concept that’s been successfully delivered in the past, but I found On the Calculation of Volume I came up far too short.
I found the writing similar to last year’s Booker long-listed ’Study for Obedience’, by Sarah Bernstein, and also Amina Cain’s ‘Indelicacy’. In all three, the female protagonist is trapped in an emotional straightjacket. That said, it doesn’t have the psychological self-flagellating intensity of the former or the curious off-putting directness of the latter. It is quite flat and written with unexceptional prose.
It's beyond me to read more of this saga, but I'll take note of what others say, with interest.
I mean, OK, the premise is fascinating. That is the repeating day syndrome, but it would be hard to beat in a literary sense the success that Groundhog Day had in its most populist cinematic form. In Balle's story, Tara Selter wakes every day to repeat the day that has gone before. She is at liberty to do what she wants, but the next day never arrives. In truth, I found Balle took any sense of wonder from a magical idea. Her protagonist rambles through a rather tedious daily routine ad infinitum and has a passable go at sifting through the mechanics of the time anomaly. However, any consideration of why Chronos might be treating her this way is not addressed. Maybe one of the succeeding four novels examines this. Unfortunately, I was so bogged down in ennui that I don’t think I can be bothered.
It’s not that I dislike slow self-reflection, quite the contrary, but Balle repeats a lot of what she’s already written, and when she doesn’t, what she writes is simply a nuance of what she’s already written. Nothing is especially interesting; there’s no drama, observation outside her experience, or expectation of a future. I’m assuming that Balle’s will eventually force the protagonist to experience, through her ordeal, a catharsis, just as Bill Murray has to do in Groundhog Day, but of course that’s just speculation.
This first volume only establishes her predicament and her initial attempts to exit it, and to be honest, they’re not that adventurous. She finds many ways to test and analyze her predicament, unfortunately, all of them quite predictable. Surely, there must have been other, more interesting ways to break out of her imprisonment and deliver something that has depth and a little more profundity. OK, I may be prejudging the complete set of volumes, but it’s inexcusable that this first volume can’t stand on its own. I’ll agree that it was brave of her to take this on, since I imagine expectations would be high with a concept that’s been successfully delivered in the past, but I found On the Calculation of Volume I came up far too short.
I found the writing similar to last year’s Booker long-listed ’Study for Obedience’, by Sarah Bernstein, and also Amina Cain’s ‘Indelicacy’. In all three, the female protagonist is trapped in an emotional straightjacket. That said, it doesn’t have the psychological self-flagellating intensity of the former or the curious off-putting directness of the latter. It is quite flat and written with unexceptional prose.
It's beyond me to read more of this saga, but I'll take note of what others say, with interest.
October 12, 2025
Tara is stuck in a time loop, where she must relive the same day over and over.
You could do anything with this set up. You could go for big scientific and philosophical ideas. You could write a time-loop thriller. You could go Groundhog Day style and make a lightly philosophical comedy. So why, in god's name, would you choose to do what Balle has done, and write the most mundane, flat, and lifeless story imaginable.
Such a waste of a good set-up and I will absolutely not be along for the ride on this seven-volume snoozefest.
It's so dull that I actually suspect it could be part of a huge practical joke. I'm glad it only took away one October 12th from me.
You could do anything with this set up. You could go for big scientific and philosophical ideas. You could write a time-loop thriller. You could go Groundhog Day style and make a lightly philosophical comedy. So why, in god's name, would you choose to do what Balle has done, and write the most mundane, flat, and lifeless story imaginable.
Such a waste of a good set-up and I will absolutely not be along for the ride on this seven-volume snoozefest.
It's so dull that I actually suspect it could be part of a huge practical joke. I'm glad it only took away one October 12th from me.
sampled
December 11, 2024Compare/contrast with the entertaining, funny, surprisingly philosophical and sometimes dark/outrageous Andy Samberg/Cristin Milioti rom-com "Palm Springs" (2020, on Netflix). This is pretty much the opposite. Read about 75 pages and couldn't stop an impulse to skim. Interesting at first but then quickly less so. A good concept for a literary novel, repetition of the day to day, but too hung up on its own logistics? Didn't feel free -- feels trapped by its conceit (which is maybe the point, to induce a similar trapped feeling in the reader, but still). Love ND but this one's not for me.
February 20, 2025
Annoying tbh. Such a drag for such a short book. I can’t believe this is supposed to be a SEVEN part series. Will not be finding out how it ends
March 1, 2025
Nominiert für den international Booker Prize 2025
Eines der stärksten Leseerlebnisse, das ich bisher in diesem Jahr 2024) hatte, übertroffen nur von Katharina Winkler, die mich mit Blauschmuck und Siebenmeilenherz völlig weggeblasen hat und immer noch nachwirkt, aber noch vor Claire Keegan (Foster) und Emily St. John Mandel (Das Meer der letzten Ruhe), die ich allesamt großartig fand. Keegan hat mehr Herzschmerz und Mandel mehr Action, aber
was alle gemeinsam haben, ist der sorgfältige Umgang mit Sprache.
Worte, Sätze geschliffen und angespitzt. Der nächste Satz wird immer schon mitgedacht, sodass die Übergänge fließend bleiben. Wie beim Autofahren mit DSG Automatikgetriebe, völlig ruckelfrei beim Beschleunigen und Runterbremsen.
Bei Solvej Balle schätze ich zudem ihre Fähigkeit, schöne Sätze zu formulieren ohne künstliches Aufblasen von Metaphern. Metaphern kommen viele vor, aber sie sind im Fluss und ganz authentisch, folgen den Gedanken der Heldin, die Orientierung und Erklärungen für das Unmögliche sucht. Sie verwendet die Ich-Perspektive, als Leser folge ich ihren Wahrnehmungen ganz unmittelbar, was sie sieht, hört, schmeckt, riecht, ich bin in ihren Gedanken und in der Unruhe oder Gelassenheit, die Wahrnehmung und Gedanken auslösen.
Atmosphärisch hat es gewisse Parallelen zu Mandel, aber noch viel stärker hat sich mir die Assoziation mit Marlen Haushofers „Die Wand“ aufgedrängt. Allerdings besser geschrieben, atemloser, während die Wand doch auch langatmige Stellen hat.
Die Berechnung des Rauminhalts I habe ich gestern nachts beendet und die Geschichte hämmerte gefühlt eine weitere Stunde in meinem Kopf, bevor ich einschlafen konnte. Sie öffnet Räume im Kopf, die man nicht unbedingt betreten wollte, das klaustrophobische Gefühl gefangen zu sein, gefangen in der Zeit und gleichzeitig die Freiheiten, die diese Situation ermöglicht …. im Kopf rattert die Geschichte weiter, dennoch kann ich sagen, ich muss die Folgebände nicht sofort lesen, um zu erfahren wie es weitergeht; Band 1 ist in sich abgeschlossen genug, um eine Atempause einlegen zu können. Aber ich will die Folgebände lesen! Unbedingt! Wenn auch nicht sofort.
Das bringt mich zum einzigen Wermutstropfen an der Sache. Bisher sind 5 Bände (3 auf deutsch) erschienen (und wahrscheinlich werden es noch mehr) und es ist abzusehen, dass die Kernfragen nicht gelöst werden, solange die Serie nicht beendet ist (und vielleicht auch dann nicht, denn welche befriedigenden Antworten für die aus den Fugen geratene Zeit sollte es denn geben?).
Das heißt vorläufig 5 Bände a 22 Euro. Macht in Summe 110 Euro für nicht ganz 1000 Seiten, die ja rein theoretisch auch in einem kompletten Band erscheinen könnten. Man könnte das aus Marketingperspektive als ziemlich frechen Geniestreich sehen, wirtschaftlich betrachtet werden die Einnahmen fast verdreifacht, ich hoffe die Autorin hat auch was davon. Neu ist das ja nicht, es scheint sogar ein gewisser Trend zu sein und als Leser kommt es mir in gewisser Weise auch entgegen, da ich vor 1000 Seiten Büchern meist zurückschrecke.
Und so gesehen ist es auch wieder fair, denn so kann jeder für einen moderaten Preis in die Geschichte eintauchen und dann zu entscheiden ob man weitertauchen will.
Also schlucke ich den Wermutstropfen gerne, denn das muss ich nochmal betonen, man muss die Folgebände nicht lesen, um vollen Genuss an dem ersten Band zu haben. Das ist eine Parallele zu Knausgards Morgenstern, wobei bei diesem die Notwendigkeit die Folgebände zu lesen, noch viel weniger ausgeprägt ist.
Eines der stärksten Leseerlebnisse, das ich bisher in diesem Jahr 2024) hatte, übertroffen nur von Katharina Winkler, die mich mit Blauschmuck und Siebenmeilenherz völlig weggeblasen hat und immer noch nachwirkt, aber noch vor Claire Keegan (Foster) und Emily St. John Mandel (Das Meer der letzten Ruhe), die ich allesamt großartig fand. Keegan hat mehr Herzschmerz und Mandel mehr Action, aber
was alle gemeinsam haben, ist der sorgfältige Umgang mit Sprache.
Worte, Sätze geschliffen und angespitzt. Der nächste Satz wird immer schon mitgedacht, sodass die Übergänge fließend bleiben. Wie beim Autofahren mit DSG Automatikgetriebe, völlig ruckelfrei beim Beschleunigen und Runterbremsen.
Bei Solvej Balle schätze ich zudem ihre Fähigkeit, schöne Sätze zu formulieren ohne künstliches Aufblasen von Metaphern. Metaphern kommen viele vor, aber sie sind im Fluss und ganz authentisch, folgen den Gedanken der Heldin, die Orientierung und Erklärungen für das Unmögliche sucht. Sie verwendet die Ich-Perspektive, als Leser folge ich ihren Wahrnehmungen ganz unmittelbar, was sie sieht, hört, schmeckt, riecht, ich bin in ihren Gedanken und in der Unruhe oder Gelassenheit, die Wahrnehmung und Gedanken auslösen.
Atmosphärisch hat es gewisse Parallelen zu Mandel, aber noch viel stärker hat sich mir die Assoziation mit Marlen Haushofers „Die Wand“ aufgedrängt. Allerdings besser geschrieben, atemloser, während die Wand doch auch langatmige Stellen hat.
Die Berechnung des Rauminhalts I habe ich gestern nachts beendet und die Geschichte hämmerte gefühlt eine weitere Stunde in meinem Kopf, bevor ich einschlafen konnte. Sie öffnet Räume im Kopf, die man nicht unbedingt betreten wollte, das klaustrophobische Gefühl gefangen zu sein, gefangen in der Zeit und gleichzeitig die Freiheiten, die diese Situation ermöglicht …. im Kopf rattert die Geschichte weiter, dennoch kann ich sagen, ich muss die Folgebände nicht sofort lesen, um zu erfahren wie es weitergeht; Band 1 ist in sich abgeschlossen genug, um eine Atempause einlegen zu können. Aber ich will die Folgebände lesen! Unbedingt! Wenn auch nicht sofort.
Das bringt mich zum einzigen Wermutstropfen an der Sache. Bisher sind 5 Bände (3 auf deutsch) erschienen (und wahrscheinlich werden es noch mehr) und es ist abzusehen, dass die Kernfragen nicht gelöst werden, solange die Serie nicht beendet ist (und vielleicht auch dann nicht, denn welche befriedigenden Antworten für die aus den Fugen geratene Zeit sollte es denn geben?).
Das heißt vorläufig 5 Bände a 22 Euro. Macht in Summe 110 Euro für nicht ganz 1000 Seiten, die ja rein theoretisch auch in einem kompletten Band erscheinen könnten. Man könnte das aus Marketingperspektive als ziemlich frechen Geniestreich sehen, wirtschaftlich betrachtet werden die Einnahmen fast verdreifacht, ich hoffe die Autorin hat auch was davon. Neu ist das ja nicht, es scheint sogar ein gewisser Trend zu sein und als Leser kommt es mir in gewisser Weise auch entgegen, da ich vor 1000 Seiten Büchern meist zurückschrecke.
Und so gesehen ist es auch wieder fair, denn so kann jeder für einen moderaten Preis in die Geschichte eintauchen und dann zu entscheiden ob man weitertauchen will.
Also schlucke ich den Wermutstropfen gerne, denn das muss ich nochmal betonen, man muss die Folgebände nicht lesen, um vollen Genuss an dem ersten Band zu haben. Das ist eine Parallele zu Knausgards Morgenstern, wobei bei diesem die Notwendigkeit die Folgebände zu lesen, noch viel weniger ausgeprägt ist.
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