A review by casskrug
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle

5.0

i did not have starting a seven-book series on my 2025 bingo card, yet here we are! i’m so excited to have 6 more of these books to look forward to because this one sucked me in immediately. definitely recommend this for fans of i who have never known men by jacqueline harpman - they have similarly haunting, unexplainable circumstances, and are sci-fi adjacent while being beautifully written. they both also explore the urge to document our experiences, even if only for ourselves, and the comfort that writing can bring.

on the calculation of volume follows tara selter, a bookseller who finds herself repeating november 18th for a year straight. she is aware of the phenomenon, but no one else around her is. we see her grappling with repeatedly telling her husband what is happening to her before eventually retreating to be on her own, and trying to figure out how this happened and how she can set time back on its linear path.

there are so many different ideas and themes in this slim book and i can’t wait to see how they’re expanded in future books. loneliness, love, mundanity, memory, time and history, the will to survive, writing as i mentioned earlier… i can even see the series diving into commentary on consumption and climate change as the food tara eats does not replenish and she has no way of producing more. i also thought the translation was great and the prose was exactly the straightforward style i love.

need everyone to read this and even though i don’t keep up with literary prizes i’m hoping this makes the international booker longlist!

“That is why I began to write. Because I can hear him in the house. 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.”

“It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for these curious twists of fate.”

“I have not found a way out of the eighteenth of November, but have found roads and paths through the day, narrow passages and tunnels I can move along. I cannot get out, but I can find ways in.”