The idea for the book came up a long time ago—in 1987 actually. And that was just the first bits of it, just the idea of a woman stuck in time repeating one day again and again. It took a long time for the idea to actually develop and all the philosophical material to kind of fall into place, because there’s a lot of questions about how this universe is working. So it took a long time and also the person had to develop, the person who ended up being Tara Selter, and also to find out when would it happen and all these little bits and pieces. So, there’s a lot of elements that prolonged the process. Also, there was a film coming out called Groundhog Day, which I didn’t see in the beginning because I thought it was too close. But when I finally saw it, I realized, ah, that’s a lot of nice research for my idea, because I realized it was so different.
― Solvej Balle, National Book Award Interview, Words Without Borders
What booksellers are saying about On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)
- The first book in Solvej Balle’s brilliant (and forthcoming in English) septology On the Calculation of Volume is, in a word, stunning. Following the day-to-day minutia of a woman continually reliving the 18th of November, Balle finds the beauty and torment in repetition and recursion and revision. In all honesty, nothing actually happens in this book. But that doesn’t matter. Balle’s writing turns the reader into a balloon hitting a powerline—bright, weightless, fluorescent, until the shock comes. An absolutely stunning piece of fiction.
― Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY
- I’m hooked on this Scandinavian saga that takes a time loop plot and engages with it in a hyper-realistic style. Tara finds the most logical ways to test the boundaries of her new world and ruminates on repetitions and endings in a fresh way that no comparable story has. It’s hard to overstate how precious time is as a resource, and this is made salient as time goes rogue.
― Michael Allen, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky | BUY
- Though the stuck-in-the-eternally-repeating-day scenario hasn’t (yet) been run into the ground, it has fared well-to-fair within a fair share of well thought out, hacky, and well-out hacked renditions. And the one stipulation they communally serve up is [dun dun duhhn] Rules. OtCoV, as a member of the Well Thought Out camp, includes the unique discombobulation of Evolving Rules, as some remnants of our protagonist’s previous November 18 sneak surreptitiously or outright grace her bedside presence come current November 18. Isolation and a lack of consistent input makes the learning mind a veritable playground and we’re sitting playground-benchside feeding the pigeons. This is the first year and volume of a novella septology which’ll leave you feeling concurrently satiated and craving more.
― Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY
About Solvej Balle
Solvej Balle was born in 1962, made her debut in 1986 with Lyrefugl, and she went on to write one of the 1990s’ most acclaimed works of Danish literature, According to the Law: Four Accounts of Mankind (praised by Publishers Weekly for its blend of “sly humor, bleak vision, and terrified sense of the absurd with a tacit intuition that the world has a meaning not yet fathomed”). Since then, she’s published a book on art theory, Det umuliges kunst, 2005, a political memoir Frydendal og andre gidsler, 2008, and two books of short prose Hvis and Så, published simultaneously in 2013. On the Calculation of Volume is Solvej Balle’s major comeback, not just to Danish or Nordic fiction, but—expanding the possibilities of the novel—to all of world literature.
Barbara J. Haveland (born 1951) is a Scottish literary translator, resident in Copenhagen. She translates fiction, poetry and drama from Danish and Norwegian to English. She has translated works by many leading Danish and Norwegian writers, both classic and contemporary, including Henrik Ibsen, Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann and Carl Frode Tiller.
