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Repetitive strain: On the Calculation of Volume, Books I and II, by Solvej Balle, reviewed

In an astonishing multi-volume novel where the unthinkable becomes entirely credible, Tara Selter, an antiquarian bookseller, finds herself trapped in one remorselessly recurring November day

31 May 2025

9:00 AM

31 May 2025

9:00 AM

On the Calculation of Volume: Books I and II Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

Faber, pp.204, 12.99

I have counted the days. It is my 122nd eighteenth of November. I have come a long way from the seventeenth and I do not know whether I will ever see the nineteenth. But the eighteenth arrives again and again.

This is life for Tara Selter, the protagonist of On the Calculation of Volume, a mesmerising projected septology by the Danish writer Solvej Balle that will make anyone who has ever longed to pause time rethink their wish list.

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