ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME II by Solvej Balle – Review by Stella

You may well ask why I am only reading the second in this series, when four have already been translated. I’ve been saving it, and I am pacing myself, becuase i know I will be disapppointed when the seventh and final instalment arrives and is read. I was captivated by the premise of Solvej Balle’s books. A woman stuck in a repeating day; well in fact her day doesn’t repeat — everyone else’s does, her days go on, but the date remains the same. As soon as I was back in November 18th Iwas hooked all over again. I love the mundanity of this book, her endless time, her inabiliity to hold onto things unless she sleeps in them or she tucks them under her pillow. Luckily, after a while objects stay with her. In this segment of her strange life, she is craving Christmas and New Year, and turns up at her parents, explains her predicament, and insists on Christmas. The next morning, they having forgotten about her being there and what happened, she explains her situation again. This time (her next day, their ordinary November 18th) there are only Christmas leftovers. As I was reading, I had all sorts of questions. Why didn’t her parents call her partner to alert him to Tara’s strange behaviour? Why did they not attempt to interfer in her, for what must have seemed to them, pyschological episode? But then I had the answer: they have forgotten. And then Tara is gone, in their minds never been there. She keeps moving, chasing the winter, going north looking for the cold, wanting to wear a winter dress. On her travels, she at first remains outside of others’ lives, but slowly she is allowing herself to become part of other people’s happenings. I wondered, is this dangerous? How will it change another’s experience, or will her interaction leave no residue? Or will Tara Selter end up divided across time and space if everything returns to normal? if we can understanding time at all, that is. Eventually she tires of this endless quest. She knows, despite her written record of the days that are going by, that it is November 18 and she can no longer pretend a winter that does not exist. She heads to warmer climes, and at the close of this book we find her settled in a flat, an invisible person, attending lectures at the university. She has a new hobby: an obsession with the Romans. Here we leave her and she teases us with her knowledge that there are others just like her. Tempting to read book three right now!