On The Calculation of Volume I
By Solvej Balle

I often feel a bit dissatisfied with speculative fiction that asks us to consider a premise and then channels it's energy into certain consequences but fails to address the ones that my mind flies to. But the imagination has too much scope to cover all incidentals in a manageable novel. Usually.

The "groundhog day" premise is a simple one, and if you were to believe Bill Murray, happily rewarded by persistence and taking a good look at yourself, but that's not good enough unless you live the happy-slappy tropes.

What about all the extra "what ifs", or the "if this, then what?" questions that my brain mulls over during and often for months and years after reading speculative fiction with an interesting premise?

I think we might have the answer in this, the first of a seven book series.

At times I found this thrilling and truly profound. At times it made my head hurt. At times I was bored and scanning for interest. At 166 pages I thought I'd fly through it, but actually it felt like I plodded through every page.

Balle is surely intent on answering every possible question and that should make me happy, but sometimes I have to remind myself to be careful what I wish for.

This is interesting and inventive and I am glad there will be seven books addressing the concepts, and I'm sure I'll pick some up at some time in the distant future.

Thanks to #Netgalley for providing an eGalley for review purposes

A virtuoso riff on the timeslip novel
—
I’ve been debating on whether or not to review this, the first in a literary time travel trilogy, but it is very, very good, so her I go. In the familiar repeated day format, Tara finds herself stuck in the eighteenth of November. As she navigates the proscribed time and places, Tara begins to question reality, her assumptions and beliefs, and the very nature of her existence. For the first part of a trilogy, you, as I, might question how Balle intended to maintain this repeated structure for three volumes; and the answer is like a virtuoso. Like a violinist maintaining one extended note through the finest fingering and bow-work, Balle takes the thematic restrictions of a timeslip novel and applies the perfect hints of colour and gradation to fill out Tara’s uncertain life, to enter her doubts and wonders, to see the world anew with her even as she tries to find a way back to the ordinary flow of time.

I don’t want to say a lot more, only that this is the very best of writing, that makes you think but also eager to read the next scene, the next book, and I will.

Four and a half stars.

On the Calculation of Volume 1 is a strange and unsettling book. The premise is immediately gripping: the narrator wakes up to the 18th of November again and again, seemingly trapped in time, while everyone else forgets the other 18th Novembers that have come before. It’s incredibly well written - the observations of everyday life, initially mundane, grow increasingly oppressive as we’re drawn into the claustrophobia of her repeated day and her desperate attempts to escape it. At times, it’s genuinely painful to read: her growing estrangement from loved ones, the mounting sense of alienation, the flickering shifts between hope and despair. I’m very curious to see how the rest of this septology unfolds.

Very far from just another Groundhog Day

Solvej Balle’s 4-7 volume set will certainly be one to pursue through, on the basis of this first volume. Danish writers are not often quickly translated into English and many other languages, because they are hitting the potential for critical and commercial success. Probably most of us would hesitate to name names beyond Hans Christian Anderson or Peter Hoeg. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) in fact wrote in English even though her mother tongue was Danish

Balle, by all accounts has spent some 40 years writing this one, which is set fair to be a best seller, according to the publicity. It is already up for the International Booker

Central character Tara Selter is a specialist book seller living in France with her husband Thomas. Together they run their book selling business, often sourcing rare books and first editions for their clients. On the 17th November Tara travels to Paris as part of that business, waking in her hotel room the next day, with various tasks for the day ahead, including visiting an old friend, a collector and seller of rare coins. The next morning, she awakens again on the 18th November. And again. Somehow, she has fallen through a portal, she supposes. Or has she? And strangely, very small things alter, also. Objects can disappear. Tara absolutely and increasingly remembers each 18th November. As each 18th succeeds the next, she is both completely within the present unfolding moments and with precognition about every one of them. There is a further complexity, whilst Tara is always in the same day, with absolute memory of it, her beloved husband lives each day for the first time, with no memory of repetition.

This is one of those books which takes the reader into a strange, unsettling reality. Difficult to describe, I found myself thinking/feeling/sensing as if rugs were constantly being pulled from under me, or stepping, conceptually into what I thought was solid ground but proved to be a body of water.

I was entranced and fascinated for around 60% of this but then the obvious repetition just wore me down. So I was relieved to get to the end and so perhaps less disappointed in the ending than I probably might have been.
I know there’s more to come but I’m less sure if I can be bothered reading more.

I had heard really good things about this book but I found it quite boring overall! It did make me think a lot of the concept of a groundhog day but honestly otherwise the book completely passed me by – the writing never grabbed me and I don't think I'll continue with the series.

For me this book is simply overrated and nothing like the “poetic, page-turning masterpiece” I have seen it described as. Perhaps Edith Hall’s rather neat phrase “literary onanism” is more apt. I can see that I am wildly out of step with most other readers, but nothing about this book drew me in. It did for a while, to be fair. When the protagonist Tara first discovers that she is constantly reliving November 18th, and struggles to comprehend what is happening, as indeed I did, I too found the premise intriguing. But then the narrative became repetitious and, quite frankly, boring. I know that the repetition is the point, but it doesn’t make for a gripping read. And I don’t really understand the concept anyway, especially as November 18th isn’t in fact exactly the same each time. Perhaps I’m just not intellectually up to it. Oh well. The ending was inconclusive and unsatisfactory, it just sort of stopped, and although there are further volumes in which I trust all will be revealed, I’m not encouraged to carry on. Just not one for me.

A philosophical and reflective first novel in a series of 7. A Groundhog Day experience where the main character relives the 18th of November every time she awakens .

This book is brilliant. For a popular trope Solvej Balle does it in a way that feels brand new. You would think reading about the same day over and over again would get boring after a while but it’s genuinely one of the most engaging books I’ve ever read. There are small twists and turns, individual narratives and poignant reflections that keep you wanting more. This book has made me rethink the way I understand time, and question what I would do if I was in Tara’s shoes.

A suffocating, panic-inducing yet perfectly controlled book, as Tara Selter is stuck on the same dreary winter day and is living the same things over and over and over, the only person that seems to be aware that time is repeating itself with seemingly no end.

She tries many different ways to communicate the situation with her husband, but come the next day it is all the same again and he has forgotten her attempts to explain. The minutiae of everyday, the rising horror of the damage she may be doing to the environment, and her desperate attempts to explain have a powerful impact as you follow through how she must feel in great detail.

Bleak, satisfying and truly horrific in equal measure, Tara tries to find a way to break out. Even at the end of this book, the first in a series, it isn't quite clear what the outcome is...

If you think you’ve heard this kind of story before, think again. There is no crime to be solved or heart to be won - instead this is an elegant literary take on the timeshift genre. Tara’s thoughtful introspection at her situation lets us witness her observing the minutia of her ever repeating day. Never boring, the narrative is propelled forwards as Tara strives to return to normal life whilst managing the restrictions of only having one day to solve this problem. The translation is flawless and the writing engaged me so much that I often found myself thinking about what I would do in such a situation.

My thanks to Faber and Netgalley for an advance review copy.

Acclaimed in her native Denmark and beyond, Solvej Balle’s septology On the Calculation of Volume is now being translated into English by long-time collaborator Barbara J. Haveland. While its premise – protagonist Tara Selter keeps reliving the eighteenth of November – might categorise it as sci-fi, in the telling it is firmly rooted in the everyday. Tara wakes every morning knowing that she must re-explain the situation to her husband Thomas or decide to keep away from him.
I understand why the International Booker Prize judges put this first volume on their shortlist. Balle’s writing drew me in so I enjoyed following Tara through her year’s worth of November eighteenths as she tries to work out what effect her actions have, how she might change things, just what it means to live separately from the world.

A review in the influential Kirkus Review called this slim, unprepossessing novel “a sober, thoughtful study of time and connection” (Kirkus Review, online, 19 November 2024). It is conceived as the first instalment of a seven-book series by a Danish writer who deserves a big following. A fantasy novel, it explores heroine Tara’s reactions to finding herself forced to relive a specific November day. Through diary entries, we learn of Tara’s gradual journey from surprise over curiosity to disorientation – and also appreciate her husband Thomas’s reactions. That this well-depicted couple jointly own a book store seems only fitting – perhaps Tara can find solace inside if she is unable to change the world outside?
A unique, strangely mesmerising novel that I would recommend to lovers of the fantasy genre as well as readers wishing to dip their toes into this genre. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the free digital ARC that allowed me to read and review this novel.

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’s consistently intriguing, it might be a little dry for some, but I was quickly bound up in its rhythms. Translated by Barbara J. Haveland.

On the Calculation of Volume I is the literary version of Groundhog Day, translated from Danish but set in France. Rare bookseller Tara Selter keeps re-living 18th November while everyone else in the world is experiencing the day for the first time.

I read this and became hooked on Tara's story and her predicament: why was she experiencing this and would it ever stop?

Unfortunately for me, this is the first book of a planned septology, so I have a way to go before I reach the conclusion. A compelling start though!

Time has fallen apart for Tara, an antiquarian bookseller in France, and she’s stuck on 18 November forever in this dreamlike and gorgeously repetitive novel. I can’t wait to find out if we ever move forward in the next volume.

On the Calculation of Volume I is a novel that lingers in the mind long after the last page.

Told from the perspective of Tara Selter, an antiquarian bookseller living in northern France, the book follows her as she discovers that she is trapped in an endless loop, doomed to relive November 18th over and over again. “Time fell apart,” she reflects as she tries to make sense of her strange and unsettling predicament.

The Washington Post noted that if Samuel Beckett had written Groundhog Day, it might have looked something like this. It’s an apt comparison. This novel unfolds like an existential mystery, quiet yet profound, meditative yet deeply unsettling.

On November 17th, Tara’s life appears normal enough—she travels to Bordeaux for an auction of 18th-century illustrated books, then moves on to Paris, where she spends the next day browsing antiques. But then—what? No matter what she does, she wakes up to November 18th again. And again. And again.

At first, Tara seems to approach her predicament with a kind of bemused curiosity, testing the limits of what she remembers and what is erased. But as time (or the illusion of it) wears on, her situation grows lonelier. How does she explain this to her husband? She embarks on an almost allegorical search for a language to express the sheer incomprehensibility of her situation. And with each repeated day, she becomes more ghostlike in her own home—distanced, detached, avoiding her husband as if she is already vanishing from the world.

While this novel is built around a time loop, it isn’t really about time. Instead, it reads as an exploration of the inscrutability of human existence—the small, everyday moments we take for granted and the impossibility of truly making sense of ourselves and others.

Despite its brevity, On the Calculation of Volume I is not a quick or easy read. The pacing demands slowness, rewarding those who take the time to sit with its ideas and let them unfold. It’s intense, introspective, and at times unsettling—but in the best possible way.

This clever and undeniably quirky Danish novel won’t be for everyone, but it's an enriching read for those willing to embrace its strangeness. And with six more volumes to come, I can’t wait to see where this septology takes us next.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read via NetGalley. As always, this is an honest review.

One of 7 books. Following Tara who wakes every day on 18 November, not remembering the day before as the 17th and not anticipating the next day to be the 19th. Every day she knows is November 18th.

While I didn't realise that this book was part of a series..it worked well on its own. A woman stuck in time while the clocks continue to turn, groundhog day, every day is a new adventure.

I requested On the Calculation of Volume after I saw that it had been longlisted for the International Booker.

After devouring it in a couple of greedy, gulping reading sessions, I can now see why. I will be very surprised if this doesn't also go onto the shortlist.

Inevitably, this book will be compared to the movie Groundhog Day, but it is SO much more. The written form allows the author to really get inside the head of Tara, her protoganist who experiences the eighteenth of November over and over again. We see the patterns, the rhythms of this day in minute detail. We experience Tara's varying and evolving moods. We watch her try different ways of dealing with the day, trying to find the rules or the logic to what is happening to her. We see the distance gradually grow between her original eighteenth of November and her loved ones who populate that day but do not ever remember it.

I read that the author plans to write seven books altogether and that book two is due to be published at the same time as book one. Thank goodness! Because I need to find out what happens next.