Every now and then you encounter a novel that’s unlike anything else you’ve ever read. On the Calculation of Volume I is that novel, for me.

The protagonist of this volume, Tara Selter, went to sleep on the eighteenth of November and woke up the next morning on the eighteenth of November. Ad infinitum. Or at least a full year.

I’ve read plenty of novels that mess with time but Solvej Balle’s novel is different. I suppose it’s technically science fiction but it reads more like a work of literature. As Tara inhabits the same day, day after day, the routine becomes sublime. Small patterns become luminous.

On the Calculation of Volume I is a meditation on solitude, despite Tara’s physical proximity to others. In Tara’s experience, readers are invited to examine their own internal worlds.

The blurb that sold me on this book was from Hernan Diaz: “You have never read anything like On the Calculation of Volume.” I couldn’t agree more. Are you ready for something completely different?

Balle, Solvej. On the Calculation of Volume I. 2020. Translated by Barbara Haveland, New Directions, 2024.