On The Calculation Of Volume (book Iv)

By (author) Balle Solvej; Translated by Hersi Smith, Sophia; Translated by Russell Jennifer
Short description/annotation:
The fourth installment of Balle’s expansive, and highly ambitious On the Calculation of Volume teems with new faces, new people, and voices from every corner of the western world
Description:
We’re a little more than halfway through Balle’s hypnotic, monumental seven-volume novel about a woman set adrift within the walls of November 18th. Balle’s riveting project continues to wring ever more fascinating dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal captives. In Book III we saw the addition of a handful of new characters to Tara’s world—fellow travelers within November 18th—and now Book IV heralds the arrival of many others, and soon to be even more, roaming uncertainly through the same November day. Could this be the first stirrings of an alternate civilization? The big house in Bremen turns into the headquarters for this growing group of time-trapped individuals. But who are they and what has happened to them? Are they loopers, repeaters, or returners? A brilliant modern spin on the myth of Babel in the Book of Genesis, Book IV asks urgent questions, concerning the naming of things, of people, and of the functions of language itself–must a social movement have a common language in order to exist? Snatches of conversation, argument, and late-night chatter crowd onto the pages of Tara’s notebooks. Amid the buzz and excitement of a new social order coming into being, Book IV ends with a sudden, unexpected, and tantalizing cliffhanger that no one—not even Tara, our steady cataloger and cartographer of the endless November day—could have foreseen.
Review quote:
"The time-stuck protagonist of Solvej Balle’s miraculous septology has been trapped in the same day with no end in sight. On the Calculation of Volume is a literary phenomenon nearly 40 years in the making. It’s a speculative masterwork and long-awaited comeback of a now-62-year-old writer.”"
Review quote:
"“The novel’s propulsive imaginative brilliance lies in Tara’s metaphoric search for a language with which to communicate the sheer incomprehensibility of her condition”"
Review quote:
"“What the best novels can do is open up spaces. And she has opened a space in time, and it is absolutely, absolutely incredible. I think it’s a fantastic book.” "
Review quote:
"“If time has ceased flowing for Tara, for the reader its flow is exhilarating, propelling us through the slender pages of these two compact volumes, each of which ends on a tantalizing cliff-hanger, inciting our desire for more (that the third and fourth installments will not be available in English until November 2025 is, for me, a terrible cruelty!).”"
Review quote:
"“In Solvej Balle’s new series, the concept of a time loop is more than a gimmick; it’s a way of rethinking human existence.” "
Review quote:
"“A steady, careful, and deeply disquieting estrangement of a single day, it is impossible to put down.” "
Review quote:
"“Solvej Balle is a prodigious writer who, miraculously, finds the subtlest, most fascinating differences in repetition. You have never read anything like On the Calculation of Volume. This unforgettable novel is a profound meditation on the lonely, untranslatable ways in which each one of us inhabits time—and the tenuous yet indelible traces we leave in the world. Day after day.”"
Review quote:
"A speculative novel that, with each new volume, feels ever more intensely about the present. A lively entry in a provocative series, thick with questions about morals and ethics."
Review quote:
"This fourth volume (of seven) is a meditation on time that takes place on an endless Nov. 18, giving the time-loop narrative new and stunning proportions."
Review quote:
"Remarkable... This wi