Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume I

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:51:30 +0000

Someone once told me that it’s “easy” to read “War and Peace”. The big Russian novel, famed for its length and complexity, is apparently split into 365 chapters. You commit to reading one chapter per day and after a year you can have the cachet of joining the War and Peace reader’s club.⊕ I’m not currently a member of this club.

In “On The Calculation of Volume” by Solvej Balle, translated into English by Barbara J. Haveland, the narrator-protagonist is living the same day over and over again, “Groundhog Day”-style. Just as in the feelgood (eventually) Bill Murray movie, no one else is repeating the day. It’s November 18th, so no, there are no groundhogs involved at all. The narrator quickly cottons on to what is happening, and even though this is a serious novel where the repetition obviously has some deep philosophical meaning (or does it?), she manages to have some fun with things. Back to that later.

Solvej Balle on mattischrome

Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume I