PotsandPlots

Many “End of 2025” book round-ups mentioned the quality of On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle. It’s a 7-volume series originally published in Danish, with 3 books currently available in English (and a fourth arriving in April 2026).

The book follows Tara Selter, who is stuck in a time loop. Every day she is condemned to repeat the 18th of November. So far, so Groundhog Day. This, however, is a very different beast. The reviews suggested spare prose with an ethereal quality to the narrative that had me worried it might be full of navel-gazing introspection.

On one level, it is, but the result is utterly compelling. There’s a good reason the book was shortlisted for the International Man Booker.

Growing Information:

Plant With: Speculative Fiction, Time Loops, The Human Condition.

Grows Into: A claustrophobic tale of alienation and discovery.

Rating: Hardy Perennial🌻🌻🌻 (Check here for rating information.)

The first three volumes are available now. (affiliate link)

The Review:

Tara is stuck. No matter what she does, when she wakes up, it is the 18th of November. But not everything is reset. When she first becomes stuck, she is in Paris, travelling to an antiquities convention. Her day resets, and the books she bought are gone.

She travels home to her husband. She explains what has happened. He is understanding. They fall asleep. She wakes, and once again it is the 18th November, but she has not returned to Paris. She is in bed with Thomas. He has no recollection of the day before, yet the books she bought and kept with her through the night remain. She explains to him again what has happened, and again, he believes her. After they fall asleep, things reset once more.

Each time their day recycles, most things reset, but not everything. The shops gradually run out of Tara’s favourite things. The shelves are not replenished.

Tara is trapped, and we witness her attempts to escape, her resignation that she can’t, and her resolution(s) to do something about it.

I found On the Calculation of Volume enthralling. It’s haunting and beautiful, examining the ties that bind us and the minutiae of life that keep things ticking over.

Islands in the Stream

When the novel opens, Tara is on day #121. She is hiding in her spare bedroom; she knows that Thomas does not enter during the course of the day. She has her day, he has his.

I was struck that perhaps this book is an examination of marriage and long-term relationships.

We travel through life, routines established. It’s as though time doesn’t change. My life hasn’t appreciably changed in 5 years. I’ve just got older, and the food stocks definitely wind down – probably something to do with having 3 teenage boys.

I travel alongside my wife, but do we really understand one another? Thomas believes that Tara is telling the truth, but over the course of the novel, he cannot understand her predicament. She changes as the days go by. He remains the same. She sits in a room on her own, while Thomas trundles through his own 18th November. He loves her. She loves him. They’re together, but they’re apart.

Tara realises that the only way to escape is to take action. But what action? And is that worth leaving Thomas behind? How many of us feel trapped like this? We’ve tried to explain, but we’re not understood. We’re not even sure we understand the problem ourselves. The claustrophobia is real, and Tara’s quest to exhume herself from her predicament is liberating.

Reading Calculation made me wonder if I, too were trapped. I’m almost too scared to post this review as it feels like both an admission and an act of disloyalty. After twenty years, though, it can feel like we’re both in our lanes, ploughing on unchanging, without really comprehending how the other is feeling.

If I’m stuck on repeat, On the Calculation of Volume is a gentle wake-up and reminder that only I can do something about it. – Or perhaps that’s just the midlife crisis talking.

Before I rush out and buy a tiny red sports car, or get my ear pierced, I will read Calculations volumes 2,3 and beyond. Will Tara find a way out? Unlike Bill Murray, she is not confined to the same location. Tara can move. She begins her next day where she left off the previous one. In Volume 2, she will travel, and I will most definitely be going with her.