An ambitious septology... Solvej Balle's completely distinctive phenomenological poetry vibrates even more intensely. Her keen eye for the world's smallest, tiniest details becomes increasingly a form of attentiveness.-- "Weekendavisen"

There is little doubt that Solvej Balle is in this volume preparing a masterpiece - her magnum opus itself.-- "Stavanger Aftenblad"

A total explosion; Solvej Balle has blown through to a new dimension of literary exploration.--Nicole Krauss

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.--Karl Ove Knausgård

A crazy, philosophical and addictive novel.-- "Les Inrockuptibles"

A superb reflection on solitude, individual responsibility, existential fatigue, the fear of those we love leaving us. It is a study of the setbacks, the shifts, the illusions that we weave against the flow of time.-- "Libération"

Existential questions about the core and functioning of human relationships are raised here in a virtuosic and seemingly incidental manner. On the Calculation of Volume is a dazzling, poetic, tremendously multi-layered novel. Temporal anomalies and great literature have never been so successfully combined. Fascinating, extraordinary.-- "Horazio (Germany)"

A steady, careful, and deeply disquieting estrangement of a single day, it is impossible to put down.--Kate Briggs

a hypnotic feat of prose writing, and the first in a septology, Book II (which moves beyond Selter's repeated Nov. 18), is simultaneously published, so you needn't wait for the next translation to see where the series goes next.--John Vincler "Cultured Mag"

"Haveland's translation captures the twitchy urge to both keep moving and seek the comforts of home. A speculative, lyrical study of our sensory self."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"What is a day? It is a cell of time that can be subdivided into smaller units: 24 hours; 1,440 minutes; 86,400 seconds. It is a human fiction, a means of imposing order on an unfathomable duration called life. It is an embodied experience that can feel long or short, interesting or boring, each a unique confluence of meteorological, physiological, and sociological variables. Billions of us go through one at a time. Afterward, we expect the next to come, punctually and without fail. But what if it doesn't? What would we do? Ask Tara Selter. The time-stuck protagonist of Solvej Balle's miraculous septology, who 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 the long-awaited comeback of a now-62-year-old writer."
--Cat Zhang "New York Magazine"

"On the Calculation of Volume is a mix of pensive reflection, scientific reasoning, and bone-dry humor, following a mind trying to come to terms with shifting temporal and spatial contours."--Matt Seidel "Asymptote"

Supposedly in development for 40 years and still incomplete in its original Danish, this planned seven-part opus is an anguishing look at a rare-books dealer who finds herself reliving the same rainy day in November. New Directions in the US has just published English translations of the first two taut yet rich volumes, whose hypnotic prose propels you through the mundane into the sublime. (A UK edition is forthcoming in April 2025 from Faber.) The novel's protagonist and narrator, Tara Selter, whose business is the inspection of books for their quality and value, uses sensuousness as a phenomenological guide to her quiet, country home, from its sounds and feelings to the trains she takes through Europe. It's superb, and I eagerly await the next volumes.--Marko Gluhaich "Frieze"

Tara Selter, the protagonist of Solvej Balle's On the Calculation of Volume (translated by Barbara J. Haveland), is stuck on the day of November 18, which she repeats endlessly. Trapped in time, she makes an official project of it. Looking becomes ritualistic. The day's relentless sameness is double-checked, until she can predict the movement of birds. Wonderfully, this is the first book in a series of seven.--K Patrick "The Paris Review"

These books are the talk of the town in New York right now (or at least in my New York).--Kaitlin Phillips

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation

Pub date: 2024-11-26

Length: 176 pages