On The Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle (“I want to escape this day, but there is no escaping.”)

“His name is Henry Dale, and I don’t need to tell him that time has ground to a halt. He already knows.” p. 3

I was surprised, upon opening Volume III of On The Caluclation of Volume, that Tara has met someone else who is stuck in the eighteenth of November. More and more, I am reading this book less as a piece of science fiction, or fantasy, and more as a work which is actually applicable to real life.

“I could never have imagined that I’d meet someone already walking around in my loop.” 

How many times have I thought that? Have I searched for someone else who “walks around in my loop” and therefore understands the experiences which have made me who I am? I can’t tell you how often I feel completely alone.

Tara’s thoughts, her experiences, often mirror my own. “Why am I here?” I think, and, “While I am here, surely I can do some good?”

“I lived in one November day. On repeat. I had tried to make time pass. But it stood still. The eighteenth of November was a container, or at least that’s how I saw it. I had tried to figure out why I was here. And to do as little damage as possible.”  p. 18

She is happy to have met Henry, who is a companion and not a lover, stumbling around in the loop of living the eighteenth of November ad nauseam. But, it isn’t without sacrifice.

“There is the certainty of having gained a travel companion, but also the sense of having been assigned some of the responsibility for their baggage.” p. 33

Henry looks at reliving the eighteenth of November with a different perspective than Tara’s.

“In many ways, the repetition of the 18th of November came as a relief. A day that made no assertions of progress and propulsion and promotion. At least the eighteenth of November is honest, he said. It wipes the slate clean.” p. 35

I would like a clean slate. I would like, as my third graders used to say, a “do over.” Have a chance to get things right, or at least better, than I have in my first attempt. It seems I am not alone, for at the end of the novel, two more people join Henry and Tara. Olga has come to Tara, at Henry’s advice, to have someone help her find Ralf. The two of them, Olga and Ralf, have an idea of seizing the opportunity to make this world a better place.

“She (Olga) didn’t want to return to standard time, as she called it, without having seized the chance to change the world. She saw the repetition as an opportunity. To see things more clearly. To get your fucking eyeballs polished, she said.” p. 130

Well, that’s certainly one way to look at one’s purpose in life. But, I am more inclined to side with Tara, who says, “I do not feel unhappy. I feel I am among friends. But I don’t know what I’m doing here, and I wouldn’t know what to say if anyone asked.” p. 157

How fascinating it is to look at these questions through the eyes of Solvej Balle, in her imaginative world presented in these slim volumes.