Recently shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize, the first book in Solvej Balle’s septology comes garlanded with praise from a wide range of writers including Jon McGregor whose endorsement swung it for me; that and its intriguing premise. On the Calculation of Volume 1 follows Tara Selter who wakes up every morning to find it’s November 18th.
We were living in two different times, that was a fact.
Tara and her husband Thomas run an antiquarian book business from their home in France. They’ve been together five years and are happy, in touch every night when Tara visits auctions looking for the eighteenth-century illustrated works they specialise in. One November 17th she sets off for Paris having booked herself into her usual hotel. The next day she picks up a few books at auction, then another couple at a specialist shop before calling in on Thomas’s friend Philip who introduces her to his girlfriend. She passes a pleasant evening but for the burn she sustains on a gas heater in Philip’s shop. It’s a run-of-the-mill business trip, finished off with her customary call to Thomas. The following day starts like any other but there’s a curious coincidence at the breakfast buffet when a guest drops a piece of bread on the floor as they did yesterday. More alarmingly, the daily paper bears the date November 18th and Thomas has no recollection of last night’s conversation. So begins a year which sees Tara trapped in that November day, able to vary her own version while others perform the same actions apparently for the first time. When she eventually returns to their home, Thomas greets her with delighted surprise, not expecting her until the next day.
Maybe there’s healing in sentences. It is day 124. Tomorrow I will write #125 and the day after tomorrow I will write #126 and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Balle’s novel is structured as a diary written by Tara hoping that it will help her understand and find a way out of her predicament. Each section is headed with the number of the current iteration of November 18th she’s living through as she records her experience – the daily recaps with an astonished Thomas, their mutual scientific investigations, the days in which they wrap themselves up in each other, her eventual retreat into the guest room and avoidance of her husband as he carries out precisely the same actions as he did the day before. Tara and Thomas’s surprisingly easy acceptance of her ordeal is a bit of a stretch but, obviously, readers’ belief must be suspended early on. It’s a novel you’ll likely either enjoy or find infuriating. I was intrigued by the puzzle of what it might mean – a metaphor for Tara and Thomas’s marriage, a form of dementia or just your standard Kafkaesque nightmare – but I’m unlikely to continue with Balle’s series through seven volumes.
Faber & Faber London 9780571383375 192 pages Paperback (Read via NetGalley)
Hmm. Seven volumes sounds a bit of a stretch. The premise sounds a bit of a stretch. I don’t think I’m going to work very hard at sourcing this one.
I enjoyed this one and might read the second just to see how she carries the idea on but seven make me blanch.
Quite!
I didn’t know this had a Groundhog Day premise – usually a must-read for me, but the seven volumes is a bit off-putting!
I’m not sure if she carries the same idea over seven volumes which seems to be trying readers’ patience to me. You could definitely read this as a standalone.
Good to know, thanks!
Seen this on the shortlist so it must have some literary merit, and the storyline is quite creative. Does sound like the film Groundhog Day, which I love because of the great Bill Murray. Not sure I want to read it though, I think I would find it a bit claustrophobic.
I thought it worked well but wondered what she’d do over the next six volumes. Unfortunately, I think I’ve probably seen Groundhog Day too many times to watch again, brilliant as Bill Murray is!
Yes, I was not enamoured of the premise, plus it’s expensive for a slender volume, which is why it’s the only one of the longlist which I haven’t read. Now that it’s been shortlisted, I will read it, but am still a bit prejudiced… (naughty of me to judge without knowing more about it, and most people seem to have loved it, so I’m glad to hear you did not!)
I’m still intrigued by the idea but seven volumes seems several steps too far. I’ll be interested to see what you think of it.
I like the premise of this so may well check it out, especially if Jon McGregor says it is good!
He’s one of those writers who tend to seal the deal for me when I can’t decide! I hope you enjoy it, Cathy.
I’ve been so skeptical about this but apparently it’s not the same approach throughout all seven volumes, which makes me think it has a better chance of working! I’ll probably try to track it down once more of the volumes have been translated into English.
Oh, I think that would have been too much! I’m left wondering what the next instalment holds. I spotted a copy of that today but felt it was too expensive which tells you something, I suppose.
£12.99 for 200 pages does seem a bit steep…
It does, and I had several other books in my sights!
Yes the price of books is as an issue now. They appear to be even more expensive in euros here in Ireland. I am borrowing more from our public library, and sharing books in our Bookclub.
I’ll be on the lookout for a cheaper mass market version later in the year.
I just bought this yesterday! I was tempted to pick up the second volume at the same time but decided to show some restraint 🙂
I’m impressed! I hope you enjoy it, Kate.
I do like the sound of the premise though I didn’t realise this was the first of seven.
I know! Seven’s a bit daunting, isn’t it.
I usually enjoy the idea behind an ambitious cycle of books like this (although I think the longest that I have read, that’s not a series but a…set? so to speak? is five books), so I am predisposed, yes, but this particular volume (the date repeating, the McGregor vote, the play with perception changes, etc.) really appeals. As you’ve described it, anyway.
It does sound as if it should work for you, then, Marcie. I’m not sure I’ve read anything that stretches over more than four books at the most, and that’s a rarity for me.
Seven sounds like six too many! The idea of the repeating day is familiar too – it must be hard to bring something original to it.
It is very well done. I may well try the second out of curiosity but I suspect that’ll be it for me
Having read Marina’s thoughts on the International Booker longlist this year, I’m intrigued by the books on it – not intrigued enough to read the vast majority of them! – but certainly intrigued to read about them. Loved your thoughts here. Not one for me as this premise has been done too many times, I feel, but I very much enjoyed your review of it!
Thank you! I bought Perfection yesterday as I can’t seem to resist novels set in Berlin.
I have just finished this and straightaway I have purchased the second volume. Which is to say that I loved this book. It held me spellbound right to the last page and left me teetering at the close of the book, on a precipice, wanting to fall into the next volume and to be caught again in the marvellous writing. Lots of repetition as you would expect from a repeating day, but none of it felt repetitious. That’s down to the cleverness of the writing. And the nightmare feeling of being trapped in one day, over and over, was so well executed. I was giddy and unmoored and breathless. I read it in a rush, over a single 24 hours, and all the time I was looking for a way out of the 18th November and like Tara, not ever finding it. Loved this book.
It was certainly an idea cleverly executed. I hope you enjoy the second volume as much as this one.
I have just read the second in the series and for me it was just as wonderfully hypnotic and bewitching as the first volume. And I defy anyone reading the second volume not to want (desperately) to pick up the third volume… the ending of the second volume is a masterstroke, a fabulously perfect cliffhanger. I can’t wait for number three. xx
I can’t resist such a passionate response. Sold! xx
Such a difficult premise to sustain so it’s really impressive that she’s managed it! Jon McGregor’s vote would sway me too.
Hard to resist a McGregor endorsement!
Ha! The idea of seven books was one of the things that sealed the deal for me too, but on the other side. I can’t wait to see where she takes this next and how on earth she wraps it up eventually and if we ever find out the whys and wherefores of why this is happening to Tara.
At this early point my money is on the old coin somehow – not that I’m expecting a mystical/mythical element à la Indiana Jones, but it seems significant….
Well, if you are in for the long haul I hope you’ll review the series! I’ll read the second volume for sure and, you never know, I may become hooked.
Sounds like the plot to “Groundhog Day.”
It certainly has elements of that.