Talking Big

By Jay Innis Murray

New Directions has cleverly chosen November 18 for the publication date of Book 3 of On the Calculation of Volume. Anyone who has read Book 1 can tell you November 18 is the day in the life of the novel’s narrator that repeats, over and over, hundreds of times. No Bill Murray farce, this book. What we get is a sleepy metaphysical detective story that is seductive for the curious reader. Not an original idea, clearly, but who can resist following Tara Selter, as she tries to figure out what happened to time to trap her in November 18. And oh by the way, the English translation by Barbara Haveland of the first book of Danish author Solvej Balle’s seven-book series was recently shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. What better time for you to read it, and I recommend that you do.

The novel opens with a section titled #121 and ends with #366. These are journal or diary entries in which Tara jots down details of her day. November 18 is repeating. That #121 is the 121^st repetition, so it is her 122^nd November 18 in a row. The days of the calendar are no longer consecutive for her. Her experience of duration remains, however, so that she carries forward with her memories (and her notes) of those days. She is painfully aware of the strange phenomenon. The most disorienting aspect of this is how singular it is for her. By all indications, nobody else is likewise trapped. Her husband Thomas is caught in the loop, totally unaware of the repetition. This leads Tara to observe his routine, days which are exactly similar, so often she can predict, by the sounds of Thomas going through his day, exactly what is going to happen. When she confronts him and even gains his belief and sympathy for her situation, as soon as the following morning comes around, he has no recall of it. November 18 starts for him brand new with no residue.

This leaves the reader with a deep sense of a relationship that has been broken. This is an emotional suggestion not a reality Tara brings up, except in suggestions early on of some distance. We’re seeing the beginnings of a separation or a divorce. Somebody has died, and either husband or wife is a ghost. Tara is observing her husband who has dementia going through a repetitive daily routine. Somehow the couple has been halved. This is a striking turn of phrase by Balle. In section #229, Tara asks questions about Thomas’ grandfather whose life went on after his wife died.

How do they live in the same houses, though, those couples who have been halved? How do they go on living the same life year after year? In the same rooms, with the same day-to-day routine. How do they do it? Do they go on doing the same things, because the house is the same? Do they retreat into a single room? Do they sit there and suddenly have the idea that they can hear the dead walking about? Are the dead too close or too far away? Do they hear steps in the distance or a hand or sleeve brushing the wallpaper? Do they think there are ghosts in the house? (page 109)

The repetition of domestic details in the novel (sounds of footsteps, the rain, foods cooked and eaten, the work of the couple’s small book business) are as intriguing to me as the detective story of the novel, in which Tara tries to figure out what has happened to her. At times, I was reminded of the English translation I read some years ago of the Egyptian Book of the Dead with its incantatory repetitive phrases and invocations. The detective story has its own curious lore with disappearing Roman coins, mysteriously titled antique books, and an old lady in an apartment who seems to be a lead to a wider mystery. I have my own theory of what is happening. It will be a pleasure to read the next volume, and the volume after that, to find out how wrong I am about how time works and how everything will turn out. Groundhog Day’s director Harold Ramis estimated that Bill Murray’s Phil Connors was trapped in his loop for 10 years. I’ve seen essays estimate that, based on his developing piano skills, it would have been longer than that even. I guess there’s room in seven volumes of this novel for anything to happen. I’ll let myself be carried along.