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Solvej Balle: Om udregning af rumfang 2 (On The Calculation Of Volume 2)
This novel is the second of seven novels. The plot follows on immediately from the end of the first volume. We find our heroine, Tara Selter in Paris still stuck on 18 November. She has returned to Paris 365 days later, expecting a breakthrough but, despite one small change in events, nothing has changed regarding 18 November. She drifts around Paris as she likes being with crowds, she then sets off on her travels, listening to the stories of people as they tell other passengers or on their phones. She goes into Germany where she tries to improve her German while reading Goethe. She makes sure that the rooms she sleeps in had not been occupied the previous night or she might wake up in bed with someone else.
She hears a a man on his phone saying that he is going to Dunkirk so she goes, too. I don’t need crowds to throw myself into. I don’t need packed modes of transport. I am starting to like the mid-morning traffic with its scattering of travellers, standard railway carriages, slow-moving passengers with coffee cups and brown paper bags.
Eventually she decides to go home, not to her husband but to her parents in Brussels We learn that her father is Belgian and her mother English and that she has a younger sister, Lisa. Initially she does not tell her parents about her problem but then she does. By her calculation it is Christmas so they celebrate Christmas. Lisa suggests she accompany her sister on her travels but her parents are worried about losing another daughter. She feels comfortable with her parents but, of course, , staying with them would present the same problem as staying with Thomas, telling her story every morning so she sneaks off during the night.
Se heads back to Germany and then realises that wants she wants is to see the seasons change. I want the seasons to be set right, for them to be dependable, for them to move with long, slow strides back into their proper order. She can do that by going to appropriate places, starting with Norway for winter. She moves around Scandinavia but has problems – a sprained ankle and a reckless taxi driver. She has been keeping a daily notebook, starting with 1 January. I find January in the shops. I find January dishes. I eat soup, or I drink apple and cinnamon tea..
She feels that this is a long-term-plan as she does not think she can escape 18 November. A seasons machine, that is what I am building. I see myself circulating through these seasons. Of course she misses the winter of her home, such as putting logs on a fire and seeing a light covering of snow on the garden.
She is off again and thinks London might be the place. Has Balle ever been to London in November? It is normally cold and damp. What impresses her is the fruitand vegetables for sale from all seasons. She also finds new-born lambs in Cornwall. For summer it is Montpellier. She spends a lot of time there
but comments For the first time it occurs to me that Thomas is right when he says I have to find a way out on my own.
She moves on to follow the seasons. It does not all go well, of course, but she survives. Sometimes she feels despondent – I know. I am a monster and I devour my world. There is no getting away from it – and sometimes cheerful. Towards the end she finds the sestertius coin she had bought for Thomas which had disappeared the first time she bought it but survived the second time and it suddenly gets her interested in Roman history which she explores in some detail, particularly, as she is in Germany, why the Roman Empire stopped growing, why it fell and the role of the Germanic tribes, despite having previously said that she was not interested in history per se but It was the objects themselves. It was the feel of the paper and the indentations on the pages, it was the type on the title pages that interested her.
We are left at the end with something positive but we shall have to wait to find out the details.
Publishing history
First published in 220 by Pelagraf
First published in English in 2024 by New Directions
Translated by Barbara J. Haveland