Books: Why "On The Calculation Of Volume" Is Overrated

 

 (Drivebycuriosity) - I am a voracious reader and always searching for strong writers. Recently the book "On The Calculation Of Volume", the start of a series of 7 novels, appeared on my radar; mainly because of the mysterious & strange title ( amazon). The tiny booklet (just 164 pages) got rave reviews and is nominated for the International Booker Prize. To make it clear, the novel is way overrated, sorry Mr. Knausgard.

"On the Calculation" is basically another version of "Groundhog Day"; another time loop story, but less Hollywood and more ambitious. The plot is told in first person, the protagonist, a married woman, who lives in France, is suddenly trapped in time and relives the 18th of November over and over. 

It goes without saying that the text has many many many repetitions ("putting a kettle on the stove"; "putting a kettle on the stove"; "putting a kettle on the stove" ..... ) . These repetitions are getting soon boring and tedious to read. 

The language is often plain and the text just a row of simple words. Sentences  like "I go to the toilet, get water from the kitchen, but I soon go back to the room" could be written by a first grader.

The text is dragging on and on and reads sometimes like an itemization: "This went of for weeks. Or for a number of days corresponding to several weeks. Sixty-three days, perhaps. Sixty-four. Or sixty-five. I don´t know."

"Every morning I woke Thomas and explained what had happened. I told him that he had to help me. That I had slipped in another time. Maybe my brain has rearranged. I said. I needed help. I could not think the whole thing through my self. We had to find an explanation. He had to think too (Kindle version page 72, 43%).  

 

                Orange-flavored Chocolate 

There are interesting economic aspects as the result of an ever repeating November 18th, like a banking account that always refreshes or "freshly purchased bread or cookies vanished overnight only to be found back in the supermarket, where we had bought the last package on the shelf before". 

But otherwise - and conversely - favored and frequently purchased goods get slowly sold out and are not available any more: "We had trouble finding the coffee we usually bought. It was sold out, so we bought another brand, but it was us who had drunk the coffee from the shelf. Likewise it was us who had emptied the shelf of orange-flavored chocolate". Why do their own purchases lead to "bare shelves and empty space in freezers" when 18th of November day repeats on the level of November 17th evening?

How degenerate has the world become to call this "literature".