Name: On the Calculation of Volume II
Rating: 3.75 (8 reviews)

Solved Balle

Barabara Haveland

On the Calculation of Volume II

Marek Hnatiak

And now I am walking around the streets, superfluous and out of circulation. It is not a disaster. It is not nothing, but it is not much either.

I tiptoed past it and across to my parents’ bedroom. I stood for a moment looking at them in their bed: my parents, fast asleep, each making their own sound, two different sounds which I had never noticed as a child, possibly because it was always me sleeping and them listening, or maybe these are sounds they have acquired with age.

My sense for detail sees him smile, but then it is gone again, that sense, and I take my book out of my bag.

I write it all down: a street on which the wind suddenly picked up, an exhibition by which I am caught and held for hours and which draws me back again the following day, a snug corner in a café where I read a book. All of this speaks of autumn, a light and curious autumn. A circle being closed. 

If I go out into the backyard at night the noise is more nuanced, a welter of sounds unfolds. Leaves against twigs, leaves against leaves, a medlar falling to earth. It lands with a little thud and rolls a short distance across the ground before it stops. It sounds as if the world is saying danke when the tree drops its fruit.

There is a moment in the book where Tara reminisces on how she has settled into the mid-morning normalcy of the city and I think this is what this book felt like to me - a mid-morning stroll through your city, town, village, when everyone else is getting on with their day and you know you, yourself, should also be at work or school or embracing your responsibilities but you are not and this makes you feel out of joint. Such a fascinating meditation on embracing the routine but also how it repetition can feel like being trapped and how we try to escape from the druggery of daily life. 

Chasing four seasons, almost as an advertisement for the Interrail. Still very similar to The Wall by Haushofer. 

“maybe i’ll stay here. maybe i’m like the romans. maybe i built it myself.”

- spoiler warning <3 read at your own risk

 depicts tara as someone still connected to humanity and the world around her, but in the middle of losing that connection. there is hope, but it’s fading away. she has love in her life and people who care, but they're becoming strangers. in this second installment, we see tara now completely detached and alienated from her own existence, chasing after anything that can keep her in denial of what she’s lost. put simply: 

- despite being book 2 in an ongoing series, this felt more like an extension of book 1. there are some new experiences, sure: the back and forth of seasons, the ongoing conflict with isolation and depression and panic..... but, yeah, there’s no new discoveries made here. which is fine! i would never complain about a second serving of what i got with the first book

 is the best and most focused(?) section of writing so far in the series. the way isolation and depression is immediately explored is so so fascinating, really well done 

 should’ve been published under as one edition as part 1 and 2. 

 is teased as this big next step, and i think (only since this is a series) it makes more sense for that to be the sequel

smile??

- “maybe i’ll stay here. maybe i’m like the romans. maybe i built it myself.” (p.184)

- spoiler warning <3 read at your own risk

- otc-1 depicts tara as someone still connected to humanity and the world around her, but in the middle of losing that connection. there is hope, but it’s fading away. she has love in her life and people who care, but they're becoming strangers. in this second installment, we see tara now completely detached and alienated from her own existence, chasing after anything that can keep her in denial of what she’s lost. put simply: otc-1 is tara falling out of time, and otc-2 is when she hits rock bottom

- despite being book 2 in an ongoing series, this felt more like an extension of book 1. there are some new experiences, sure: the back and forth of seasons, the ongoing conflict with isolation and depression and panic..... but, yeah, there’s no new discoveries made here. which is fine! i would never complain about a second serving of what i got with the first book

- i do think the first 20 page chunk of otc-2 is the best and most focused(?) section of writing so far in the series. the way isolation and depression is immediately explored is so so fascinating, really well done 

- tbh, otc-1 and otc-2 should’ve been published under as one edition as part 1 and 2. otc-3 is teased as this big next step, and i think (only since this is a series) it makes more sense for that to be the sequel

I suppose one premise of these books is that if time is unlimited, it loses all importance. 

Tom Koss

A third book???

I suppose one premise of these books is that if time is unlimited, it loses all importance. 

On the Calculation of Volume II

Reviews

Highlights