On the Calculation of Volume (Book IV)
Astonishing ... Makes us see that we have constructed our world so we don’t have to think about time’s scalding realities ... By the beginning of Book IV, a society is forming ... A symphony of voices, kind, curious, various, energetic and possibly healing ... Almost more fun to think with than to read – and for a novel of ideas, that’s no bad thing.
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Category-destroying ... This is a strange, absorbing, subversively funny literary performance, a deadpan satire of life in a borderless, complacent Europe and an allegory of civilizational stuckness ... Balle’s eternal present is a notably calm, conflict-free place of communal meals and earnest deliberation ... Is this gentle, melancholy project best read as a protest, a warning or a comforting fairy tale? It may be too soon to say.
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Balle is not interested in the physics of space-time, but in a structure of feeling ... The problem here isn’t so much that the books are boring, though they certainly are; it’s that they don’t feel true—to life, to marriage, to any social relationships ... No law says that you can’t write a novel in which what happens to bodies is less important to people than what happens to Roman coins. But it has a curious effect. It torques the world, makes everyone in it seem a little alien or out of touch ... Balle has a habit of putting her most exciting events on the last page of the book, making them feel less like opportunities for her characters to think and act, and more like bait to keep the reader interested.
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