Shipwrecked in a time-loop – Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume plays a long game

By David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University

We tend to think of repetition, especially with regard to novels and other media, in negative terms. To say a work is formulaic or cliched is to say that it repeats exhausted tropes and plots.

But repetition is central to art. Tradition, character, genre and style are all types of repetition. Repetition is at the heart of various literary forms and modes.

On the Calculation of Volume IV – Solvej Balle, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell (Faber)

The genre at play in On…

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