I’ve already written about the first two volumes of Solvej Balle’s wonderful time-loop novel series, which has the somewhat clunky, yet intriguingly scientific-sounding title of On the Calculation of Volume.
I don’t want to bore you with another blog post about this amazingly inventive seven-volume series. I also don’t want to give away spoilers, which will be inevitable if I start writing about volumes III and IV, which I recently finished. So this blog post will be about Miley Cyrus and David Foster Wallace.
I promise, this blog post is about Miley Cyrus and David Foster Wallace, NOT On the Calculation of Volume. You’ll see.
Where we are in the publication of On the Calculation of Volume?
Solvej Balle is writing her masterpiece of speculative fiction in Danish. The first five volumes have been published in that language. Volume VI is set to be released this summer in the original Danish. The last and final book, volume VII, does not yet have a release date.
The first four volumes have been published in English translation. Volume V is set to be released this fall in English translation. The final two volumes do not yet have an English-language release date.
My reflections on the first two volumes of On the Calculation of Volume
I wrote this blog post on volume I.
I wrote this blog post on volume II.
I’m writing this very blog post you are reading right now about volumes III and IV. That is, I would be writing about them, but instead (as you can tell) I’m writing about Miley Cyrus and David Foster Wallace. I will say, Balle’s novels are very good, very worth reading. And they are short, slim books that pass by quickly.
In case you wish to purchase On the Calculation of Volume
You can find the novel in parts on Bookshop.org:
Why read On the Calculation of Volume?
The protagonist is calm and meditative and serene, but never boring. Time moves in interesting ways in this novel, not just in the obvious time-loop way, but also in the progression of the narrative arc. Each volume begins in a strange whirlwind, slows to a crawl, and then speeds up for a cliffhanger ending. It’s as if time is looping in the books themselves. I can’t wait to learn how the last three volumes unfold.
Also, aren’t the covers pretty? (See the image above.) I love how the heat map image seems to move and morph, frame by frame. (But note that in the image above, the covers are out of numerical order.)
A true story about Miley Cyrus and David Foster Wallace
Since this blog post is about Miley Cyrus and David Foster Wallace, I’d better get to the point.
A few weeks ago, I was driving home on the freeway. You have to understand, I live in the DC suburbs. The highways around here can fairly be described as a terrorizing maze of insanity. My exit is hidden amidst dozens of confusing signs and multiple lanes, including local lanes, express lanes, and HOV lanes, and honestly it’s a mess. But it’s a mess I know very well, having driven it many, many times. I know exactly where to get off the highway to head for home: easy peasy.
Well, as I was driving home on this particular day, I was cruising along while listening to music, and at some point, I looked at the road signs to determine when I should exit the freeway. And I discovered that I had overshot my exit by 20 miles. Around me was no crazy profusion of signs or lanes. I was in the literal countryside, on a gentle two-lane highway surrounded by quiet woods. Somehow I drove my car unconsciously for 20 extra, unintended miles. How do these things happen?
Then a few weeks after that, I was running while listening to music. And somehow, I tripped and landed on my face on gravel-strewn asphalt. Later, I went back to the site of my tripping and was astonished to see only the tiniest vertical difference between sidewalk slab and asphalt driveway. There is no reason why I should have tripped there. But I did. I landed on my knees, wrists, elbow, shoulder, and face and banged myself up pretty good. (I’m healed now.) How do these things happen?
Miley Cyrus’s most recent album, Something Beautiful, was released one year ago. This is the music I was listening to on both of the occasions recounted here. It’s cinematic, hypnotic. It puts me in a trance. So much of a trance that I apparently can’t notice my surroundings. Listening to Something Beautiful feels like I’m starring in a movie of my own life . . . a more exotic and fastastical version of my own life.
Have you read Infinite Jest? I think I may have found the real-life musical equivalent to David Foster Wallace’s fictional film! This film (titled Infinite Jest) is so compelling that no one can stop watching it, once they start. A major plot point of the novel is that people keep watching and watching the film until they die of dehydration and starvation.
Art can be powerful. Use it with care.
(I am hoping that’s the lesson here, and not that I’m a complete space cadet. Note to self: don’t become an airline pilot.)
Has any art experience acted so powerfully upon you that it prevented you from living your life properly or wisely?
