The volume of time II

Original Language: Danish

Títutulu Original: About the calculation of volume, II

Translation: Maria Rosich in Catalán and Victoria Alonso in Spanish, for Anagrama

Year of publication: 2020

Valoración: advisable

It is always difficult to review a book published by deliveries. Because, in addition, in this case, the story is continuous, that is, there are no relevant temporary leaps (beyond what a story is plugged in the repetition of the same day over time). So, first, ¡ALERTA SPOILERS! Because being the second volume, I will start from what happens in the first.

In this second volume of the promising story of Solvej Balle, Tara Selter continues to star in the narration almost absolutely. In this way, the structure, the rhythm and the argument have a clearly continuous line with the previous volume, although, as the protagonist herself experiences in her life, there are certain alterations, not only in a plot but of focus.

The EM story begins with a confession that hides an acceptance when Tara is fully aware that “now that on November eighteen, my days are simple, I move through known streets, but I am not part of them.” She, after a year living in a kind of temporary limbo, knows that few changes can wait in her days, so, since time advances in her day to day, once a year after the event has elapsed, she decides to influence her in time, adapt it to her life, force in it the passage of the stations and look for the dates indicated, the special days of the calendar. Tara does not plan to allow to live stagnant on a specific day, where time is always the same, where there are no parties or celebrations, where every day is the same; You have to break the monotony and adapt the non-step of the days in your life, you have to recover and break the consequence of that temporary accident, recover the pulse of time and its passage, establish links with “your” time and find and celebrate those special days: anniversaries, parties or Christmas because «traditions do not have to be harmonious; Simply have to exist. They have to exist as a kind of security network, so you have where to lie. When the world spoils. When time breaks. “

It is possible to recognize the merit of Balle is this second volume, because the task that the author had in this second book was not easy: how to maintain reading interest in a plot that, for concept, is constantly repeated. And it resolves it in a very successful way: renumbing in this volume its way of approaching the story, dumping it in the assimilation of the situation and how to take advantage of it, nourishing the story of history and experiences and, since time remains motionless, it will be the protagonist who moves in search of learning, knowledge or simply ways of entertaining a time that seems anchored for all except for herself.