Experiencing On the Calculation of Volume
I'm not sure I can add anything to thoughts on On the Calculation of Volume but now I'm all caught up to the English language releases I wanted to anyway.
(Very vague spoilers for the books - though nothing that isn't mentioned in any blurb or synopsis.)
It's a very meditative experience, reading these books. At least, I find it meditative. I understand how other people might find it boring. For me, though, it works.
It's like how before you watch Jeanne Dielman you think, why does this have to be nearly three and a half hours long and then once you watch Jeanne Dielman you absolutely understand why it has to be nearly three and a half hours long.
Why do four (thus far) pretty short and very repetitive volumes need to be four (thus far) pretty short and very repetitive volumes? Because that's what being trapped in a time loop is like!
When an author can make the experience of reading the book so similar to the experience of the character(s) in the book... that's great writing.
Especially in book four we need to be trapped in Tara's new, solidifying, reality. There are echoes of the first book with the listening to the sounds and we have to really be in it with her. A lot of time passes in volume four that a time skip wouldn't convey the full force of. It fully works on me, even though I'm of course a bit "Yes, I get it, the hand moving the cup, I know." I would also be like that if I was Tara and this was all I had to punctuate my days.
It feels necessary and I'm happy to trust it is necessary.
I'm also interested in how, despite spending so much time with Tara, I feel like we know relatively little about Tara? For a first person narration it's so detached but again, that feels like her character.
Probably volume two is my favourite so far. Because it felt very much like what I would do, were I to find myself in that kind of time loop. But then, volume three is also. Volume four further explores new avenues of interesting philosophy. And as it is the midpoint and as suggested by the end, things are going to change.
Part of my notes on Reading.