Jim Brown reviewed On the Calculation of Volume IV by Solvej Balle
Naming a break in time
This series continues to deliver. This book focuses a lot on how to name things: what to call the situation (not a catastrophe but maybe an anastrophe?) and what to call the people stuck in the 19th of November.
Here's my favorite passage from this volume:
"Maybe that is why I write. Maybe it's my way of being alone. Maybe the page is my door out of the disarray. A means of finding a way through all the thoughts and voices that blur together. To sit alone with paper and pen and know that there is nothing but Tara's hand moving gently across the page, gathering the voices and gestures into that motion, ideas and explanations, all that we share, that we are many, a community, a flock, an odd bunch, and yet: my hand moves simply with all that has seeped into my sentences, into my hand, …
This series continues to deliver. This book focuses a lot on how to name things: what to call the situation (not a catastrophe but maybe an anastrophe?) and what to call the people stuck in the 19th of November.
Here's my favorite passage from this volume:
"Maybe that is why I write. Maybe it's my way of being alone. Maybe the page is my door out of the disarray. A means of finding a way through all the thoughts and voices that blur together. To sit alone with paper and pen and know that there is nothing but Tara's hand moving gently across the page, gathering the voices and gestures into that motion, ideas and explanations, all that we share, that we are many, a community, a flock, an odd bunch, and yet: my hand moves simply with all that has seeped into my sentences, into my hand, and I write myself onto a narrow path, sentenced by sentence, I make my way forward, tiptoeing, so softly. Alone." (160)