ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME

In the latest installment of Balle’s septology, the old life grows increasingly abstract for those locked in time.

Across the first four volumes of Balle’s ingenious novel, in which a bookseller named Tara Selter inexplicably repeats Nov. 18, her predicament never seemed like a condemnation. An existential problem, yes: How many people are similarly stuck, and why? How can they create more resources, or at least not drain them? What does community look like? But as Tara’s diary progresses from its 4,541st to its 10,455th day in this volume, frustrations and fractures are increasing. A large collective of the time-trapped has gathered in Belgium, and a splinter group has convinced itself that there’s an escape hatch. Others travel the planet together, chasing changing seasons. One of the group’s leaders argues that they’re “trapped in a privilege,” an opportunity to explore new freedoms. But many, including Tara, are skeptical. People are still aging and, inevitably, dying, and her old life with her husband in France feels increasingly foggy and distant. To pass the time, she serves as the community archivist, collecting and organizing reports that people give her about Nov. 18–related phenomena, a task that brings her physically and emotionally closer with Milas Garth, the community librarian. This is the most sociologically focused entry in Balle’s series, and in some ways the fussiest, with longueurs about the structure of the community’s “plenary session” and copious details about Tara’s approach to preserving materials. But it has some of the series’ most deeply melancholy passages as well, particularly as Tara pays what feels like a farewell visit to her husband and, in the series’ typical cliffhanger fashion, plots her next move.

A richer, more complex snapshot of Balle’s peculiar world.