Groundhog Day Archives

Tuesday

27 May 2025

Repetitive strain: On the Calculation of Volume, Books I and II, by Solvej Balle, reviewed

I have counted the days. It is my 122nd eighteenth of November. I have come a long way from the seventeenth and I do not know whether I will ever see the nineteenth. But the eighteenth arrives again and again. This is life for Tara Selter, the protagonist of On the Calculation of Volume, a mesmerising projected septology by the Danish writer Solvej Balle that will make anyone who has ever longed to pause time rethink their wish list. Book I, published in Denmark in 2020 and on this year’s International Booker Prize longlist, opens on Day 121. Tara, an antiquarian bookseller, is hiding from her husband Thomas in the spare room of their cottage in Clairon-sous-Bois, a fictional town in northern France.

Friday

2 February 2024

Cockburn

PETA comes for Punxsutawney Phil

From our US edition

The ever-joyful People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have put the nail in their no-fun coffin by announcing a new target: the bizarre and beloved Pennsylvania-Dutch tradition of pulling a groundhog out of his burrow to predict the weather. On this Groundhog Day morning, Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring, but PETA had to go and rain on everyone’s parade by reminding us that Phil “is not a meteorologist.” PETA branded the celebration “a cruel holiday display” because groundhogs are “naturally shy, sensitive prey animals who react poorly when handled in front of raucous crowds.

Tuesday

23 January 2024

Teresa Mull

Groundhog Day, a break in the bleakness of winter

From our US edition

February is the worst month and everybody knows it. The awkward number of days, the wretched weather. Even the way it’s spelled is irritating. Yet just when you think your raging Seasonal Affective Disorder will get the best of you, February, of all months, offers a break in the bleakness that’s been indomitable since New Year’s. It’s absurd, hokey and best of all, like the Pennsylvania Dutch who invented it, immune to politics. Which is why Groundhog Day should be a national holiday instead of just a regional one. Groundhog Day seemed like a big deal when I was a kid.