In Orbital, six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, Samantha Harvey’s latest novel has made a huge impact in the literary world in contrast to its small size. Our colleagues Iris and Damla tell us how this book left them starry-eyed.
Iris
2024’s Booker Prize winner! I haven’t read many Booker winners before (not on purpose, that’s just how it’s worked out so far – several are on my TBR, but I can’t seem to get around to them). I can’t really claim this as a Booker read either; I read it way back in January, well before the longlist was announced. But it’s a good book, and I’m glad it has won.
This novella is about six astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Anyone who knows me probably knows that I love novellas and I love space, so of course this was the perfect read for me. It’s a gorgeous, thoughtful, slow-but-intense story that feels incredibly real. I’ve obviously never been to the ISS and so have no idea how accurate all the tiny details are, but it seemed to me like the author must have done a tremendous amount of research. A beautiful book that I’m sure to go back to!
Damla
“The earth is the answer to every question. The earth is the face of an exulted lover; they watch it sleep and wake and become lost in its habits. The earth is a mother waiting for her children to return, full of stories and rapture and longing. Their bones a little less dense, their limbs a little thinner. Eyes filled with sights difficult to tell.”
One of my lifetime dreams (if not aspirations for obvious reasons) has always been to go to space. To ISS, more specifically. To see our planet as a whole while it floats endlessly in the vast darkness of space as so few in the history of our species have. To see everything we’ve known, observing the collective life on earth (all except your own self) at one glance, the whole world scaled down outside your window. It must be an indescribably life changing perspective.
Except Samantha Harvey has captured the words to convey that feeling perfectly.
In Orbital, we get to experience orbiting the earth 16 times per day with four astronauts and 2 cosmonauts inside a tiny little container in the endless vastness of space. And during those 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets, looking down on our planet really makes you appreciate both our insignificance in the universe, and the beauty and importance of the smallest things our Earth and lives have to offer.
A concept that is so cosmically vast yet so atomically small could only be covered in such dreamlike, poetic writing. I really don’t think I am overselling it when I say that the whole book was so majestic and ethereal, yet so human.
Don’t be fooled by its small size, this is a book to be read slowly, savoring every sentence. This will definitely be a favorite for me for many years to come.
