Title: Orbital
Author: Samantha Harvey
From the publisher:
"A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital
deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling
through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of
its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and
cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left
their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles
an hour as the earth reels below.
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| Treats not allowed on the space station. |
We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate."
Insights and Opinions
In a departure from the norm, we met in December both to celebrate the holidays and to continue cheering each other up after national circumstances too dire to mention. Of course we needed to start with a round robin on who was doing what for the holidays, then segue to tech support as Jocey expertly captured Chris and Steve via remote connection and a TV tray, then engage in general munching and appreciation of Lois' contribution of liquor-soaked chocolates, after which we ran up against our 30-minutes for general chitchat rule, and started discussing the book.
+ Shirley got us rolling with her observations. She found the initial pages, which described in detail what each of the astronauts was doing as part of their work, boring, and was eager to move past it. But later, when Pietro recalls his teenage daughter asking him if he thinks progress is beautiful, his answer made her sit up and pay attention. He says "...you didn't ask if progress is good, and a person is not beautiful because they're good, they're beautiful because they're alive, like a child. Alive and curious and restless. Never mind good...Sometimes destructive, sometimes hurtful, sometimes selfish, but beautiful because alive. And progress is like that, by its nature alive."
+ Chie's mother makes a similar point later in the book when she says "...you might regard in wonder these men walking on the moon but you must never forget the price humanity pays for its moments of glory, because humanity doesn't know when to stop, it doesn't know when to call it a day, so be wary is what I mean though I say nothing, be wary."
+ Margy also was struck by that passage. The astronauts are "so aware of where they are, and also realize the beauty of things until humans get there. But what they are able to see trumps all of that."
+ Jocey read the book as a eulogy, feeling that the author is balancing the beauty of what the astronauts see from their windows every day with what's happening to people on the ground. From space, the view is astonishing and beautiful and without borders while on the ground, a powerful global-warming-fueled typhoon is pummeling the Philippines.
+ Chris didn't think of it as a eulogy and was fascinated by the science, the number of transits around the earth in one Earth day, the experiments taking place on board, the daily routine of people in a small space orbiting the planet. On the other hand, she said, "I found it to be a fascinating book in many ways, with many great passages, but then I also wondered how the author could take something that is so magical and make it so monotonous." Margy agreed, saying "A little plot would have gone a long way."
+ Steve couldn't tell if he found it monotonous or not as he was listening on audio, which is a very different experience from reading off the page. He was struck by the author's gift with metaphor and her extraordinary insights into human nature and also science. "I learned so much that I have never been exposed to before. I've never read a book like this before in my life." Chris and Liz, both space nerds, agreed.
+ There was some discussion as to whether this book is really a novel. Liz, for instance, decided that Orbital is not a novel, but a really long poem because of the beauty and rhythm of the language, the long sentences strung together in unusual ways, the cadence one would hear if reading it aloud. "I would have hated this book if I continued to think of it as a novel. But about three-quarters of the way through, I decided it was a poem and just sat back to enjoy the beauty of the sentences."
+ Linda referenced the New Yorker review which states that Orbital is unlike any other novel ever but that it does what only a novel can do. "My husband loved this book, but he's a scientist. I wanted to love it. Then, about two-thirds of the way through, I thought 'Oh! This is just like The Waves, with six characters who never merge, and then I read later that the author's favorite author is Virginia Wolff.'"
+ Did any of us come to care about any of the characters? Not really, with the possible exception of Chie, who is interesting because of her quirky list-making and because we know more of her history. The rest of them are too distant and only part the scenery.
+ Each of us had favorite passages to share, and we were all taken with the moment when the caller from Vancouver asks Roman if he ever feels crestfallen. This opens a four-page analysis of the meaning of the word, Steve's favorite passage in the book. "I loved her careful nuanced definition of crestfallen. Harvey has a hard-fisted command of the English language -- a scientific precision."
+ Linda wondered if our group felt this book deserved to win the Booker Prize. Lois felt honors should have gone to Percival Everett's James instead, which "gives us a whole new perspective on a classic we accept as the story of its time, takes it inside out, stands it on its head, and says okay now what do you think?"
+ While it doesn't have the traditional structure and story arc of the typical novel, Orbital is a book from which we all learned a great deal and is definitely worth the read.
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| The earthlings |
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| Those we patched in from the space station. |
What's Next on Our Docket
For January, we will read The Ministry of Time by Kailene Bradley. If enough of us are in town, Steve will host. Otherwise we will meet via Zoom. In either case, we will Zoom in those who are out of town.
