Orbital (2023)
Why this one?
This is another 2024 Booker Longlist selection. This sounded interesting (space, yeah!) and short, so why not?
Samantha Harvey (1975- ; active 2008- ) was born in Kent, England. She studied philosophy at the Universities of York and Sheffield, as well as subsquently completing an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing.
Her debut novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize (losing out to Marilynne Robinson's Home) and longlisted for the Booker. It won a Betty Trask Prize. She has been shortlisted for numerous other awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Dear Thief (2014) and the Walter Scott Prize for The Western Wind (2018). In 2020, she published her first non-fiction work, The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping. Orbital is her fifth novel and marks her first appearance on the Booker list since her debut. It has also been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Ursula K. Guin Prize.
Thoughts, etc.
Orbital is conceptually simple yet unique. It follows a single day aboard an international space station, where six astronauts and cosmonauts go about their work, maintaining their craft, conducting scientific experiments, exercising, and observing and recording activity on Earth as they hurtle around it at incomprehensible speed. In the twenty-four hours covered by this slim novel, its protagonists will observe sixteen sunrises and sunsets on the planet below. In between the details of the day, we get sketches of the lives the six crewmembers have left behind.
While there are hints of a near-future setting (with a moon mission overtaking our characters in the course of the day), this is explicitly not science fiction. I think I saw Harvey describe it as ‘space pastoral’ somewhere, which feels fitting. The setting is there to give a fresh perspective on our lives on Earth, a planet observed from afar in its beauty, weirdness and essential emptiness (signs of life become visible only at night; borders are erased; vast continents speed past in seconds).
There’s little in the way of plot: while the crewmembers’ motivations and challenges are briefly explored, that seems only there to remind us that these are familiar humans, existing and going about their business at a strange vantage point between the tiny Earth and the vastness of space, rather than to give any real forward momentum of character ‘development’.
There are hints of bigger storylines at play - on Earth, a massively destructive typhoon is brewing, methodically and helplessly monitored from above but down below very much indicative of the changing climate. The moon mission in the background is another hint towards a possible future for humanity. But the book is less about these potential futures and more interested in exploring perspective.
It signals this interest in perspective throughout. It discusses Velazquez’s Las Meninas, an artwork in which the question of whose perspective we are looking from, and where the focus of our attention should be, is central. It gives similar attention to Michael Collins’ photo of the Earth and his colleagues’ lunar module from the Moon, often described as significant as he is purportedly the only human alive (or dead) not to be included in the photo. Harvey’s musing offers an interestingly different interpretation. Elsewhere Earthly concerns are put into perspective not only by physical distance but by contemplation of time; from the speed at which it can be orbited to by our astronauts to a quick rattle through the history of everything, emphasising the ‘humans enter at one minute to midnight’ explanation of our place in the overall history of the Universe.
Its strengths are closely tied to this epic contemplation of existence. It’s a book that can’t help but induce feelings of awe. It’s been described as ‘uplifting’ in many places, and while it doesn’t go for a catastrophising vision of the planet’s future, it doesn’t feel straightforwardly positive either. ‘Humbling’ might be a better word. It’s also incredibly beautifully written, with lyrical and evocative prose almost miraculously capturing its protagonists’ unique vantage point in a way that far outdoes any visual representation.
At times I did feel that the book’s perpetually awestruck tone veered a little too close to parodies of the esteemed Professor Brian Cox (apologies to any non-British readers): a little too much ‘ISN’T. THE UNIVERSE. AMAAAAZING???’ for my hardened cynicism to fully embrace. It’s also a little too poetic and plotless to truly hit the spot for me. I wanted it to go somewhere. But for a book literally called Orbital, maybe that was never the point.
Score
8
It’s an undeniable thing of beauty, and an exceptional achievement. I score it a little lower because it doesn’t offer quite what I want from a novel. But on its own terms, it’s something rather special.
Next up
Another relatively short one, in the shape of Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot.
