2024/164: Orbital — Samantha Harvey

[tamaranth]

2024/164: Orbital — Samantha Harvey

We exist now in a fleeting bloom of life and knowing, one finger-snap of frantic being, and this is it. This summery burst of life is more bomb than bud. These fecund times are moving fast. [loc. 1672]

A short, intense, literary novel set during 24 hours -- sixteen orbits -- on the International Space Station. From one angle, nothing happens: from another, everything happens. The six crew members (four men and two women: American, Russian, Japanese, Italian) watch a super-typhoon form; watch a film about possessed cosmonauts; carry out their scientific and maintenance duties, a constant flow of tasks; are captivated by the Earth spinning by below them. 

Each has a rich inner life, from the man considering a postcard of Las Meninas to the woman mourning her mother's sudden to death, to the man concealing the cherry-sized lump next to his collarbone. Each becomes profound: the nature of God, the importance of love, the fragility of Earth. Humans are 'an animal that does not just bear witness, but loves what it witnesses', and the six crew members' perspectives on the Earth are fascinating, poignant and full of love. 

This is a beautiful book, and a deserved Booker winner. It was also shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, which recognises authors who 'can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now': and yes, though the crew cannot affect anything they see, there is hope and love there. (On Ann Druyan's brainwaves forming part of the 'cargo' of Voyager, Harvey writes 'The sound signature of a love-flooded brain, passing through the Oort Cloud, through solar systems, past hurtling meteorites, into the gravitational pull of stars that don’t yet exist.' [loc. 1315]) 

I'm downloading the audiobook, because I think the rhythms of Harvey's glorious prose will be accentuated when read aloud.

The simultaneous not wanting to be here and always wanting to be here, the heart scraped hollow with craving, which is not emptiness in the least, more the knowledge of how fillable he is.[loc. 1513]

Comments

[purplecthulhu]

'The simultaneous not wanting to be here and always wanting to be here' - that sounds very much like the experience of being on an observing trip to professional telescopes. It's both wonderful and amazing and you want to go home as well. The ISS must be even more like that. Will have to read this.