Aboard a space ship a crew of six astronauts, two women and four men, circle planet earth sixteen times in twenty four hours – and repeat that for nine long months, or, incidentally, the time it takes to grow a human. They each work on their individual research projects, experimenting on mice and human heart cells, but the biggest experiment is definitely how they themselves adapt to life in space, to seeing their home from above, unable to reach it for months on end. Observing earth is their most important task – and observing how observing earth impacts their minds.
The announcement of Samantha Harvey as the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize has been met with mixed reactions. I have come across many rave reviews, talked to people who really loved this slender novel, and followed discussions of readers who were greatly disappointed, both in the book itself and it receiving one of the most important awards for literary fiction in the English language. Having skipped the long list this time around, I cannot comment on how deservedly it won the prize among its competitors (though personally I’d have chosen James over this one), but I do feel there must be books published last year that tell a stronger story and bend the boundaries of what literary fiction can do more courageously. Orbital does, no doubt, address themes and questions that are important and very much on the foreground of contemporary public discourse. Her tone matches, I think, the prevalent sentiments of the past few years on a planet haunted by wars and destruction.
Orbital is a mostly plotless book. And many have criticised it for that, but I do love a plotless, thoughtful read. However, much as I wanted it to, this one didn’t blow me away. I had hoped to be astonished by Harvey’s imaginings of life in space, as I was by Martin Macinness’s In Ascension. Reading that, it was as if I could share the awe the author has for the planet. Reading In Ascension can best be described as a physical experience. It is a book that moved me deeply and still plays on my mind a year and a half after reading it. I doubt Orbital will have the same lasting impression on me, though sometimes books do grow on me over time. At sentence level, Samantha Harvey writes with a tender beauty. It is a joy to read her words and repeatedly I would stumble across a sentence, a paragraph that really stood out to me, so truthful, it seemed to leap of the page. Most of the thoughts and sentiments she conjures in this novel, however, would be pleasant to read bit I could barely remember once I turned the page. And in fact, when I flicked through my copy, looking back at the passages I had underlined, I found that most of them were pretty, rather than profound thoughts and didn’t stand the test of a second reading.
Before long, for all of them, a desire takes hold, it’s the desire - no the need (fuelled by fervour) - to protect this huge yet tiny earth. This thing of such miraculous and bizarre loveliness.
The word that comes to mind when I think of this novel is fleeting, and I mean that in the best possible way. Samantha Harvey’s words were a pleasure to read, a tender stream of thoughts to glide through. I enjoyed looking lovingly back at our beautiful planet alongside her astronauts, grateful for having been offered this glimpse. And once I turned the final page, there was nothing holding me back and I was very much ready to move on to my next read.
Published by Vermilion, 2024
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