Orbital
by Samantha Harvey
Six astronauts orbit Earth sixteen times in twenty-four hours. Harvey makes you feel every pass.
I could read a tower of non-fiction books about space, climate change and humanity, and they wouldn't pack the same punch as this 144-page novel.
In it, six astronauts and cosmonauts circle our planet on the International Space Station. There's two Russians (Roman and Anton), a Japanese (Chie), a Brit (Nell), an Italian (Pietro) and an American (Shaun). They've all been given a sliver of backstory, just enough to light a spark, and all have their specialties (one focuses on microbes, while another runs experiments on mice).
The book comprises twenty-four hours, during which they orbit Earth sixteen times (“the whip-crack of morning arrives every ninety minutes”). A day in space starts with time on the treadmill or lifting resistance-devices to prevent their weightless muscles from faltering; a day in space ends in something of a floating cocoon, strapped to a bed. In-between, they go about their tasks—running tests and experiments on their bodies, or photographing a typhoon heading towards The Philippines—and spend time together eating their dried food, playing cards or watching a movie.
Through it all, Samantha Harvey's writing feels like it glitters and levitates, at times applying the lightest of touches. She pictures the cramped confines her characters find themselves in, the inconveniences you never knew they'd experience, and the beauty they have the privilege to witness.
Of sleeping in space, she writes:
“You feel all the fizzing stars and the moods of the oceans and the lurch of the light through your skin, and if the earth were to pause for a second on its orbit, you’d wake with a start knowing something was wrong.”
Or, on the jetlag that comes with adjusting to time in space:
“The mind is in a dayless freak zone, surfing earth’s hurtling horizon. Day is here, and then they see night come upon them like the shadow of a cloud racing over a wheat field.”
She zig-zags, as if weightless, and as she describes the magnificence of our planet through minute details or outlines the destruction an ever-more common storm leaves behind, she manages so well to capture the frailness of our planet and our existence in a way that feels hopeful. Alarming, yes, of course. But ultimately, it becomes the kind of book you wish everyone would read: to get as close as possible to experiencing the Overview effect without hopping on a rocket, and to rekindle their appreciation of the speeding planet we inhabit.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Published by Jonathan Cape in 2023
