"Orbital" (Samantha Harvey)

I've never been disappointed by a Booker Prize-winning novel (Prophet Song recommendation last year).  This book was the 2024 winner, and thus has been the subject of numerous reviews available online (NYT,  Guardian, New Yorker), so I'll try to avoid echoing their commentary.  

The novel is about astronauts in a space station, but it is not science fiction (the author said she wanted to write a "space pastoral" about the beauty of the planet and the cosmos).  The course of the novel covers 24 hours (16 orbits, which then serve as the titles for the chapters).  We get a look at the backgrounds of the multinational crew and their daily activities, with extended commentary on their thoughts about the planet they circle above, and the cosmos behind them.

Here are some excerpts of passages I particularly liked:

Re their reliance on life support systems:  "... and anyway, all beings are living in life-support machines commonly called bodies and all of these will fail eventually." (29)

"Nell wants sometimes to ask Shaun how it is he can be an astronaut and believe in God, a Creationist God that is, but she knows what his answer would be.  He's ask how it is she an be an astronaut and not believe in God... Is Shaun's universe just the same as hers but made with care, to a design?  Hers an occurrence of nature and his an artwork?  The difference seems both trivial and insurmountable." (66)

"You think of the training you did in water and how the still water of the training pool holds you in a way that space doesn't, how space has a ferocity and wants (though without malice, with nothing but empty indifference) to tilt you, upend and undo you, and you remember then not to fight it, only to adapt to it." (101)

Viewing the earth at night: "The night's electric excess takes their breath.  The spread of life.  The way the planet proclaims to the abyss: there is something and someone here.  And how, for all that, a sense of friendliness and peace prevails, since even at night there's only one man-made border in the whole of the world; a long trail of lights between Pakistan and India.  That's all civilization has to show for its divisions, and by day even that has gone." (106)

"It's the planet's indifferent turning in an indifferent space and the perfection of the sphere which transcends all language... You'll see no countries, just a rolling indivisible globe which knows no possibility of separation, let alone war." (107)

"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. This thing that is, given the poor choice of alternatives, so unmistakably home. An unbounded place, a suspended jewel so shockingly bright. Can humans not find peace with one another? With the earth? It’s not a fond wish but a fretful demand. Can we not stop tyrannising and destroying and ransacking and squandering this one thing on which our lives depend?" (108)

"And when you do look out any claustrophobia becomes agoraphobia in an instant, or you have both at once." (123)

Re rationing a favorite food: "... he sent her three packs which she's been working through in morsels, the pleasure of eating it almost trumped by the pain of its being gone." (148)

"The coast of Canada portside not a coast at all but a land that's been sledgehammered into random pieces." (188)

Several of these passages come from one of my favorite chapters - "Orbit 4, ascending."  Another favorite is Orbit 7.  And the best of all is Orbit 13, which lyrically presents the "cosmic calendar" - a concept so mind-bending and important that I'm going to blog it separately.  As novels go, this one is relatively short (about 200 pages), and thus an easy read in a couple leisurely evenings.  But if your life is so tragically hectic that you don't even have that much spare time, at least sample those three chapters.

Finally, some words that were new to me (or that I had forgotten...):

"... the thing that goes around rather than is gone around, except for by its knobble of moon.? (41)  A small knob (!!) from Middle English.  Odd to apply it to a freestanding orb.

"... improbably soft against the truss of the raft you are navigating around." (102)  Lots of usages (the hernia one being most familiar), often but not always signifying "support."

"The apricot desert of Takla Makan traced about with the faint confluencing and parting lines of creek beds." (107).  I encountered the word in 2014 while blogging about The Degree Confluence Project.  An obvious combination of "together" and "flow."

"... the capsule's probe penetrated neatly the spacecraft's drogue." (116)  Etymology probably from "drag," sometimes referring to conical parachutes used as braking devices, but here apparently a conical basket used as a docking point.

"...earth... lilac orange almond mauve white magenta bruised textured shellac-ed splendour." (119)  I would have written the word with a "k," but the underlying noun doesn't have one, so apparently this is acceptable (though typically written without the hyphen).  Interesting that the etymology comes from "shell."

"... great coffee grinders wimbling into wayless dark." (131)  A wimble is a hand tool for boring holes.

"A full-throttle scarper in their billionaire's rocket..." (199).  I previously encountered this word while reading Cloud Atlas; at that time a reader offered this in a comment: "To scarper = to run away, usually from authority."

"... unify for a few short moments before falling back into the rin-tin-tin and jumbled tumbling..." (207)   I am baffled by this one.  The obvious association (when capitalized - this usage wasn't) is to the dog, whose name in turn came from good luck charms children gave to American soldiers in WWII.  Perhaps it has a colloquial use re running amok etc.  Readers thoughts?

Page designations are from the hardbound first edition.