Orbital

Asier Iturralde Sarasola reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Ez nau harrapatu, baina behin eta berriz erakarri nau

4 stars

Liburu bitxia da. Amaitu ondoren jendearen kritikak irakurtzen aritu naiz eta askori jasanezina egin zaie, argumenturik ez duela diote eta aspergarria dela. Egia da gauza gutxi gertatzen direla, eta niri ere ez nau harrapatu, baina Lurraren grabitateak espazio-estazioa orbitan biraka mantentzen duen bezala ni ere behin eta berriz itzuli naiz liburuaren beste zatitxo bat irakurtzera.

Astronauten eta kosmonauten gogoetek eta pentsamenduek pisu handia dute. Lurrean utzi dituzten familia eta ezagunak ere ageri dira. Horien agerpenak dira kontakizunetik gehien duten zatiak.

Hala ere, protagonista nagusia Lurra bera da. Denbora asko pasatzen dute guztion etxera begira, eta orbitetan zehar ikusten dutenaren deskribapenek pisu handia dute liburuan. Hiztegia zati horietan ireki behar izan dut maizena.

Otts reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space”

5 stars

A single day aboard the space station is 16 orbits of the Earth. A lovely book that takes a different approach to being in space: humanist, tenderness for all we are. Rare in the softness it treats the cold darkness of space, mainly stemming from its point of view above the Earth. Inhabiting a place of extreme contradictions, Harvey draws a circle around our hearts.

Marek reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Swept along by gorgeous prose.

4 stars

I picked this up having not seen it before, from the combination of the blurb and the reviews on the cover, promising a beautiful book about astronauts on the International Space Station.

It is precisely that. Delicious, evocative, and poetic prose in a sweeping flow that both captures the disorienting combination of the banal and extraordinary of life in space. Astronauts in (or "on") orbit are inevitably some of the most capable and amazing people alive, but their lives are finely regimented and filled with finicky, highly structured work and lots and lots of housekeeping. The juxtaposition of that caretaking work with the fact they are in space, looking down on the world beneath from a god's-eye view, is central to the narrative here. It is less a story, and more an exploration of the humanity in the extraordinariness of the astronauts, and the extraordinary in the ordinariness of the …

I picked this up having not seen it before, from the combination of the blurb and the reviews on the cover, promising a beautiful book about astronauts on the International Space Station.

It is precisely that. Delicious, evocative, and poetic prose in a sweeping flow that both captures the disorienting combination of the banal and extraordinary of life in space. Astronauts in (or "on") orbit are inevitably some of the most capable and amazing people alive, but their lives are finely regimented and filled with finicky, highly structured work and lots and lots of housekeeping. The juxtaposition of that caretaking work with the fact they are in space, looking down on the world beneath from a god's-eye view, is central to the narrative here. It is less a story, and more an exploration of the humanity in the extraordinariness of the astronauts, and the extraordinary in the ordinariness of the Earth that they so eagerly and passionately leave behind.

Except they are tethered to it, psychologically, and spend huge amounts of their days ensuring the ISS is kept as close to Earth-like as it can be, because that's what makes space at all liveable.

There was some ebb and flow to the reading of this, for me, times when I lost it a little bit, though that was likely to do with me and the way I was reading it as much as anything to do with the writing.

I found this book beautiful, for its humanity, and its invigoration of our relationship to the Earth. It's short, and well worth your time.

Fionnáin reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Above the pale blue dot

5 stars

Orbital is a novel that seems to go nowhere except round and round, and yet it grows into a cacophony of story during its brief and deceptive simplicity.

On the surface, it is a well researched, character-driven fiction about four astronauts and two cosmonauts orbiting the earth in a vessel for scientific observation. However, this container becomes a device for Samantha Harvey to collapse progress, poverty, climate change, ambition, grief and hope into a tiny vessel. All too often we are reminded that only a few inches of metal protect [us?] from complete doom, such is the fragility of life. Beautifully written and concise, this book was a terrific surprise.

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