Lezersrecensie
Ground control to Major Tom
https://looneybooks79.blog/2024/12/31/orbital/
This books lasts 24 hours on Earth or 16 orbits in space. 16 earthly sunsets and 16 sunrises. 16 orbits and six people in the spacestation: 4 astronauts (2 Europeans - a Brit and an Italian- , 1 American, 1 Japanese) and 2 cosmonauts (so 2 Russians).
They are here to conduct research and experiments and collect meteorological data (something to do with a huge growing typhoon) but mostly they check the sights outside and ponder their lives on Earth and compare it to that on the space station. When Chie, the Japanese astronaut hears the news her mother has died, she realises she will miss her mother’s funeral. Thoughts of going back to Earth, returning home, pop up. With it comes the fear and the unwillingness to go back to reality. At the same time there’s a shared sentiment that they are overlooking and protecting their planet, their Blue home. What would life be without Earth or what would Earth be or look like without humanity?
Ok yes this is a slow read. It took me a while to finish, although it’s not a huge book. But the language and proza Harvey uses to make the inhabitants of the space station come to live, their memories and their worries, is heartfelt and profound. There’s the scientific talk once in a while but soon this makes way for each and every single character’s own emotions and reasons to go back and why they shouldn’t or won’t go back (even though there’s not much choice).
One day, 16 orbits… a million thoughts!
At a certain point in the book there’s this funny part, while at the same time sad because of its (sur)real context. The astronauts and cosmonauts are from different countries who are, on Earth, all in some kind of dispute (Japan, Russia, America and finally Great Britain) and there are post on the toilet doors allowing only those space travellers in to the corresponding countries they belong to… of course the astronauts/cosmonauts don’t care about the rules put on them while they’re in space and start joking around and avoiding the set rules at all times…
But there’s also the story of Chie and her family, on which she reminisces now that her mother has passed away. How her being in space is indirectly because of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, where her grandmother has died, along with many others. But without the atom bomb, there wouldn’t have been space travel. The irony is not lost here.
This book is all about humanity: it’s obsessions, its need for family (in the case of the astronauts and cosmonauts the ones they left on their plet but mostly the one they share the space station with), its need for love and missing it, its profound need for beauty and tastes (food, art, the meaning of life) and so many more.
The book also, albeit mostly between the lines, the problems Earth suffers from such a climate change and the global political and geopolitical problems and in a way, due to a memory one of the cosmonauts thinks about, about fake news…
But above all else this is a gorgeously written novel with a positive take on life and what we see from above. I will never see the planet from so high (nor would I want to, they can hardly get me in an airplane let alone a rocket ship), but I cán imagine the magical feeling it gives. Looking down on our planet Earth, from up high there are no borders and there is no difference between us humans at all. Up there is calm and freedom… floating in a tin can, far above the world… take your protein pills and put your helmet on…
This books lasts 24 hours on Earth or 16 orbits in space. 16 earthly sunsets and 16 sunrises. 16 orbits and six people in the spacestation: 4 astronauts (2 Europeans - a Brit and an Italian- , 1 American, 1 Japanese) and 2 cosmonauts (so 2 Russians).
They are here to conduct research and experiments and collect meteorological data (something to do with a huge growing typhoon) but mostly they check the sights outside and ponder their lives on Earth and compare it to that on the space station. When Chie, the Japanese astronaut hears the news her mother has died, she realises she will miss her mother’s funeral. Thoughts of going back to Earth, returning home, pop up. With it comes the fear and the unwillingness to go back to reality. At the same time there’s a shared sentiment that they are overlooking and protecting their planet, their Blue home. What would life be without Earth or what would Earth be or look like without humanity?
Ok yes this is a slow read. It took me a while to finish, although it’s not a huge book. But the language and proza Harvey uses to make the inhabitants of the space station come to live, their memories and their worries, is heartfelt and profound. There’s the scientific talk once in a while but soon this makes way for each and every single character’s own emotions and reasons to go back and why they shouldn’t or won’t go back (even though there’s not much choice).
One day, 16 orbits… a million thoughts!
At a certain point in the book there’s this funny part, while at the same time sad because of its (sur)real context. The astronauts and cosmonauts are from different countries who are, on Earth, all in some kind of dispute (Japan, Russia, America and finally Great Britain) and there are post on the toilet doors allowing only those space travellers in to the corresponding countries they belong to… of course the astronauts/cosmonauts don’t care about the rules put on them while they’re in space and start joking around and avoiding the set rules at all times…
But there’s also the story of Chie and her family, on which she reminisces now that her mother has passed away. How her being in space is indirectly because of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, where her grandmother has died, along with many others. But without the atom bomb, there wouldn’t have been space travel. The irony is not lost here.
This book is all about humanity: it’s obsessions, its need for family (in the case of the astronauts and cosmonauts the ones they left on their plet but mostly the one they share the space station with), its need for love and missing it, its profound need for beauty and tastes (food, art, the meaning of life) and so many more.
The book also, albeit mostly between the lines, the problems Earth suffers from such a climate change and the global political and geopolitical problems and in a way, due to a memory one of the cosmonauts thinks about, about fake news…
But above all else this is a gorgeously written novel with a positive take on life and what we see from above. I will never see the planet from so high (nor would I want to, they can hardly get me in an airplane let alone a rocket ship), but I cán imagine the magical feeling it gives. Looking down on our planet Earth, from up high there are no borders and there is no difference between us humans at all. Up there is calm and freedom… floating in a tin can, far above the world… take your protein pills and put your helmet on…
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