Sleep mutinies. Caught in the gravitational pull of Samantha Harvey’s ORBITAL, sleep cedes sovereignty to reading in this dream like odyssey of six souls, spinning around the globe, observing both outer and inner space.
Commence this wondrous novel and you will know why it won the 2024 Booker Prize, made readers swoon, judges jaws drop, as they were pulled into a galaxy of emotion and imagination; enchanted, engaged, engrossed.
There’s the gravitational pull of prose orbiting poetry, these twin planets of expression pushing to and fro, a cluster of alliteration, a constellation of polyptoton, a blaze of merism, the elements of eloquence aligned.
Four astronauts, American, Japanese, Italian and British and two Russian cosmonauts, two women, four men on a nine month mission, nine months of sardine living, eyes filled with sights that are difficult to tell.
But Samantha Harvey tells it and tells it well. Each of the occupants of this spacecraft are so together, and so alone, and their thoughts and internal mythologies are explored, rediscovered countries, mantles of memory, hopes and dreams.
As they orbit the Earth, they make out the clear geographical landmarks then ponder on the shifting geo-political boundaries, man made markers and borders.
ORBITAL is a bold and spare novel, that reminds us what fiction can do. There’s a depth of imagination and heart that renders each of the crew palpably present.
A novel of realism propelled by a magical imagination, ORBITAL is a stellar achievement. In space, everybody can hear you dream.
ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey is published by Vintage.
