In the near future, six astronauts (well, technically four astronauts and two cosmonauts) spend a day on the International Space Station orbiting the planet sixteen times. While they do so, a separate crew of astronauts prepare for the first moon landing in decades. Back on Earth, a massive superstorm is bearing down on the South Pacific, and the crew is tasked with documenting its progress from space. A spacewalk is conducted, scientific experiments involving lab mice and heart cells are monitored, and the crew does their best to stick to their routines and hold onto their sense of time. Seeing so many sunrises and sunsets per day plays tricks on the mind.
You would think the crew would be a major focus of the novel, but really they are just sort of there for the most part. Chie, a female astronaut from Japan, is grieving her mother by falling back into her childhood habit of compulsively making lists. Other than that, though, the rest of the crew is fairly indistinct. Nell has a crush on one of her fellow crew-members. Shaun finds himself considering a postcard of a painting given to him by his wife, reflecting on why the image means so much more to her than it does to him.
Harvey isn’t primarily concerned with the crew, though. Space travel and what it represents are her true subjects. Harvey loves waxing poetical about exploration and our sense of smallness in the vastness of the universe, etc. Sometimes it’s lyrical, but mostly it’s indistinguishable from the worst guy to get high with at your college’s fraternity parties. It really shouldn’t be possible for a novel this short to be so long-winded.
The words “A Novel” are printed right on the cover of Orbital. Here, rather than a clarification or advertisement, they feel more like defensive insistence. There’s not really a story to be found in Orbital, as the brief timeline doesn’t allow for much to happen and the characters barely interact with each other. There’s barely a point to Harvey bothering to name them.
Somehow, this won the Booker Prize. I’m always hesitant to use the word pretentious in my reviews because it’s so over-used by people who don’t really seem to understand what it means. There’s also always the chance that the fault is mine, and I’m just missing whatever everyone else is seeing. But I can’t think of a book I’ve ever read that felt more pretentious to me. Orbital presents itself as a deep, thoughtful rumination on existence. Maybe that’s true, but it certainly isn’t much of a novel.