Tapa blanda, 176 páginas
Idioma italiano
Publicado por NN Editore.
Sei astronauti viaggiano in orbita attorno alla terra, nell'ultima missione da compiere a bordo della stazione spaziale prima che venga smantellata. Vengono dall'America, dalla Russia, dall'Italia, dalla Gran Bretagna e dal Giappone, e hanno lasciato le loro vite dietro di sé per osservare la terra muoversi sotto di loro. Li vediamo nei brevi momenti di intimità in cui ricevono notizie da casa, contemplano le loro foto, preparano pasti disidratati, dormono a mezz'aria in assenza di gravità. E soprattutto, siamo con loro mentre studiano il silenzioso pianeta blu, su cui scorre intensa la vita da cui sono esclusi.
Because this book received the Booker Prize, I expected something different. There were some lyrical passages but overall I felt as distant from this book as the space station was from the earth.
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.
This book is many things, most of them good. But, definitely not a novel.
Questo libro è per chi trasformava bottiglie in magiche astronavi, per chi vede le pennellate di William Turner nei paesaggi trafitti di luce, per chi fluttua e volteggia nel profondo di un sogno, e per chi ha capito che esistiamo in un’effimera fioritura di vita e sapere, un’esplosione estiva, fugace come uno schiocco di dita.
It just was so boring.
Orbital describes the cyclical journey of six astronauts, with plenty of tasks but no real destination. They are tethered to the earth, just as human behaviour is tethered to its animal roots. And while the astronauts, much like humanity itself, have professed aspirations, they are ultimately moving parts in the interconnected whole of the cosmos.
Samantha Harvey offers beautiful prose, composed of distinct but interconnected strands of thought. It might sometimes feel that style trumps substance, but I don't think that is the case -- I think form and content are entirely congruent in a set of reflections that sometimes conflict and sometimes align.
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.
