Set on an international space station, the book examines one (long) day in the lives of the six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard. Two women and four men, they come from the U.S., England, Italy, Japan, and Russia. They’re on board for nine months, and each is dealing with their own issues—internal and external ones. And each has important contributions to make.
“And in time we come to see that not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s of a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre, just a giddy mass of waltzing things, and that perhaps the entirety of our understanding consists of an elaborate and ever-evolving knowledge of our own extraneousness, a bashing away of mankind’s ego by the instruments of scientific enquiry until it is, that ego, a shattered edifice that lets light through.”
There isn’t a cohesive plot per se; the book is composed of snapshots of the different characters as the space station travels around the earth. Small personal details about each are shared, as are their activities. But predominantly, there is a great deal of reflection about the view of earth from the space station, what it feels like to be there and watch morning turn to evening and sunset to sunrise, again and again.
This is a gorgeously written book, full of dazzling descriptive imagery, although it does get a bit dry and repetitive after a bit, because there are only so many ways to describe the view and the feelings it provokes. I don’t know that I would have read this had it not won the Booker, but I’m glad I did.
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