Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024--San Antonio

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a short novel which won the Booker Prize this year.  It is a novel without a plot.  Instead, it covers one 24-hour day in the lives of the 6 crew (4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts) on the International Space Station--from when they awaken one day to when they awaken the next.  We learn about each person including their backgrounds.  We learn what is happening on earth during that day.  We learn about a crew of 4 astronauts headed to the moon that same day--the first men to head to the moon in 50 years.  We learn about the daily routine of the lives of the astronauts--their exercise routine, their meals, their experiments, their special assignments sent from command for the day, their space walks, the effects of weightlessness on their bodies.  We learn about the disorienting factors of being on the space station--the constant noise, the minor cracks on the outer layer that are expanding, the mental disorientation caused by the 16 loops around the world it covers each 24 hours creating a repeating day-night/day-night situation every 90 minutes.  We learn about the geography of the earth and the views of it from low orbit as the station follows what appears to be a curving trail up and down and up and down with each rotation of the earth it makes (caused by the slant of earth on its axis because the space station itself is going in a straight circular line) with a slight change in position each round because of the slow turning of the earth on its axis.  The reader will come away from this book with a good understanding of what it is like to be in space on the station.  And a thinking reader should come away from it appreciating earth for the ease it is for us to live on it compared to how limited our lives would be if we had to live in space or on the moon or mars in artificial pods.  Once we destroy the earth to the point that people cannot live on it, the alternatives are not going to be very good--even for those billionaires with the money to make the move!  (Personally, I expect that we will just cause our own distinction since building an alternative place to live and work will be too expensive with too little too offer.  In fact, I now wonder why we are even thinking of spending money to send people to Mars.) I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs

Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024--San Antonio

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs has received notable recognition from major publications for its unique format, but it is not an easy book to understand.  It consists of a series of short stories.  Set in Vienna when the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing just after WWI, a young girl is found wandering the streets.  Since she does not speak, it is determined that she has never developed any language skills.  But after an article is written about her, a man writes from a sanatorium stating that he is her father and that she has had a rich language background because of books that have been read to her.  He sends the series of short stories to be read to her.  They each tell a story of someone having problems in life.  Because there is chaos following the collapse of the empire, many characters in the stories find themselves eventually sent to the same sanatorium.  To truly understand the book, the reader must have a rather extensive background of knowledge related to what was happening in Austria at this time--a country where psychiatry was developing as a legitimate medical problem that is treatable, where conservatives such as Hitler were rising up, where Zionism was a topic being controversially discussed, etc.  The stories provide a picture of the atmosphere in the country at the time.  The stories were interesting, but like many other readers, I had difficulty understanding what they were truly about and how they were all linked.   I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.  

James by Percival Everett

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024--San Antonio

James by Percival Everett is one of the top books of 2024.  It won the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, plus it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is the retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the slave.  It is well written.  One of the features of the book is an emphasis on how the slaves had to constantly be acting--speaking the way they were expected to speak (even though they knew how to speak English and did so among themselves), walking the way they were expected to walk, etc., and the burden and stress this created in their lives beyond the hard work they were expected to do and the maltreatment they received.  I never read the Mark Twain novel when I was young, but I knew the general aspects of the story from short sections that were read in English class and articles and discussions about it.  Therefore, I don't know if someone already familiar with the story from Huck's perspective would get as much pleasure from reading this book as I did, since most of the details of the story were new for me.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the concept of the book.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Playground by Richard Powers

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024--San Antonio

Playground by Richard Powers was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is a story spanning many years.  Two of the main characters meet and become best friends in an elite high school for gifted students--a Black young man from a separated family of limited means and a white young man whose family is wealthy.  They remain close friends as they continue their education at university where a third character is introduced--a young woman with Pacific Island heritage who both young men love.  In a second character stream is the story of a young woman whose father helped developed the aqualung--the first device to allow deep exploration of the oceans.  She fell in love with the ocean while young and started taking notes of what she observed.  Eventually, she majored in oceanography, although it wasn't easy for her to get admitted into the program.  And finally, she becomes famous from her films and books communicating what she has learned about the variety of life in the sea.  Over time, the two best friends have a falling out.  Both have shared a love of complex games such as chess and Go.  But during university, they both are attracted to the Pacific Islander which starts the conflict.  But the wealthy one also wants to become famous and make a fortune creating gaming programs while the other is more altruistic--concerned about the environment and global warming.  It's a bitter separation once it happens, and they do not communicate for decades.  In the meantime, the altruistic young man and the Pacific Islander have married and adopted two children and are living a quiet, peaceful life on a small island in the Southern Pacific.  It's an island that has been damaged in the past by colonial powers mining phosphate and leaving a long scar along most of the upper altitudes of the island.  Also living there is the famous oceanographer who is now retired along with about 80 other people.  Suddenly, a corporation is interested in investing in a project on the island--the highest in the Pacific and, therefore, the least likely to become completely submerged as water levels rise from global warming.  The citizens are told by the government that they have a right to decide whether the development will be allowed or not.  The plan is for a corporation to build modules to piece together to make floating islands for wealthy people wanting to escape both high taxes they pay by living where they currently do by living offshore and to escape the problems caused on land by rising seas.  For the island, it will mean the population growing back into a few thousand people as it was in the mining days and people on the island having good jobs.  But it will also mean that the simple, slow lifestyle they have enjoyed since the mines closed will come to an end.  Who is behind this venture?  How will the people living on the island vote?  What lies ahead for everyone either way?  It's a thoroughly enjoyable book although I became a bit confused toward the end.  Maybe reading that portion again would have made things more clear, but I didn't make the effort.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.