I have just finished reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey, imbibing a world in space that feels futuristic, uncanny and totally unfamiliar. The six fictional astronauts in the novel orbit the earth from the International Space Station, examining our planet from a great distance. As a result they develop a wholly unique perception of what it means to be human. To exist, so small, within something so vast.
Distance creates perspective and though being a historian and being an astronaut could not be more different, they are also the same. Both are (I would argue) vocational. Born out of an obsession with something bigger, greater, misunderstood or completely unknown. Both are also slow moving. It takes time to acquire knowledge and the essential skills to head forwards or backwards in time and space. Orbital was a slow read, Harvey forcing her reader to relish the language, the darkness of space and the unknown. Reading the book felt a little like stepping into an archive. The so-frequent slog of slaving over a source, getting the reading wrong over and over or not being able to understand what it means.
I live a relatively prosaic life. I think about my tasks only this morning: take the children to school and nursery, tidy my house (again), hang up multiple pairs of tiny socks, walk my dogs, post stuff…. finally do some work. In this snapshot of my morning, I don’t think I really thought about why space travel is essential to our development in being and I am sure an astronaut going about her daily tasks: taking her children to school, hanging up her own washing, finally responding to her emails, stopped to think — hey, you know what? I think we really need to consider how events of the past have influenced how we got here today. Yet, both are the same.
Space boggles me. I roll my eyes at movies about space, am largely deeply uninterested and I don’t think I would have touched Orbital had a friend not recommended it to me. But I am so wrong. Many people feel the same about history. Who cares? Why does it matter? It is so boring. But they are so wrong.
If you are reading this I suspect you might be a little bit, if not a big bit, interested in history, so it might excite you to know that I am hosting my first live lecture: In History by Helen Carr: Why History Matters on on Sunday 2 March at 5pm. This will be followed by a Q&A and for those who cannot attend, it will be recorded.
I will talk about how we can think about the past now, why history is so much more than facts and dates and it is an opportunity to ask me any questions you might have.
This is a subscriber event but if you are pondering on whether or not to invest in my little Substack home, I can promise a lecture per month, access to closed content, a private chat and a monthly writers hour where I help you with your own project.
I cannot promise an astral experience, but I can promise you will come away thinking how the past really can feel like an adventure away from the present.