The Path Of Minor Planets (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
I advise readers to be distant from distractions while reading this book because it requires IMAGINATION, very good imagination, as because this novel is overanalyzed. First thing you know, you're just there reading a fully-detailed paragraph, containing tiny descriptions of the setting, major analysis of the behavior of the character, a lot of relative sentences and what do you call it in grammar, anecdotes? Perhaps, and then the next thing you know, everything is out-of-place because you were distracted by your dog tickling your foot or your mom's sudden interruption as if she couldn't see the book you are holding high enough to cover your face gesturing that you are not allowed to be disturbed; then you'll have to read the whole paragraph all over again. Or just ignore that "minor" information about how the solar system works.Although, there were parts of the novel wherein I felt "it". You know, the feeling you get when you finally read a good book? or a catchy phrase? or a statement that crumpled your heart for an instance, making you want to cry? Or so you think you would cry, but then.. here goes the endless adjectives and all the descriptive phrases frustrating you once again.I understood well enough to know that this novel was about a group of astronomers/scientists/stargazers, traveling on a boat, to an island formed like a rabbit, to finally witness the arrival of a new comet. Upon the night they were witnessing the fall of what they were looking for, they witnessed a literal fall. A boy, I don't know, of about 14 maybe, falling from a wall, down to the rocks below it, causing his death. And from that day on, the lives of these scientists, particularly, the main characters that were each given psychoanalysis by the author; which will give you an idea of that character's point of view not making use of the first subject, or you as a reader and the character in it, but only putting you as an onlooker of that character's life; Eli, Denise, Kathy, Adam, Martin, Lydia, Alice, Ali Manday and the other Manday. The author approaches the past, giving only flashbacks to make you understand the current paragraph you are reading is already happening 12 years later. So the character will really change from time to time. Especially, Lydia, who at first I read was only 9 years old I remember but then later on, turned into a teenager smoking pot but the change was too sudden it made me envision a 9 year old smoking pot and that would probably be mindfucking.. so yes, you have to be keen and careful of the sudden changes of attitude, tone and mood so you'll know what the fuck is happening already and how many years have passed.I understood that there were conspiracies between lovers, secret affairs, lies that were casted to break up marriages, lusts, desires, a broken family, a troubled teenager.. etc. The novel was full of negativity but the fact that there was a certain wall that probably, the author has perfectly built, kept me from absorbing these ideas into thinking each character were hopeless. In the end though, as they grew older, in their fifties/seventies, retired or accomplished astronomers, scientists, explorers, and known comet hunters, I sensed some hope building as it finished off. But it wasn't a happy ending, there was no closure though but it was complete at the same time. Rated 3/5 because there were too many details.. but I can handle details, i HAVE handled the details but not everything. Very hard boooookkkk my brain is famished. But it was definitely beautiful though. I loved it.
Minor planets are objects in orbit around the Sun that qualify neither as planets nor comets, such as asteroids and other space debris. On a cosmic scale, they are unimportant; yet each in its own way possesses a certain majestic bravery as it makes its way through the coldness of space, its path minutely yet indelibly altered by the presence of the other celestial bodies around it.As such, they are eminently suited to serve as metaphors for people, as Andrew Sean Greer lyrically demonstrates in The Path Of Minor Planets. This debut novel by the American author was first published in 2001, before The Confessions Of Max Tivoli (2004) and The Story Of A Marriage (2008) brought him to literary prominence, and the high quality of his prose is already evident even if the plot is ultimately lacklustre.The novel follows the cast of characters over the years by consistently revisiting them on an anniversary: in this case, the position of a comet in relation to the Sun. The story opens in 1965 as Comet Swift is “near perihelion”, the point in its orbit when it is closest to the Sun. A group of astronomers, including the eponymous Dr Martin Swift, have gathered on a South China Sea island state with the unlikely name of Bukit -- would you name an island “Mount”? – to watch the comet, calculated to return every 12 years.The celebratory mood is marred by the accidental death of an island boy, an event that triggers the consummation of an attraction between two graduate students. The paths of our star-crossed lovers – and of their spouses, friends and aquaintainces – are then revisited at six-year intervals, both when the comet is near perihelion and near aphelion, when it is farthest from the Sun.The author is a master of imagery, of finding the perfect simile or metaphor to convey a certain mood or aspect of character. One formerly scruffy character is described as having been “smoothed down” by his wife, “like a cool bed in the morning”; another’s tortured affair with a married man “involved grabbing his lunch hours and breaks and free weekend moments, tiling her life with these shards of love”.While the prose alone makes this novel a rewarding read, somewhat less luminous is the plot. The death of the anonymous island boy is a MacGuffin: the impact it has on various characters feels overblown, given how self-centred they are in all other aspects of their lives.And while the various emotional states of the two lovers are rendered exquisitely by the author, their passion somehow fails to truly spark off the page. In that sense, it is indeed like a comet -- superficially appearing like a burning streak of light, but in reality being a ball of ice that fizzles when it gets too close to the Sun.
What do You think about The Path Of Minor Planets (2002)?
This is a beautiful book. Greer has a way of using simple language to transport you to cities and beaches you somehow know well, with tangents of the mind that are common, yet rarely expressed.The magic and simplicity of the language reminded me of "Enchanted Night," while the themes recalled "Ethan Frome." This book was everything I had wanted "Tender is the Night" to be. Where Fitzgerald managed to squeeze out a proper memorial for his characters in the final pages of the book, The Path of Minor Planets was elegiac throughout. I usually slow down toward the end of a book I'm enjoying but with this one, I found myself rereading each sentence of the last paragraph over and over. I'm still chewing on the last sentence, the last four words. I'll be looking into Greer's other works.
—Krzysztof
I've either read this book at the exact moment in my life when I needed to read it, or this book is *that* much better than any other book I've ever read. Or both. Whatever it is, I am in love with it. The prose, the metaphor, the style, the story arc, the characters. In short, everything.Immediately I was hooked by passages that made me understand, and related to, my parents: who they were in the mid 1960's, how they perceived the world, and possibly how they interacted with it. It is interesting that the author kills a minor, tangential really, character in the beginning. I am not sure that device was needed to change the orbits of these people.LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. Makes me remember why I love to read and why you keep trying new authors and new fiction.
—Adrianne
In the same way that I am impressed when a man writes in an unusually good female voice, I was overwhelmed at how well Andrew Sean Greer writes in voices of all ages. This book about a group of scientists trying to love (none of them very successfully despite serious efforts) spans almost four decades. Greer does an amazing job of writing the personal thoughts and reflections of everyone from a strange and lonely five year old girl to her eminent father nearing death forty years later. The whole tale is tinged with sadness, but Greer's way of putting together words makes it the loveliest sort of sadness.
—Katy Wight
