Friday Reads: The Path of Minor Planets by Andrew Sean Greer

Last year, I read a couple of Andrew Sean Greer's books (here and here) and adored them.  Somehow I just never carried on to read more of them and realized a couple of weeks ago that it was time to change that streak :)

This book begins on a small island with a group of scientists and grad students out to celebrate the return of Comet Swift - a comet discovered by a Californian professor.   The celebration is suddenly daarkened by a terrible accident as a young boy falls to his death on the rocks below.  The rest of the book bounces around this group and the effect this accident has had on their perception of the world over the next 25 years.  Through love and loss, trysts and trials.  These scientists grow their careers (or fail to) and characters come and go.  Then, all too late, they realize mistakes that were made.

I liked the book, but I felt like it was lacking in something.  Like it missed the mark somehow.  

It was so easy to get lost in the words of this book that I was well over halfway through it before I realized that I had no idea who the main characters were.  It was as though everyone was given equal billing but no one was given prominence.  Andrew Sean Greer has an amazing way of writing there incredibly eloquent and beautiful worlds.  He is amongst my favourite authors for that reason.  In this book, however, I feel like I missed something.  Like it was buried within that beautiful world and I missed the meaning.  Or maybe that was the point. That we are all minor players in this world and each have our own story to tell as long as someone is willing to listen.