The God in Flight

Rating:
Summary: the reader in flight
Review: *The God in Flight* is not bad as in itself-- but anyone looking for historical quality displayed in *At Swim, Two Boys,* won't find it here. Its style is somewhat between historical fiction and a flighty romance novel... it tends to be VERY unrealistic most of the time, and the "fate/destiny" factor of Klinarios' ideal-waif just cheapens the entire storyline. Simion himself is a weepy, ambivalent character with a loose set of morals... his character didn't quite appeal to me-- although Andrew, the local playboy, is an easily lovable character. :) Overall, though, it's an entertaining read, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. The overall effect is very hyperbole-- roses and candlelight, lace and satin, jealous lovers, passionate sex (with flowery descriptions) and the power of destiny. >_< If it were a story about love between a man and a woman, it wouldn't be any more original than half the bodice-rippers out there.

Rating:
Summary: an all time favorite
Review: Eighteen years is a long time to labor on a novel. Possibly too long; by its completion, two different people will have worked on it. Which might explain some of the odd lapses in narrative, and emotional disconnects in Argiri's magnum opus.

Yet what a beautiful, beautiful book! Written in sumptuous Victorian style, reminiscent of Wharton or James, Argiri tells the tale of a 19th Century illicit love affair between Klionarios, an ascetic Yale art professor, and Simion Satterwhite, a precocious scholarship student who embodies Klionarios's artistic vision.

THE GOD IN FLIGHT is filled with lovely, long sensuous passages, such as when the traumatized Simion wakens in the professor's house: "The table by his bed held a tray, upon which there were an ice bucket filled with melting snow around a pitcher of what proved to be orange juice, a glass, a bell, and a silver plate of grapes. He took two grapes and savored their sweet-tart astringency. This room was like some chamber of temptation in a fairy tale, so apt it was, so suited; it was as if someone who knew everything about colors and fabrics and furniture had climbed inside his head and found out what he would like best, even before he knew himself."

No matter that the effects of Reconstruction and Emancipation are not addressed here. This is romance with a capital "R." A passionate and lyrical novel (though a bit silly), every winter I turn to its comforting literary conventions, just as surely as I return to flannel sheets and schnapps in my cocoa. But it is a strange novel, brushing over what should surely have been pivotal moments in the developing relationship of its protagonists, yet lingering lovingly on the thoughts of side characters. For me, there is really not enough plot, and the novel fails to adequately explore the central characters--and Argiri's characters are most definitely book people and not real people--but they are appealing and memorable nevertheless.

The most dismaying aspect of THE GOD IN FLIGHT is the realization that if it took Argiri nearly twenty years to write this, how long will it take for her next novel?

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Rendered; A Joy From Start to Finish!
Review: I began this book late on Friday night and was still reading on Sunday morning. I cannot remember the last time I was this involved with a novel. (Perhaps when I first read Virginia Woolf.) I loved the characters, the story, the place, the time. Mostly, I adored the way the author payed homage to the great gay writers of the past, including a wonderful reference to Tennessee Williams' Belle Reve. This is a necessary book for any gay and lesbian bookshelf. It is perhaps the best gay fiction book I have ever read. Brava!

Rating:
Summary: The best book I have ever read. I couldn't put it down.
Review: I live in Australia and purchased this book in a hurry at a secondhand bookstore store on my way to the beach early one morning, because it looked different, and I thought the cover was nice. I dont read books much so didn't no anything about the story or the author. I went for a swim had a surf and started reading it and the next thing it was late afternoon nearly dark, I couldn't put it down, it is the best book I have ever read, it is a type of book that comes around only 1 or 2 a life time. It also is so real, so well written it is if you are in the midst of the drama. It is so true to life an incredible masterpiece I feel they should make a movie from it. I found it original and very interesting, it reflects keen insight into how much dark and dangerous psychic terrain two complex individuals and gay people must traverse to become truly one....An elegant paean to idealized love. The whole world the author creates seems absolutely real, it is a page-turning gay romance, a masterpiece....THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. One that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Rating:
Summary: A first-class read
Review: One of those unusual books where you lose yourself to the world in its pages. Love triumphs, the heros win, lessons are learned, social norms are in chaos as the heros walk hand in hand into a golden future(one hopes.) Laura Argiri uses words like an artist uses color. One of the most positive and engrossing reads I've enjoyed for a very long time. You can't help but win with this romantic adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Overdramatic and divorced from reality
Review: This book was suggested to me as something similar to Marion Zimmer Bradley's lovely The Catch Trap, so I picked it up with high hopes. The story I found, however, hardly deserved the recommendations it was given. Argiri has a lovely writing style, dense with description, but her dramatic narrative is far overweighted with drama.

In the book, set in Victorian times, Simion, a precocious boy from an abusive home in the back woods, goes to Yale and falls in love with his (male) art professor, Doriskos. To say that drama ensues is an understatement. Every conceivable horror that can befall these men does, from exposure and persecution by peers to lovers' quarrels and the death of loved ones. To say that this all remains believable is simply untrue. Argiri throws these curves, presumably, to keep the story interesting and dramatic at the cost of any sense of reality. The book feels as though it's written about an alternate history in which these men are not affected by either the Civil War or the prejudice of the times. Though some lip service is paid to the idea that a homosexual relationship is not the Victorian norm, almost every person Simion and Doriskos interact with is also a man "of the lavendar persuasion," removing any feeling of impending danger from their situation.

The God In Flight is not without its moments. Argiri's secondary characters are given appealing depth, and her writing in glorious and descriptive (though I've never seen the word "charily" used so often). The idea is noble, but it ends up feeling like a gimick, as though Argiri made both lovers men just to add a bit more drama to an already over-the-top story. If you're looking for a believeable and engaging story of men in love, skip over to MZB's Catch Trap. If you're instead thirsting for a bit of beach-reading romantic-fluff drama to read, this is the book to grab.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Gem!
Review: This is one of my favourite books, which I revisit often to reread most of the scenes. I am disappointed that it is out-of-print because it should be enjoyed by all of us who are romantic at heart. Beautiful, luminous, poetic and romantic, the touching love story of Simion and Dori, two fascinating characters, will always stay with me. A book to be treasured always.

Rating:
Summary: I adored this book
Review: This is simply one of the best novels I've read in years...totally rivetting and emotionally true, it resonates long after you finish reading it. The writing is beautiful and sweeps you up in the narrative. The characters come alive with the turn of each page. The romance fills you with hope. This should be required reading for every gay literature class because of the way it deals so perfectly with love between men without the constraints of more current social issues, and should be on the reading list for everyone who loves great writing and a great story.

Rating:
Summary: the reader in flight
Review: This really is an awful book - the worst sort of airless female fantasy about homosexual men. It's quite elegantly written, but deeply pornographic, not in the number and fervour of its sexual descriptions, but in its lack of anything else: this is all the author wants to write about. The scene is the sheerest fantasy: a version of 19th-century Yale in which no student has any interest whatever in the opposite sex.
The author's role model seems to have been Mary Renault, whose wonderful book The Charioteer receives an oblique kind of tribute in the final pages. Read The Charioteer instead, or again.