the Book of Flying by Keith Miller

The Book of Flying by Keith Miller is a gorgeous and poetic fantasy novel in the fashion of Alice in Wonderland. It's a short read, but so full of passionate emotion and bizarre imagery. Very rarely do I come across a book that compels me to re-read it as soon as I finish the last sentence, and this is one of them. The book is a bit... adult in some areas, since it describes a young poet's coming of age throughout his encounters with strange characters, many of them nubile young women. Like Victorian novels, you are left with a sense of "what was the purpose of all that?" after reading it, but for this book, I think it works to the advantage, and makes the ending more heartfelt and tragic. I am glad I randomly picked this off the library shelf.