I quite enjoyed Laura Argiri's story of the love between a professor and a student at Yale in the late 1800's. Though some of the secondary characters came across as one-dimensional, they did serve their purpose of providing an antagonistic element to Simion, the novel's protagonist, and Doriskos, his lover. Overall, this novel reminded me of the first time I read Mary Renault's novels about Alexander the Great - I felt immersed in the story to the point that it took me several days to get it out of my system. I highly recommend it.

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?

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.