Title: The Book From the Sky
Author: Robert Kelly
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Year Published: 2008

First Line: I’m on my way back.

I don’t get it. I mean, I consider myself a pretty smart guy. Maybe even smarter than the average bear, but there are likely those who would argue that. And I really like science fiction, and weird things that go bump in the night. And I really like abstract tales that take time to coalesce into something firm, complete. That said… I don’t get it.

To be fair, let me start out by saying that there are passages in The Book from the Sky that are simply stunning. There are moments where the images that Robert Kelly manipulates quite simply took my breath away. The manner in which he constructed and manipulated his prose (not to mention the poems published on his website) has convinced me to become familiar with more of his poetry. Which gets at the heart of the issue for me as far as The Book from the Sky is concerned.

Regardless of the prose’s beauty, the story just isn’t there. It is so filled with heightened language and abstractions, that I have no clear idea what it is about, or what Kelly wants me to take away. Even the jacket text on the back cover doesn’t seem to give an accurate summation of the book I read. I got the basics… struggle with identity, boy meets girl, more struggle with identity, yadda yadda… it was actually fairly formulaic as far as that goes. But the presentation so muddied the waters that anything that could have really raised the bar and set it apart from others that use the same formula was lost in the poetry. It never coalesced into something that helps explain what has happened over the course of the previous pages, and what, if any, stance the characters need or seem to take on the multitude of issues.

Rather, I felt incredibly cheated by the shift in POV at the end of the book. A wonderful little relationship had been established, perhaps the single element that made the finishing the book even possible for me, and the change in POV reveals information that casts everything into doubt. The relationship, the state of mind of the characters, the trustworthiness of the narrators, everything was turned upside-down.

There was also a problem, I think, of trying to explore too much. Kelly broaches some heavy topics in here, and he does so in rapid fire succession. Religion, government, identity, creation, procreation, evolution, reincarnation… He fires these off in succession without ever really give his characters time to weigh in on or consider these issues. Neither does he give the reader an opportunity to sit back, say “woah,” and take a breath and think about what he just lay out there on the table. Instead, he changes topic and moves immediately on to something else.

I really wanted to like The Book from the Sky, but in the end it just seemed that it was too much style and not enough substance. There is poetry in Kelly’s prose, to be sure, but the story was too far buried in the poetry for me to enjoy.

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