Black Zodiac
It's possible that I'll come back to this one with five stars later; I've had to speed-read it for a class, which does no book much justice and this one even less. I've loved it so far, loved its melancholy; its self-conscious meta-religious search for something to cling to in the face of aging and death; its sheer textural beauty. But it's also a bit plangent, a bit heavy on the allusion for my tastes. The collection certainly works as a whole, but in the spots where it doesn't, the failure's due to the self-indulgent excesses of artistical poetical poeticalness. However. This is a haunting, achingly profound book whose flaws are hard-pressed to do anything more than act as counterpoint to its beauty. I look forward to returning to it at leisure.