Indexing books

5[actual symbol not reproducible] is a thirty-five-part sequence of interlocking poems that form a vast, brilliant allegory, combining themes of magic, spiritual transcendence and exploration. In luminously crafted verse, Christopher combines such seemingly disparate subjects as the lives of Harry Houdini and the English mystic and mathematician John Dee (who invented a language in which he communicated with angels); the brief, stormy collaboration between Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh; the Nazi occupation of an Aegean island; the descent of Persephone to the underworld; lunar cartography, and the twin motifs of space voyages and Arctic explorations; and the emblematic characters of Shakespeare's Tempest.