A strange but very powerful work by one of England’s best writers.  What starts out as a description of how change can be brought about through the interaction of two new developments (in this case, photography and balloon aeronautics) providing a uniquely new view of our world and the description of a love affair between Sarah Burnhardt and Fred Burnby, a pioneer in ballooning, concludes with a long and beautiful description of Barnes’ grief for his wife, dead after a 37 day illness in her early 60’s.  Using his prodigious vocabulary, brilliant mind, and extra-ordinarily expressive writer’s skills, Barnes gives us an intimately detailed and brutally face-on view of his grief and mourning (one a state and one a process).  This is a book that is worth returning to and reading again and again for the humanity and individual frailty that our human condition carries—god is absent and the universe just does its thing.  Riveting and sadly beautiful.  One wishes that one had known them as a couple and been there to act rightly for the widowed Barnes.  The title refers to the various ‘levels’ on which we exist—the everyday, the elevated ‘height’ of flight and the inevitable ending underground of the catacombs both photographed by Nadar in 1858.