Customer Reviews

As It Is in Heaven

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"As It Is In Heaven" is my favorite Niall Williams book. Part of the reason it is my favorite is the fact that it takes place in Ireland and in Venice...two of my favorite places in the world. And Ireland and Venice are perfect locales for this story with its distinctly fairy tale quality. There is magic in "As It Is In Heaven" and it is definitely Irish magic.

The characters in this book are all emotionally and spiritually damaged, but then who isn't? Still, Philip, Stephen and Gabriella seem to be a little more damaged and vulnerable to pain than are most and they really come to life in this book. Williams does a superb job of baring their souls and letting us share in their emotions.

Philip Griffin is a man who blames himself for the death of his wife and young daughter many years ago (although he is blameless). Stephen, his son, now thirty-two, was raised and loved by his father, but it is clear that the loss of his mother has affected him deeply. He is a man who knows "the fine skills of walking in empty rooms and being aware of the ghosts." Although the story isn't predictable, its theme is clear: this is a story about the redemptive power of love, the power of love to heal, to make whole.

Stephen feels his life begin to heal when he meets the beautiful Venetian violinist, Gabriella Castoldi. Gabriella is a women who is fighting ghosts of her own. An "expectancy of grief" hovers over her at all times; it is so powerful it even affects those with whom she interacts.

This is a story that could so easily have fallen into the very maudlin. And sometimes Williams does give in to the temptation to write a little over-the-top. Love doesn't heal all wounds; it's no magic panacea of beauty and poetry and it can sometimes cause more problems than it solves. This is something Williams seems to want to forget.

Williams rescues (and balances) his story, however, with insight into the human soul that is heartbreakingly accurate, achingly perceptive and beautifully wise. And, sometimes these insights come from unexpected sources, making them all the more believable and welcome.

The fey, fairy tale quality of this book will no doubt draw some readers in while causing others to discard it as "too romantic." I think I fall somewhere in between. Love doesn't solve all problems, love can't endure against all odds, yet love is the force that drives the universe and gives meaning to our lives. I found I was able to forgive Williams' ventures into the overly-lyrical and enjoy "As It Is In Heaven" for the beautiful love story it is.

Williams' prose is very lyrical, very poetic and very romantic, but this book is still exceptionally well-written. And sometimes, a very romantic story is just what I'm looking for. Although I don't believe love can conquer all, I certainly believe in its healing and redemptive powers.

I don't think there's an author alive who writes of the pain and beauty of love with quite the magic of Niall Williams. If you're in the mood for an old-fashioned love story, one that will make you laugh and cry and sigh, then you really can't do better than "As It Is In Heaven." Leave reality behind when you enter this magic world; just savor the book and let it become a part of you.

Clearly Williams thinks so. In FLOL and now in As it is in Heaven, through timing, coincidence, fate, whatever you want to call it, two finely drawn and extraordinary characters come upon each other and nothing is ever the same again. As in FLOL this is a novel of place where the Irish coast and its villages are vividly drawn by Williams' prose. The lovers are facinating - an unlikely but inevitable match but, more than in FLOL, As it is in Heaven is populated by several other wonderful characters - Steven's father with his rituals and faith, the Indian doctor, a fixture in the medical systems of all the old British dominions, the headmistress and the landlady and their assumptions. All made this a rich, satifying read. I laughed,I wept and I sighed. For me, this book explored "fated" lovers with more complexity than FLOL, a natural progression in this second novel. My experience with both has led me to trust Williams and suspend my need for the rational and the sensible - and believe that there are relationships where the attraction between two people is so powerful that it is impossible to contemplate a life where they do not connect. I savoured every bit of it and can hardly wait for the next set of explorations.

Niall Williams can really string up words and feelings together into a magical story. Yes, he is a hardcore romantic, however, his story comes out sweet and intoxicating, and not soppy and predictable. I read "Four Letters of Love" and got hooked up with his style of writing. This is a story of somebody who is gripped by love that he is willing to chase his dream ... the story of a sad violinist called Gabriella Castoldi and a lonely teacher called Stephen Griffin, and how Divine intervention plays a part in their relationship ...

If you like imaginative, romantic story, and you want to smile or cry because you can remember yourself being in that position before, and having it narrated in such a beautiful way, do get a copy of "As it is in Heaven", or better still, give it to your loved one!

There should be a big buzz over this book and this author - Where is Oprah when you really need her? Williams' writing is absolutely breathtaking. It was so good that I literally had to take "rests" between chapters to savor what I had read. This is a wonderful follow-up to The Four Letters of Love which I also highly recommend.

Having read Niall Williams two other books, Four letters of Love, and The Fall of Light, I was really looking forward to this book. Still it was waiting a long time in my shelves untill I started it, and when I did it took me some time to get into.

Williams is a master of the written word. His language is strong, and captivates you in a way few other writers do. His books are about everlasting love, and of lost, though he never writes in a sentimentaly way. In As It Is In Heaven we meet Philip Griffin and his son Stephen. The two of them are alone in the world after the tragical death of Philip's wife and young daughter. The death of these two dominates the life of the two men and the whole book. All Philip has to live for is his son, and the knowledge that when he has done what he has to do for his son, he will meet his wife again in heaven.

The way Williams write about love underline the believe I have in love. Love is strong, love can live through everything, love can do everything. And for Philip Griffin life and love is like this. And this is also what his son learns. Love is everything. Stephen grows up with the shadows of his past over his life, when he meets Gabriella Castoldi, the Italian musician who change Stephens life for ever. We now follow Stephen, the man who can give nothing less than his whole life, and Gabriella, the woman who doesn't know to live with this "whole life" Stephen is offering her. This is the strong theme in the book, but this is at the same time what makes it hard for me to believe in the book. Stephen is giving so much, how can a man really act like this? And at the same time, Gabriella seems uncapable of recieving all this love.

Williams style of writing is poetic, and ge goes deep into what he writes about. Though this is not his best book he is still one of my favorite writers of today. I look forward to more from his pen.

Britt Arnhild Lindland

I really loved both "Four Letters Of Love" and Niall Williams' newest "As It Is In Heaven." I think many of those who have read this book and reviewed it looked too deeply into the meaning of the book. And thus many of you were expecting too much from it, hoping that it would be similiar to Four Letters Of Love. But where would originality come from if Williams were to write his books exactly the same? One reviewer said that it was too painful for her to read that Stephen was simply in love, that Stephen as Williams wrote "..was in love". Why does love have to contain confusion, torment, and hurt to prove that in fact it is love? I felt what Stephen had and knew he could possess for Gabriella throughout the book and when he simply said to her over the phone that he loved her, it could not have been more moving and powerful to hear a man say those words to a woman without any other word needed to be spoken. I loved this book and it is simple as that. I could not put it down. Love can be the simplest emotion to feel and to present to another person. Niall Williams shows this through Stephen and his character's never ending love for the one woman he has ever loved, Gabriella. Why is that so hard to see?

Niall Williams can write. His metaphors are pure magic- a cuilinary feast for the mind. For those who want to explore the beauty of Ireland- its people and its land, this is a wonderful way to visit. This story is about love lost and found, it is about hope gone and rediscovered, and it is about the connections we make with one another and how seemingly insignificant acts can send ripples far beyond where one might imagine. I suffered two huge personal losses this spring and hadn't been able to read for months... this book allowed me to open that door once again- it is that beautifully written. If you are a discerning consumer of the written word, don't miss out on this lovely book.

As in his deeply affecting debut novel, Four Letters Of Love, Irish writer Niall Williams again explores the emotional terrain of that ever fascinating emotion - love. Woven of magic and touching reality, As It Is In Heaven once more showcases the author's luminous prose in an enchanting narrative that soars and sings as gloriously as the music of Puccini and Vivaldi he so eloquently describes.

Set in mythic villages and along Ireland's craggy, unforgiving coast, As It Is In Heaven traces the evolution of three people who have been broken by loss; it would seem irreparably so. Their days are contoured by foreboding. No longer active participants in life, they are the heartsore, docile legatees of parsimonious Fate.

Mourning shrouds the life of Philip Griffin, a retired tailor, who asks God why his wife and 10-year-old daughter were allowed to die in a tragic auto accident some 20 years earlier. When there is no answer from God, Philip believes, "The fault was his own, the judgment had fallen not on them but upon him. For it was the survivor who suffered."

This suffering is mirrored in his son, Stephen, now 28, and a schoolteacher in western Ireland. The shared question of why they have survived has forged a bond between father and son, "They did not speak of it but took the puzzle of their days everywhere with them, growing an identical jagged wrinkle across the middle of their foreheads and talking fitfully in the brief periods of their night sleep."

Philip's solace is found in the knowledge that he will be reunited with his wife and daughter after he has done whatever he can for his son.

Not daring to imagine that love is real for it would make life too hard, Stephen finds a modicum of peace by accepting his solitude, and turning ever more inward. "Life had imbued him with a deep humility and then nourished it with a Catholic sense of his own unworthiness."

Nonetheless, love does find an incredulous Stephen. When an Italian String Quartet comes for a performance in County Clare, he sees Gabriella Castoldi, a lovely master violinist, and his days are forever altered. Gifted, enigmatic, and alone, she has never forgotten her father's description of love - it's like a cheap perfume that soon wears off.

When Philip, who is ill, learns that Stephen is in love, he fears for his son, believing such passion will be unrequited and only bring further pain. "Desperate for a stay of death to help his son," Philip makes a pact with God - "If you let me live.....I will try and do some act of goodness each day." To this end he withdraws a major portion of his savings to give away.

The naive, introverted Stephen, to his utter surprise, boundless joy, and sometimes dismay, recognizes that he is in love. Forgetting all else, including his teaching position, he begins an ardent pursuit of Gabriella. Puzzlement is her first response, followed by disbelief that a man capable of such selfless devotion could exist. Her reaction is appropriate, as there is common ground between them: "the expectation of failure and the familiarity of despair."

For Stephen. Gabriella's acquiescence is hard won, and even more difficult to keep. They are together only briefly when Gabriella announces that she is returning to Venice, and even as she speaks "wondering why she felt the brutal necessity of testing love, of bending its back towards breaking, and trying to bring on before time the grief she imagined was inevitable."

There's mysticism in this story - mysticism in the beliefs of the unforgettably fey Nelly Grant, the greengrocer who nourishes the couple. There is also magic - magic in the pen of Niall Williams who stunningly extrapolates the essence of love. Read As It Is In Heaven and rejoice.

The simplest of subjects - love - written with an unbelievable ease and understanding. A must-read-in-the-one-sitting experience. Worth waiting the four years since Andrews' previous offering. Only wish this author was even more prolific.

The language was beautiful, some very simple expressions of love, but so real, and some very surprising images that gave love another dimension. I need to read it again, leisurely. I was anxious about how it would end the first time through. Now I can read it again slowly, and enjoy the imagery.