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Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories [Hardcover]

Joan Silber (Author)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Big ideas come in lovely small packages in this collection by Silber (Lucky Us, etc.). Six elegantly connected stories explore, through first-person narratives, the conflicts and commonalities of love, faith and sex. A minor character in the first story becomes the narrator in the second, and so on, with each story building on its predecessor until they come full circle. Alice, a flighty American would-be dancer, struggles with her body and the difficult men in her life in "My Shape"; Duncan, an embittered gay dancer (and one-time teacher of Alice) describes embarrassment, heartbreak and the comforts of renunciation in "The High Road." In "Gaspara Stampa," the titular 16th-century Italian poet narrates her torturous love affairs and the art she makes of them; in "Ashes of Love," an ex-hippie and world traveler, whose capricious wife left him to raise their troubled son, later tries to balance his attentions between the boy and his new, younger lover. In the title story, a missionary's wife in turn-of-the-century China tells of learning to live in a foreign world and faces death during the Boxer Rebellion. Each of Silber's narrators reflects on his or her shifting fortunes with the calm wisdom of hindsight, without diminishing the power of immediate experience. Silber uses the device of interwoven narratives beautifully; these lengthy stories can stand alone, but the subtle connections and emotional resonances help create a satisfying structural unity. Silber's wise, compassionate chronicles of longing, devotion and the search for comfort, both spiritual and physical, will move readers to contemplation and delight.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Silber's new collection is indeed a "ring," as the subtitle suggests, but one so subtle and delicate in its construction that the connections seem to arise more from fortunate happenstance than deliberate design. The link between the end of the book and the beginning almost requires a re-reading of the first story. A poet mentioned in the second story becomes the subject of the third, and so on, with a pale thread of one story becoming bold colors in the next. The author writes successfully in many voices, women and men, gay and straight, present-day and historic. A matter-of-fact detachment toward affairs of the heart is contrasted with moments of uncontrollable passion. Death can come suddenly, violently, but all can be borne by Silber's sturdy characters. "Ideas of Heaven," a story of missionaries in late nineteenth-century China, shows a dedication to accuracy and research. Wonderfully evocative of time and place, this is a collection to be read and savored by all. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (April 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393059081
ISBN-13: 978-0393059083
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,285,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
I had my own ideas about a higher purpose, but not enough ideas. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
kitchen boys

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Thomas Comber, New York, Ashes of Love, Gaspara Stampa, Anna Esther, Edward Rexroth, Marco Polo, Susan Rexroth

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Concordance | Text Stats

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 14 books:

Art and Life in Renaissance Venice (Perspectives) by Patricia Fortini Brown in Back Matter
Massacre in Shansi by Nat Brandt in Back Matter
Selected Poems (Australian poetry series) by J.S. Harry in Back Matter
The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam (New York Review Books Classics) by Osip Mandelstam in Back Matter
Household Words: 2 by Joan Silber in Front Matter

See all 14 books this book cites

3 books cite this book:

Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher on page 123
Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers by Sherry Ellis on page 124
A Thousand and One Nights by Lara Tupper in Front Matter

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	82% buy the item featured on this page: Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories by Joan Silber Hardcover 4.3 out of 5 stars (19)
	7% buy The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes (Art of...) by Joan Silber Paperback 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $9.60
	7% buy The Size of the World: A Novel by Joan Silber Paperback 4.0 out of 5 stars (4) $11.66
	2% buy Household Words: A Novel by Joan Silber Paperback 4.3 out of 5 stars (7) $11.92

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Customer Reviews

19 Reviews

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4 star:		(3)
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Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Well Done, May 10, 2004

By	Elizabeth Hendry (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories (Hardcover)

Joan Silber's Ideas of Heaven is really a terrific collection. Each of these first-person narrative stories is just wonderful, not a weak link in the bunch. Many times, I feel that a short story is a bit of an emotional letdown, but not in the case of these stories; each is emotionally rewarding. Never will you wish that a story was a little longer, or had a bit more for you. The writing here is excellent; the stories, compelling. Silber makes it a little bit more interesting by linking each story to the ones surrounding it as placed in the book. Well done. I highly recommend this collection, even if you generally shy away from short fiction.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really fun read, February 27, 2005

By	Michael White (Saint Louis, MO, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories (Hardcover)

I picked this book up because of the controversial comments some critics made about the 2004 National Book Award nominees. I was looking for something different from the usual bestsellers that sit out front in Borders or Barnes and Noble, bestsellers that can easily be turned into Hollywood blockbusters.

Silber's book was a refreshing change. You don't read this book for the plot, you read it for the language and the wonderful exploration of the relationship between sexual and spiritual longing. It's not a deep, dense philosophical treatise on the subject though; you see the tension of unfulfilled longing played out in the lives of mostly normal, everyday characters.

I started out thinking about the characters of the first two stories as losers - people who made bad choices in search of fulfillment. But as I kept reading, I came to recognize that many of the weaknesses of the characters were weaknesses I shared - I'm often blind in the same way they were blind about the mistakes they were making. This is what made the book compelling for me.

In the end, this book was just a lot of fun to read. I had a great time sitting on the couch and savoring Silber's beautiful language.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finding grace through loss, February 24, 2006

By	Roger Brunyate "reader/writer/musician" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories (Paperback)

I usually read only novels, but this is what the author calls a ring of six first-person stories, linked by the device of having a person or idea mentioned in a minor way in one story becoming the main subject of the next. Far more important than these surface links, however, is the commonality of theme that ties these first-person narratives together, even though their narrators alternate between male and female and their locales range from Renaissance Venice and 19th-century China to more-or-less-contemporary New York and Paris. Few of these life-stories (for each typically spans several decades) deal with great figures, and many are humdrum or downright uneventful. Most of the tales are about love found and lost again, through stupidity, tragedy, or the mere passage of time. Yet each ends in a state of acceptance, compromise perhaps, but increasingly verging on religious grace; the book-jacket comparison with William Trevor is not inapt. And the book's power is cumulative, enfolding the reader in a moral universe that is more consistent and consoling than in many a novel.

In short, excellently conceived and executed; the missing star is simply due to the fact that the book keeps a relatively low profile, without the emotional range of many of the books to which I have awarded five stars.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Ideas for Stories
This book should be called "Ideas for Stories" because there is a tremendous lack of credible detail found within these pages, and what is in the book, feels false and made up... Read more

Published 3 months ago by NE Reader

5.0 out of 5 stars You will thank me if you buy and read this book
I have just ordered Joan Silber's new volume of short stories, "The Size of the World," and, thinking back on
how much I enjoyed this book, I decided to take the time out of... Read more

Published on July 13, 2008 by moviegoer

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Jealous You Haven't Read it Yet
So many voices, so many styles--and she *gets* them all. A year later, I'm still awestruck by the story of the missionary in China. Read more

Published on May 7, 2007 by R. Schwartz

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow. Just wow.
This short story collection really struck a chord with me--although on the surface I wouldn't seem to have anything whatsoever in common with any of the characters. Read more

Published on June 5, 2006 by Cariola

4.0 out of 5 stars enjoyable and well written
I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the stories entertwined, and a character from one would pop up in another, and I would get a completely different take on the character's... Read more

Published on March 15, 2006 by Reb

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and unique ring of short stories!
Ideals of Heaven is quite a unique collection of short stories in that a secondary character in one story has a chance to tell his or her own views on life, love and faith in the... Read more

Published on April 29, 2005 by CoffeeGurl

5.0 out of 5 stars HEAVENLY IDEAS
JOAN SILBER'S MARVELOUS NOVEL DESERVES THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. HER FIRST-PERSON VOICE IS SO NATURAL,AND HER WRITING IS SO EFFORTLESS THAT THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT CATCHES ONE... Read more

Published on January 20, 2005 by Melinda M. Conner

2.0 out of 5 stars stories too uniform, little spark of language or idea
Ideas of Heaven is the third of the National Book Award nominees I've read recently, and while the other two (Madeline is Sleeping and Our Kind) did not particularly impress me... Read more

Published on January 17, 2005 by B. Capossere

5.0 out of 5 stars Spirituality, Love and Longing
These six sometimes connected stories set around the globe are simple, eloquent, and touching in their honest revelations about matters of the heart. Read more

Published on November 30, 2004 by Brett Benner

5.0 out of 5 stars Love and faith
The writing is so elegant and subtle, and the "linked stories" never feels like a gimmick but a smart way to show how people at all times have looked for immersion in or... Read more

Published on November 16, 2004 by Brooklyn reader

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