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Ideas of Heaven
Shortlisted for the National Book Award: "Joan Silber writes with wisdom, humor, grace, and wry intelligence. Her characters bear welcome news of how we will survive."―Andrea Barrett Intense in subject yet restrained in tone, these stories are about longings―often held for years―and the ways in which sex and religion can become parallel forms of dedication and comfort. Though the stories stand alone, a minor element in one becomes major in the next. In "My Shape", a woman is taunted by her dance coach, who later suffers his own heartache. A Venetian poet of the 1500s, another storyteller, is introduced to a modern traveler reading Rilke. His story precedes a mesmerizing narrative of missionaries in China. In the final story, Giles, born to a priesthood family, leans toward Buddhism after a grievous loss, and in time falls in love with the dancer of the first story. So deft and subtle is Joan Silber with these various perspectives that we come full circle surprised and enchanted by her myriad worlds. National Book Award finalist. Reading group guide included.
254 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Joan Silber
25 books339 followersJoan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction. Her book Improvement was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was listed as one of the year's best books by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The Seattle Times, and Kirkus Reviews. She lives in New York and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Keep up with Joan at joansilber.net.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
July 9, 2022
This is an excellent short story collection from the talented Joan Silber, featuring 6 stories, all subtly and imaginatively interlinked, and coming full circle, forming a ring, when the last story connects with the first. The stories are:
My Shape - about the need to be a dancer
The High Road - about a dance instructor's infatuation
Gaspara Stampa - of love and poetry
Ashes of Love- becoming parents
Ideas of Heaven - missionaries in China during the Boxer Rebellion
The Same Ground - of faith and coming full circle
The collection is beautifully written, first person stories, with a wide range of disparate and complex characters and perspectives, with their own set of issues, tone and distinct voices, and set in a diverse set of locations that include California, New York, France, Italy and set through time in different historical periods such as Renaissance Venice. The universal themes coalesce around and focus on love, sex, religion and desire, often treading on the familiar and common territory of the sacred and the devotional.
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I found these short stories to be profound, emotionally impactful, heartbreaking, engaging, thought provoking and fascinating, wonderfully pieced together, threaded with the humanity, intelligence and compassion of the author, and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
My Shape - about the need to be a dancer
The High Road - about a dance instructor's infatuation
Gaspara Stampa - of love and poetry
Ashes of Love- becoming parents
Ideas of Heaven - missionaries in China during the Boxer Rebellion
The Same Ground - of faith and coming full circle
The collection is beautifully written, first person stories, with a wide range of disparate and complex characters and perspectives, with their own set of issues, tone and distinct voices, and set in a diverse set of locations that include California, New York, France, Italy and set through time in different historical periods such as Renaissance Venice. The universal themes coalesce around and focus on love, sex, religion and desire, often treading on the familiar and common territory of the sacred and the devotional.
,
I found these short stories to be profound, emotionally impactful, heartbreaking, engaging, thought provoking and fascinating, wonderfully pieced together, threaded with the humanity, intelligence and compassion of the author, and which I recommend highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
July 10, 2018
We all do it .... check our percentages when reading our Kindle ebooks.....
....but not when we are deeply absorbed- enjoying our reading fully! I was deeply pulled into these connected stories: 6 long-short stories.....
......themes of love, religion, spirituality, and sex. I liked them a lot. Only the title story: “Ideas of Heaven” started to drain me - eat my insides - nail on a chalkboard torture ( a little long for so much agony) ....in the same way ( memories of a long time ago), reading “The Poison Wood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver. At the same time - the story is so powerful and memorable - it’s no wonder it became the title of this book.
I suppose one way to talk about this book is the structure- style - creative linking of the stories themselves- and Joan Silber’s marvelous writing talent. —-but for me — I just wish to talk about the stories themselves. They were interesting. I felt each one of them could’ve stood alone even without being connected. ( but being connected was nice too). The characters and their conflicts is what I’m left thinking about.
The characters are each uniquely different: men, women, parents, children, dating, marriages, political upheavals, bombing, adultery, body image, dancing, poetry, - roommates, Buddhism, we travel around the world in these stories ( New York, Paris, London, Venice, China, spanning several decades.
In “Ashes of Love”, I was introduced to poetry- passages from “The Duino Elegies”, by Rainer Maria Rilke: GORGEOUS!!!...
I also found the story itself incredibly thought provoking about an ex-hippi raising his son in California while the son’s mother was in London. A ‘new’ mother & wife in California came on board.
Much to reflect on....and lucky me... I’m reading this book with *Lisa (NY)*.... we will continue our discussion privately. I like all 6 of these stories.
Highly recommended!! Joan’s writing is exquisite!!!! I’ve read two of her books now .... More still to read!!!
....but not when we are deeply absorbed- enjoying our reading fully! I was deeply pulled into these connected stories: 6 long-short stories.....
......themes of love, religion, spirituality, and sex. I liked them a lot. Only the title story: “Ideas of Heaven” started to drain me - eat my insides - nail on a chalkboard torture ( a little long for so much agony) ....in the same way ( memories of a long time ago), reading “The Poison Wood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver. At the same time - the story is so powerful and memorable - it’s no wonder it became the title of this book.
I suppose one way to talk about this book is the structure- style - creative linking of the stories themselves- and Joan Silber’s marvelous writing talent. —-but for me — I just wish to talk about the stories themselves. They were interesting. I felt each one of them could’ve stood alone even without being connected. ( but being connected was nice too). The characters and their conflicts is what I’m left thinking about.
The characters are each uniquely different: men, women, parents, children, dating, marriages, political upheavals, bombing, adultery, body image, dancing, poetry, - roommates, Buddhism, we travel around the world in these stories ( New York, Paris, London, Venice, China, spanning several decades.
In “Ashes of Love”, I was introduced to poetry- passages from “The Duino Elegies”, by Rainer Maria Rilke: GORGEOUS!!!...
I also found the story itself incredibly thought provoking about an ex-hippi raising his son in California while the son’s mother was in London. A ‘new’ mother & wife in California came on board.
Much to reflect on....and lucky me... I’m reading this book with *Lisa (NY)*.... we will continue our discussion privately. I like all 6 of these stories.
Highly recommended!! Joan’s writing is exquisite!!!! I’ve read two of her books now .... More still to read!!!
September 28, 2019
Ideas of heaven are generally fuelled by either religion or sex. And religion and sex are the themes of the six first person narrative stories in this book. Joan Silber is an excellent writer. As is always the case with stories, some are much better than others.
Where it fell short of five stars for me was that the stories didn't interlock as well as they might have done. All are linked by the above mentioned themes but only a couple are linked by recurring characters or clever motifs. Four are set in recent times while the other two are distinctly exotic - Renaissance Venice and 19th century China. The link to Renaissance Venice is provided by one present day character's love of Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote about the Italian poet Gaspara Stampa who will then narrate her story. I probably liked this the best of all the stories. However, 19th century China bears a much skimpier relationship with what has preceded it and was also perhaps the least convincing, though most dramatic, story (as well as being the longest). For me, Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno was more successful in terms of artistry as an interlocking narrative of short stories. However, I did really enjoy the quality of JS's writing. Thanks to Julie for sending this author my way.
Where it fell short of five stars for me was that the stories didn't interlock as well as they might have done. All are linked by the above mentioned themes but only a couple are linked by recurring characters or clever motifs. Four are set in recent times while the other two are distinctly exotic - Renaissance Venice and 19th century China. The link to Renaissance Venice is provided by one present day character's love of Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote about the Italian poet Gaspara Stampa who will then narrate her story. I probably liked this the best of all the stories. However, 19th century China bears a much skimpier relationship with what has preceded it and was also perhaps the least convincing, though most dramatic, story (as well as being the longest). For me, Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno was more successful in terms of artistry as an interlocking narrative of short stories. However, I did really enjoy the quality of JS's writing. Thanks to Julie for sending this author my way.
July 25, 2018
These ambitious, well-written stories cover a few centuries and span the world - from Venice in 1523, to China during the Boxer Rebellion, to contemporary France, New York, and California. Silber's characters are all grappling (often unhappily) with love, longing, sex, religion. I was often puzzled by the characters - I didn't really relate to any of them - but was nevertheless fascinated.
September 6, 2017
Just finished this, and was so moved and entertained. A profound work of art I think. More tk on this writer soon.
March 21, 2017
Insanely good writing here. Such richness. These are not sliver-tales of crystal, perfect moments, they are entire lives contained in 35 or so pages each. I quite marvel at her audacity and skill. Silber is a marvelous story-teller. As Anthony Doerr says, "the ardor with which they [the characters] yearn for their respective heavens will break your heart.
July 21, 2008
Ideas of Heaven by Joan Silber is subtitled "A Ring of Stories" because the stories are connected one to the next, and they come full circle in the end – someone mentioned in passing in one story reappears as the protagonist/narrator in the next until the last story is tied back to the first.
The stories are also linked by a running theme: Silber explores the ways in which sex, love and religion are "always fighting over the same ground – with their sweeping claims, their promises of transport" and how each tends to fill in where the others fail. Her stories revolve around longing – religious and/or sexual. A "sacred thirst," one character calls it. "Forms of devotion, forms of consolation."
Silber successfully pulls off the "ring" device by making the connections subtle yet clear, without being obvious or seeming overwrought. What makes the ring even more impressive is that each story occurs in vastly different places and times – they take place in modern-day America and France, in Renaissance Italy, in China around 1900.
In fact, one of the things I most enjoyed about Silber is her dexterity – her ability to write convincingly about each of these disparate times and places and to assume, credibly, the voices of the dissimilar characters who inhabit those times and places. A gay man in New York, a turn-of-the-century Christian missionary in China, an Italian courtesan – she gives each of these a distinct, genuine voice.
Something else unusual about these stories is their epic sweep. Often short-story writers will focus on illuminating one small-yet-significant moment or one telling incident. Silber’s stories capture years, decades, lifetimes, without seeming fractured or incomplete. She distills complex characters and their equally complex lives into a few remarkable pages.
I very much enjoyed Silber’s clear, illuminating way with words, and the thoughtful, introspective tone with which she handles some fairly intense subject matter. Her stories are passionate and compassionate, elegant and wise, and they remind us that solace is sometimes found where and when we least expect it.
The stories are also linked by a running theme: Silber explores the ways in which sex, love and religion are "always fighting over the same ground – with their sweeping claims, their promises of transport" and how each tends to fill in where the others fail. Her stories revolve around longing – religious and/or sexual. A "sacred thirst," one character calls it. "Forms of devotion, forms of consolation."
Silber successfully pulls off the "ring" device by making the connections subtle yet clear, without being obvious or seeming overwrought. What makes the ring even more impressive is that each story occurs in vastly different places and times – they take place in modern-day America and France, in Renaissance Italy, in China around 1900.
In fact, one of the things I most enjoyed about Silber is her dexterity – her ability to write convincingly about each of these disparate times and places and to assume, credibly, the voices of the dissimilar characters who inhabit those times and places. A gay man in New York, a turn-of-the-century Christian missionary in China, an Italian courtesan – she gives each of these a distinct, genuine voice.
Something else unusual about these stories is their epic sweep. Often short-story writers will focus on illuminating one small-yet-significant moment or one telling incident. Silber’s stories capture years, decades, lifetimes, without seeming fractured or incomplete. She distills complex characters and their equally complex lives into a few remarkable pages.
I very much enjoyed Silber’s clear, illuminating way with words, and the thoughtful, introspective tone with which she handles some fairly intense subject matter. Her stories are passionate and compassionate, elegant and wise, and they remind us that solace is sometimes found where and when we least expect it.
January 2, 2018
Finding Grace Through Loss
[Review from 2006] 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.
[Review from 2006] 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.
October 29, 2014
These stories really fell flat for me. If I was not required to read this book for a writing class, I would have put it down during the first story. First, Silber uses the SAME voice and clipped pacing for each of her stories, which are supposed to take place across generations, cultures and locations. Each story is told in first-person, from the point of view of vastly different characters. Yet she uses the same voice and style for each. It's really very distracting. Second, as other reviewers have explained, her stories have the feel of being mere outlines of plots and characters, as if Silber plans to return and flesh out the stories at a later date. (In fact, some of them would make good novels, if she could slow down and perhaps employ more "style"). I am not one for flowery writing, or an author's over-indulgence into scenery, etc., but I feel shuffled through her stories as if she has a page limit, and as if she is responding to a prompt, "Tell me about your life." Again, if her tone and pacing changed among the stories, I could forgive it. But the fact that all of the stories are written this way made the book not very enjoyable for me.
December 22, 2009
What I liked about the stories: I liked the pacing, the ability to plausibly fit biographies and hard life-adaptations into 20 or 30 pages of story. It's very different from the short time-frames I usually read in short stories.
I wasn't crazy about the style. Too simply conversational, too parsed and easy to digest. And really, people across time periods from different cultures think so alike? They just use different vocabularies? This was my main beef with the book -- the style of discourse was so uniform. If I'm going to be dazzled by a short story collection that takes place in disparate places in disparate times you better make each story exquisitely different.
Or maybe I was just spoiled by the genius of "Cloud Atlas"?
I wasn't crazy about the style. Too simply conversational, too parsed and easy to digest. And really, people across time periods from different cultures think so alike? They just use different vocabularies? This was my main beef with the book -- the style of discourse was so uniform. If I'm going to be dazzled by a short story collection that takes place in disparate places in disparate times you better make each story exquisitely different.
Or maybe I was just spoiled by the genius of "Cloud Atlas"?
July 28, 2009
Well. I gave this a shot despite it not being my thing- the author taught at the Sarah lawrence program (and teaches there regularly) and I liked what she read there. In truth, it was well written, but the style was a bit hard to take - she basically talks to you the entire time, and the 'ring of stories' (I m not a fan of the long short stories, personally) didn't seem to connect, to me, other than people having really unhealthy attitudes toward love. Despite all that, I finished it in a few hours and enjoyed the writing, but the style was something that I think is a specfici taste.
May 10, 2020
Such a lovely read. Not every one of these short stories was 5 stars, but the overall collection definitely warranted 5 stars. Silber’s ability to create a whole world with well-developed characters in 50-60 pages is extraordinary.
December 2, 2009
Ideas Of Heaven: A Ring Of Stories by Joan Silber was so delightful and easy for me to polish off, it took some time to register just when and where her characters began to haunt me. All six stories are written in first person narrative. Each voice has its own rhythm, tone and charm — their narration has a deceptive ease which makes their uniqueness all the more remarkable. As I read I began to feel like the bartender in whom complete strangers are only too happy to confide their most troubling desires.
Silber's characters puzzle over the chasm that yawns between longing and gratification. Some of them experience gratification, usually from unexpected sources; others exist in a curiously elevated state of tension. The desires of the heart and the frailty of the flesh are a constant source of surprise and wonder. Death punctuates the stories, but I found reading the book to be a strangely joyful experience.
Silber's characters puzzle over the chasm that yawns between longing and gratification. Some of them experience gratification, usually from unexpected sources; others exist in a curiously elevated state of tension. The desires of the heart and the frailty of the flesh are a constant source of surprise and wonder. Death punctuates the stories, but I found reading the book to be a strangely joyful experience.
December 5, 2008
"What is Love doing to me? I thought. That question itself comforted me. So I was ruled by Love, his follower. Chosen to serve. I was like a priest being sent to a different parish."
With traveling "even when you can't wait to get out of some hellhole you've chosen to visit, later you're never sorry you were there."
"And when I came back from Yosemite, after not speaking to another person for a week, tired and unbathed and rank-smelling, I was more changed than I'd expected. it was not that I was calmer (everyone's idea of why I'd gone), but that the world seemed newly proportioned, as if I had judged the relative size of its parts wrong before now."
"...It seemed laughable to me that people cared about cracks, as if the world weren't naturally cracking and dissolving every second anyway."
"I was not ignorant about physical love, but I had not quite understood the way that this diffuse yearning would locate itself so pointedly in the vital tissues of my body, once Ben was actually with me. And perhaps I was startled most by the changes in his body (that being the aspect I knew the least about), by the swollen, hardened flesh rising from my Ben, the gentlest of men. he was as much a novice to the act as I was, and we rowed through these new waters together. I saw why a man and wife must never leave one another, having been to these places in each other's company."
"I could see that sex and religion were always fighting over the same ground - both with their sweeping claims, their promises of transport - and each ran into the breach left by the other, each tried to fill in for the other's failings. Forms of devotion, forms of consolation."
"I watched her, as if I had invented her, out of my own cleverness; as if this were the only life I was going to have in this world, as if no others were waiting."
October 28, 2019
4.5 stars. A very well written collection of six short stories, ranging from 22 to 57 pages in length. The writing is very concise and vivid. Each story is told in the first person and covers a number of years in the character’s narrative. I found every story very engaging.
The short stories are:
‘My Shape’ - about a want to be actress who settles for being a showgirl on a cruise ship, then marries.
‘The High Road’ - about a male dance instructor who becomes infatuated by a good looking young man named Carl.
‘Gaspara Stampa’ - a famous woman poet who lived in Venice in the 1570s, who falls in love and writes love poems about the two men in her life.
‘Ashes of Love’ - the story of a couple who travel extensively then life changes with a son being born.
‘Ideas of Heaven’ - about a young couple from Ohio in the late 1800s who decide to go to China as missionaries and experience life in China with the Boxer Rebellion.
‘The Same Ground’ - about the narrator who marries Sylvia in Paris. They have a son Marc, then an unexpected event occurs.
Readers who enjoy short stories should find this book a worthwhile read.
This book was a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 2004.
The short stories are:
‘My Shape’ - about a want to be actress who settles for being a showgirl on a cruise ship, then marries.
‘The High Road’ - about a male dance instructor who becomes infatuated by a good looking young man named Carl.
‘Gaspara Stampa’ - a famous woman poet who lived in Venice in the 1570s, who falls in love and writes love poems about the two men in her life.
‘Ashes of Love’ - the story of a couple who travel extensively then life changes with a son being born.
‘Ideas of Heaven’ - about a young couple from Ohio in the late 1800s who decide to go to China as missionaries and experience life in China with the Boxer Rebellion.
‘The Same Ground’ - about the narrator who marries Sylvia in Paris. They have a son Marc, then an unexpected event occurs.
Readers who enjoy short stories should find this book a worthwhile read.
This book was a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 2004.
June 18, 2012
I usually really enjoy short stories that link in some small way to the previous ones, the next one... but I guess the theme never really drew me in. I kept waiting for it to get better, but many of the stories I wished I hadn't wasted my time reading. Maybe the links were too obscure for me--I tend to read multiple books at the same time, so have 2-3 days in between going back to a particular book, and if I had read this straight through I may have been more impressed. Enjoyed the first and last story, but definitely would not re-read.
April 27, 2014
Like "Fools," I read this once, then turned around and read it again just to get a better view of the connections between the stories. They're worth the attention. I've been on a Silber streak; I like her voice, and I've enjoyed what this author has to say about people and life and their thoughts, longings, and lies, and while some may feel this collection is too serious, I found it hopeful as well. "I watched her, as if I had invented her, out of my own cleverness; as if this were the only life I was going to have in this world, as if no others were waiting."
October 18, 2014
The problem is.. after 5 stories in, it got a little tiring. The characters started getting on my nerves. They were all the same people but had different historical backgrounds, clothes, genders but it was still the same person... So in that case, I think the author has some work to do to not sound like the same person across 5 stories. The ending did finally connect with the beginning but it started becoming a drag to get there.
December 6, 2014
These stories are interesting in that every one of them -- though short -- tells a full life story, and altogether they bring the reader around the world and across the centuries. The writer's voice is straightforward and clear as she tells of the characters' great passions, and while her tone didn't captivate me for its own sake, many of these stories moved me deeply and brought tears to my eyes.
December 11, 2009
A well-written"ring" of stories that made me keep flipping back and forth to find out the connections among characters, etc. I discovered her due to an interview she did in the Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, and her book lived up to the meticulous writing that I expected. Some of the stories were "jst" good, but many were great or amazing.
June 10, 2020
Loved this collection of these interconnected short stories! A minor character in one story becomes the focus of the next story until it comes full circle at the end. I can’t wait to read more from this author.
July 21, 2020
Couldn’t get past page 90, DNF. Maybe I’m just not into circular stories, I had a hard time with Cloud Atlas too.
I feel like this was particularly bad because I couldn’t figure out who the 3rd person was, their name or how they tied to the 2nd story. Not compelling
I feel like this was particularly bad because I couldn’t figure out who the 3rd person was, their name or how they tied to the 2nd story. Not compelling
December 29, 2022
4.5
For some reason I thought that Silber’s ambition had reached new heights in her two most recent books. It turns out this earlier collection of stories is just as bold and audacious, if not more so.
Ideas of Heaven boasts an impressive range of settings and time periods: I was taken from modern day America to France, to Renaissance Italy and Boxer Rebellion China. And these stories are linked. Thanks to Silber’s clever construction there’s pleasure in the connections between these characters and their preoccupations.
These imaginative leaps have become to me one of Silber’s defining qualities as a writer. Most writers simply don’t do this kind of thing, or are not daring enough in this way.
Silber is also generous with her characters. She often centers people who are arrogant, selfish and domineering – and kind of pathetic. Not the kinds of people we want to spend our time with. But Silber renders them with compassion and we come to understand them, even be charmed by them. The stories are all first-person narratives, and despite their failings the voices of these characters, as they share their experiences and ask questions about love, loss, sex, faith, devotion and longing, are radiant with their complex humanity.
There’s a distinct feeling of some sort of spiritual journey having taken place in Silber’s stories. Buddhism is a common feature in her work, and it was present here. The way the characters subtly change and gain perspective across the years as they come to learn that their lives are made up of multiple little lives, that people are capable of reinvention, is where the real magic and pleasure of reading Silber lies. She’s often been compared to Alice Munro for the way she traverses decades and holds a lifetime within the pages of a short story. She does it beautifully.
Oh and Silber’s fantastic on sex, particularly at describing good sex.
These precisely shaped narratives are deceptively casual in tone, and have a rhythm that’s addictive. The prose glides effortlessly. Silber’s a joy to read on every level. She has style, she has grace, and she is, quite frankly, Miss United States.
For some reason I thought that Silber’s ambition had reached new heights in her two most recent books. It turns out this earlier collection of stories is just as bold and audacious, if not more so.
Ideas of Heaven boasts an impressive range of settings and time periods: I was taken from modern day America to France, to Renaissance Italy and Boxer Rebellion China. And these stories are linked. Thanks to Silber’s clever construction there’s pleasure in the connections between these characters and their preoccupations.
These imaginative leaps have become to me one of Silber’s defining qualities as a writer. Most writers simply don’t do this kind of thing, or are not daring enough in this way.
Silber is also generous with her characters. She often centers people who are arrogant, selfish and domineering – and kind of pathetic. Not the kinds of people we want to spend our time with. But Silber renders them with compassion and we come to understand them, even be charmed by them. The stories are all first-person narratives, and despite their failings the voices of these characters, as they share their experiences and ask questions about love, loss, sex, faith, devotion and longing, are radiant with their complex humanity.
There’s a distinct feeling of some sort of spiritual journey having taken place in Silber’s stories. Buddhism is a common feature in her work, and it was present here. The way the characters subtly change and gain perspective across the years as they come to learn that their lives are made up of multiple little lives, that people are capable of reinvention, is where the real magic and pleasure of reading Silber lies. She’s often been compared to Alice Munro for the way she traverses decades and holds a lifetime within the pages of a short story. She does it beautifully.
Oh and Silber’s fantastic on sex, particularly at describing good sex.
These precisely shaped narratives are deceptively casual in tone, and have a rhythm that’s addictive. The prose glides effortlessly. Silber’s a joy to read on every level. She has style, she has grace, and she is, quite frankly, Miss United States.
June 27, 2025
just realized I accidentally removed wang wen-hsing from my yearly reading challenge )-: it’s okay I anticipate reading a lot when I’m recovering from the dreaded move from Taiwan to US this summer )-:
despite feeling icky the entire missionary in China chapter and feeling like all the characters were essentially the same person—all doused in manic pixie girlhoodom—I still can’t bring myself to rate it any lower bc the linked stories aspect of it was so novel! and I was scratching my head trying to figure out what linked each story to each other, which was fun in itself despite the times I wanted to strangle myself bc some of these characters were tooooooo unlikeable:
my shape —> the high road. finding love and connection in show business, broadway
the high road —> gaspara stampa. emotional constipation
gaspara stampa —> ashes of love. ambiguity, “may this type of love never find me”
ashes of love —> ideas of heaven. child-rearing, parenthood
ideas of heaven —> the same ground. religion, China
the same ground —> my shape. ALICE
I couldn’t confirm these links online but i think I need a break from white woman authors for a while, so next up is Kevin’s uncorrected proof of spent bullets, which he once described as something akin to qiu miaojin’s notes of a crocodile (I only read notebook three in order to participate in his book club at daybreak) but about gay men pissing on each other.
this book made me remember all the reasons why I adored historical fiction as a kid. also understanding that this book’s two main themes are sex and religion… I kept thinking about the brainrot reddit thread reels that I play on my phone every night to fall asleep; they’re thematically tied to this book. AITA… etc etc, and in the end you’re pretty loyal in rooting for the main character of each story no matter how disastrous they are
despite feeling icky the entire missionary in China chapter and feeling like all the characters were essentially the same person—all doused in manic pixie girlhoodom—I still can’t bring myself to rate it any lower bc the linked stories aspect of it was so novel! and I was scratching my head trying to figure out what linked each story to each other, which was fun in itself despite the times I wanted to strangle myself bc some of these characters were tooooooo unlikeable:
my shape —> the high road. finding love and connection in show business, broadway
the high road —> gaspara stampa. emotional constipation
gaspara stampa —> ashes of love. ambiguity, “may this type of love never find me”
ashes of love —> ideas of heaven. child-rearing, parenthood
ideas of heaven —> the same ground. religion, China
the same ground —> my shape. ALICE
I couldn’t confirm these links online but i think I need a break from white woman authors for a while, so next up is Kevin’s uncorrected proof of spent bullets, which he once described as something akin to qiu miaojin’s notes of a crocodile (I only read notebook three in order to participate in his book club at daybreak) but about gay men pissing on each other.
this book made me remember all the reasons why I adored historical fiction as a kid. also understanding that this book’s two main themes are sex and religion… I kept thinking about the brainrot reddit thread reels that I play on my phone every night to fall asleep; they’re thematically tied to this book. AITA… etc etc, and in the end you’re pretty loyal in rooting for the main character of each story no matter how disastrous they are
August 2, 2021
“Ideas of Heaven” (A Ring of Stories), by Joan Silber (2004), is the 6th book by Silber that I’ve read this year, and my favorite. Clearly I enjoy her “signature” and highly effective structure of interrelated stories and varying points of view. It really is her forte!
These stories come “full circle” in a most satisfying way. My favorite was the eponymous “Ideas of Heaven” story about a missionary family during the Boxer Rebellion. What a gut-punch in SO MANY WAYS.
These stories come “full circle” in a most satisfying way. My favorite was the eponymous “Ideas of Heaven” story about a missionary family during the Boxer Rebellion. What a gut-punch in SO MANY WAYS.
January 31, 2023
La mia forma *
La strada maestra **
Gaspara Stampa (1523-54) **
Ceneri d'amore ***
Un'idea di paradiso *
Qualcosa in comune ***
Scialba raccolta di racconti, a tema amore/sesso/relazioni. Il tono generale, fra l'anodino e il disincantato, funziona, ma lo stile regala pochi guizzi e gli scarni rimandi inter-testuali risultano puramente esornativi, di fatto superflui.
La strada maestra **
Gaspara Stampa (1523-54) **
Ceneri d'amore ***
Un'idea di paradiso *
Qualcosa in comune ***
Scialba raccolta di racconti, a tema amore/sesso/relazioni. Il tono generale, fra l'anodino e il disincantato, funziona, ma lo stile regala pochi guizzi e gli scarni rimandi inter-testuali risultano puramente esornativi, di fatto superflui.
September 22, 2018
These loosely interwoven short stories compassionately and intelligently tell stories of love and suffering. In some stories god and religion are at play in the suffering, in others it is more of a personal longing and coming to terms with unrequited emotions. From a plot perspective the stories are tenuously linked, but from an emotional perspective the threads and connections among characters are very strong.
Silber creates beautiful encapsulated worlds - each story takes place over multiple years and focuses on a single narrator. The depth and the resonance of the stories only deepens as they are strung together creating larger meanings. Each of the narrators has a strong ability to be both in the current moment of their lives as well the ability to look back with a sense of disconnected reflection. Whether it is Alice in My Shape fighting against her body type to become a dancer, or Duncan who toys with celibacy and unrequited love, or Gaspara Stampa who understand she will never marry and suffers deeply in her relationships with men creating beautiful art, or Giles the widower whose story brings things full circle these are real people whole feel deeply and sometimes suffer for that depth of feeling.
Silber creates beautiful encapsulated worlds - each story takes place over multiple years and focuses on a single narrator. The depth and the resonance of the stories only deepens as they are strung together creating larger meanings. Each of the narrators has a strong ability to be both in the current moment of their lives as well the ability to look back with a sense of disconnected reflection. Whether it is Alice in My Shape fighting against her body type to become a dancer, or Duncan who toys with celibacy and unrequited love, or Gaspara Stampa who understand she will never marry and suffers deeply in her relationships with men creating beautiful art, or Giles the widower whose story brings things full circle these are real people whole feel deeply and sometimes suffer for that depth of feeling.
February 10, 2023
This collection of first person stories spans centuries and continents, connected by through lines and repeating characters. Themes such as religion, worship, sex, love, and death are explored. Silber’s gorgeous prose is imbued with the writing of Gaspara Stampa, Petrarch, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
The progression of the stories makes perfect sense. The narrator of the second story was a present side character in the first story; Stampa’s writing is first mentioned in the second story, and Stampa herself is the voice of the third story, and so on. The collection is clever, thorough, profound, and gut-wrenching at times. The first four stories were my favorites. They flowed so well together and made so much sense one right after the other. It felt exciting to slowly put things together and trace the connectors throughout.
The progression of the stories makes perfect sense. The narrator of the second story was a present side character in the first story; Stampa’s writing is first mentioned in the second story, and Stampa herself is the voice of the third story, and so on. The collection is clever, thorough, profound, and gut-wrenching at times. The first four stories were my favorites. They flowed so well together and made so much sense one right after the other. It felt exciting to slowly put things together and trace the connectors throughout.
May 8, 2020
This is a lovely book. Joan Silver’s writing is sophisticated and literary without being enamored with itself or convoluted. The stories are thoughtful and nuanced but also entertaining and fairly easy to follow. The stories can feel a bit disparate, because the characters are really only tangentially related, but the themes run so strongly though them, and they’re styled so similarly, that it creates a unifying effect. Unlike many short stories, this isn’t about a particular moment in time for each character. Instead, each story represents a miniature lifetime, highlighting in particular the protagonists’ romantic and religious passions.
February 28, 2021
The narrative style produced an oddly distanced effect. I felt a mile away from both the interiority of the characters and the action itself. While I appreciated the international locales and cultural variances, the tendency for each story to end in death does nothing but continually reduce the overall impact of the next death. You begin to feel like you're reading--more or less--the same thematic exploration over and over again.
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