Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories (Revised)

So, so. The author could have done more linking the stories together. I had to keep checking back to see what the connection from one story to the next story was supposed to be.

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. Not the most eloquent of praises but: Wow. (Read Household Words after; it was good, but she'd already shown me Wow, so I was disappointed.)

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 next offering. All of the stories are in first-person narrative and each character has its own take on life, relationships, sex, and other subjects. This book enthralled me from beginning to end because each story spoke to me -- the voice of each character has something special, with musings and insights that make the reader nod in agreement and be touched as well. My favorite stories are "Ideas of Heaven," "The High Road," and "My Shape." The aforementioned stories touched me the most. The link of characters in each story makes this book all the more interesting. Joan Silber is a great author. I recommend this wonderful piece of work.

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.

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.

This "circle of stories" manages to capture more of human life than a dozen novels. I think it's the depths of the characterization. Like Alice Munro, Joan Silber makes you feel that you know these people better than anyone in real life, and sympathize with them, understand them, and care for them as if they were real.The characters and situations in one story resonate in another: a woman who longs to be a dancer -- without the equipment to go past a certain point -- is cruelly humilated by her teacher. But then, when we get to his story, we see how and why he has become the person who could do this. The book ranges across time and place, connecting through names, themes, story elements, and the ways the characters' erotic and spiritual longings intertwine.I finished the book a week ago and can't stop thinking about it. I thought it was one of the best works of fiction I'd ever read, both deep and dazzling. It hasn't faded for me at all; if anything, my admiration has grown. This makes me understand why readers want to follow a writer around and ask, "What do you eat for breakfast? How many hours a day do you write? Do you do your first drafts on a computer or by hand? How many times did you rewrite these magical stories?" As if there were some formula whereby the writer could communicate to the reader her wisdom, her humor, her compassion. Here's a moment where we see a character angrily sinking into failure:"In the end I gave up the studio, gave up the whole idea of teaching. I got a job in an agency booking dancers for clubs. Go-go girls, in spangled underwear and little white boots. I was the man the girls talked to after they read the classified and came into the office, nervous and flushed or tough and scowling. I sent them to clubs in the outer boroughs, airless caves in the Bronx with speakers blaring disco and red lights on the catwalk. My temper was so bad that people did what I told them, which was the agency's idea of sterling job performance. I was a snarling jerk in those years. Contempt filled by every cell; I was that as a tick on contempt."Oddly enough, though there's nothing resembling advice in here, after reading this book, I feel as if I know more about how to live, how to be the person I wish I could be. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading these again and have given copies to two friends already. I just wish I could read it again for the first time, for the shocks of discovery.