Book 27 - Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories, by Joan Silber

After completing this book, I have now read all of the finalists for the 2004 National Book Award for Fiction. I rather regret having assigned myself the task of reading every single contender for a book award other than the poetry nominees. While the non-fiction has been terrific and the young adult novels have been solid, I only really liked one of the previous fiction nominees much – Florida, by Christine Schutt. Thankfully, Ideas of Heaven was also an engaging read, though probably not something I would normally pick up on my own.

The book is comprised of six different short stories, with each one connected to the previous one in some fashion. With some of them, the link is through the slimmest of threads. One story briefly mentions American missionaries in China; the next tale is about a missionary family in China. Essentially, the book is a series of ruminations on the ways love, life, sex and religion both diverge and come together.

Ideas of Heaven is extremely well researched and feels accurate even when the characters are in turn-of-the-20^th-century China. In the story Gaspara Stampa, the 16^th century poet narrates her own tempestuous love affairs that led to the writing of some of her key works.

This narrative structure and theme works quite well right up until the end, where the author allowed things to get just a bit too precious for my tastes. There’s too much attempt at making sure loose ends are tied that really didn’t need to be. Still, in all, the book is a terrific read and one I wholeheartedly recommend.