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The Heavens (2019)

di Sandra Newman

UtentiRecensioniPopolaritàMedia votiCitazioni
3161282,058 (3.5)13
"A young man, Ben, meets a young woman, Kate--and they begin to fall in love. From their first meeting, Ben knows Kate is unworldly and fanciful, so at first he isn't that concerned when she tells him about the recurring dream she's had since childhood. In the dream, she's transported to the past, where she lives a second life as Emilia, the mistress of a nobleman in Elizabethan England. But for Kate, the dream becomes increasingly real and compelling until it threatens to overwhelm her life."--… (altro)
Aggiunto di recente dabiblioteca privata, jodi, mkillam, WestEndWomenandGirls, hmonkeyreads, skyninja, pkill, Tinwara, mmcrawford, sesmiel
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» Vedi le 13 citazioni

Whittling down the plot of “The Heavens” to its bare bones makes it sound incomprehensible, if not downright silly. However, I’ll try to do it justice with as few spoilers as possible.

The novel’s “present” is set in New York around the year 2000. Except it’s not the city as we know it, but one which is different in subtle yet significant ways. A female, environmentalist President has been elected, it’s “the first year with no war at all” and there’s a general sense of utopian optimism. In other words, all’s right with the world.

It’s certainly all right with Ben’s world. He’s just fallen in love with Kate and can’t believe his luck. Kate is smart and beautiful. She’s exotic, describing herself as Hungarian-Turkish-Persian, three romantic, impractical strains, three peoples who had thrown away their empires. She moves within a glamorous set of friends who welcome Ben into their fold.

Soon, Ben learns that Kate has a strange recurring dream in which she visits an alternative reality. As her relationship with Ben gets stronger, the dream also becomes more defined and we realise that, in her sleep, she is travelling to late 16th century England, and experiencing it as (the historical) Emilia Lanier. Lanier was a poet and musician, mistress to the cousin of Elizabeth I, and wife of court musician Alfonso Lanier. Emilia is also sometimes touted as the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

On each return to the “present”, Kate notices that the world has changed from the way she left it, and often for the worse – this sets her on a mission to change the past, in the hope of creating a better future. But the second part of the novel also presents us with a radically – and tragically – different possibility, namely that this whole time-travel thing is all in Kate’s mind, even though the novel’s post-apocalyptic ending leaves it up to us to figure out what is really happening between the book’s pages.

This is a quirky novel with an appropriately quirky set of characters. Ben and Kate/Emilia are the protagonists, but Kate’s set of friends provide an eccentric supporting cast, adroitly reflected in the court circles frequented by Emilia. It might not be a perfect comparison, but “The Heavens” reminded me somewhat of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas – firstly in the idea of different eras impinging on each other but, more importantly, in its mixture of genres. “The Heavens” is part romance, part historical fiction/alternative history, part science-fiction, part fantasy/speculative fiction with a touch of magical realism. On one level, it can also be read as an expression of millennial angst – there’s an important scene which recreates the 9/11 attacks, making it the third novel I’ve read in the past few months which in some way or another references a defining event of recent history. (Ottessa Moshfegh's [b:My Year of Rest and Relaxation|36203391|My Year of Rest and Relaxation|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1513259517s/36203391.jpg|55508660] and R.O. Kwon's [b:The Incendiaries|36679056|The Incendiaries|R.O. Kwon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1512834150s/36679056.jpg|55674919])

There’s similar variety in the style – which shifts from realistic narration to poetic description, from tragedy to comedy and back to something-in-between.

If it’s eclectic in its influences and style, “The Heavens” is equally varied in the subjects it addresses. Now whilst I don’t mind genre-hopping one bit and actually love a novel which breaks barriers between genres, the boring part in me still tries to find an “anchoring” theme, subject or message. In this regard, “The Heavens” is more like a colourful butterfly which flits impulsively from one theme to the next. The novel could be an ideal book club choice as it provides plenty of discussion material. Just a few of the questions raised:

· How does the past affect the present?

· Does history repeat itself?

· Is the idea that we can affect the future merely an illusion?

· On a larger scale, can politics really change the world for the better?

· Is there a place for utopia and ideals?

· Can art...music...literature... change the world?

· Can love change the world?

· What does it mean to be happy and can one be happy when the world’s in a bad state?

· What does it mean to live with mental health problems or with a person with (possibly) mental health issues?


They’re not easy questions and the novel does not provide easy answers, which might be frustrating for some readers and quite the contrary for others. What’s more impressive is that these themes are addressed (or, at least, raised) in a novel which often displays a light, playful touch.

P.S. Head to http://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/09/perchance-to-dream-sandra-newmans.html for music to listen to whilst reading the book... ( )
  JosephCamilleri | Feb 21, 2023 |
I enjoyed this book but it was sometimes confusing. ( )
  Marietje.Halbertsma | Jan 9, 2022 |
Whittling down the plot of “The Heavens” to its bare bones makes it sound incomprehensible, if not downright silly. However, I’ll try to do it justice with as few spoilers as possible.

The novel’s “present” is set in New York around the year 2000. Except it’s not the city as we know it, but one which is different in subtle yet significant ways. A female, environmentalist President has been elected, it’s “the first year with no war at all” and there’s a general sense of utopian optimism. In other words, all’s right with the world.

It’s certainly all right with Ben’s world. He’s just fallen in love with Kate and can’t believe his luck. Kate is smart and beautiful. She’s exotic, describing herself as Hungarian-Turkish-Persian, three romantic, impractical strains, three peoples who had thrown away their empires. She moves within a glamorous set of friends who welcome Ben into their fold.

Soon, Ben learns that Kate has a strange recurring dream in which she visits an alternative reality. As her relationship with Ben gets stronger, the dream also becomes more defined and we realise that, in her sleep, she is travelling to late 16th century England, and experiencing it as (the historical) Emilia Lanier. Lanier was a poet and musician, mistress to the cousin of Elizabeth I, and wife of court musician Alfonso Lanier. Emilia is also sometimes touted as the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

On each return to the “present”, Kate notices that the world has changed from the way she left it, and often for the worse – this sets her on a mission to change the past, in the hope of creating a better future. But the second part of the novel also presents us with a radically – and tragically – different possibility, namely that this whole time-travel thing is all in Kate’s mind, even though the novel’s post-apocalyptic ending leaves it up to us to figure out what is really happening between the book’s pages.

This is a quirky novel with an appropriately quirky set of characters. Ben and Kate/Emilia are the protagonists, but Kate’s set of friends provide an eccentric supporting cast, adroitly reflected in the court circles frequented by Emilia. It might not be a perfect comparison, but “The Heavens” reminded me somewhat of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas – firstly in the idea of different eras impinging on each other but, more importantly, in its mixture of genres. “The Heavens” is part romance, part historical fiction/alternative history, part science-fiction, part fantasy/speculative fiction with a touch of magical realism. On one level, it can also be read as an expression of millennial angst – there’s an important scene which recreates the 9/11 attacks, making it the third novel I’ve read in the past few months which in some way or another references a defining event of recent history. (Ottessa Moshfegh's [b:My Year of Rest and Relaxation|36203391|My Year of Rest and Relaxation|Ottessa Moshfegh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1513259517s/36203391.jpg|55508660] and R.O. Kwon's [b:The Incendiaries|36679056|The Incendiaries|R.O. Kwon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1512834150s/36679056.jpg|55674919])

There’s similar variety in the style – which shifts from realistic narration to poetic description, from tragedy to comedy and back to something-in-between.

If it’s eclectic in its influences and style, “The Heavens” is equally varied in the subjects it addresses. Now whilst I don’t mind genre-hopping one bit and actually love a novel which breaks barriers between genres, the boring part in me still tries to find an “anchoring” theme, subject or message. In this regard, “The Heavens” is more like a colourful butterfly which flits impulsively from one theme to the next. The novel could be an ideal book club choice as it provides plenty of discussion material. Just a few of the questions raised:

· How does the past affect the present?

· Does history repeat itself?

· Is the idea that we can affect the future merely an illusion?

· On a larger scale, can politics really change the world for the better?

· Is there a place for utopia and ideals?

· Can art...music...literature... change the world?

· Can love change the world?

· What does it mean to be happy and can one be happy when the world’s in a bad state?

· What does it mean to live with mental health problems or with a person with (possibly) mental health issues?


They’re not easy questions and the novel does not provide easy answers, which might be frustrating for some readers and quite the contrary for others. What’s more impressive is that these themes are addressed (or, at least, raised) in a novel which often displays a light, playful touch.

P.S. Head to http://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/09/perchance-to-dream-sandra-newmans.html for music to listen to whilst reading the book... ( )
  JosephCamilleri | Jan 1, 2022 |
what a wonderful and weird book ( )
  austinburns | Dec 16, 2021 |
Warped Time or Warped Mind?

In Sandra Newman’s inventive but sometimes erratic The Heavens, we readers are left to decide for ourselves whether Kate is a time traveler or a loon. For in this take on time travel and history and dystopia and mental illness and, for good measure, Thomas Carlyle’s Great Man Theory (generic man, of course), Kate begins in one version of Earth, circa 2000, a pretty good one, it seems, does stuff with folks like Will Shakespeare, and ends up in another, the proverbial handbag of dystopian alternative history; in other words, our world in tatters.

In 2000, at a party, Kate and Ben meet. They begin a relationship and eventually fall in love. Even though Kate seems the desultory type who sleeps a lot, he loves her. However, things begin falling apart when Kate begins to forget things, or remember events at odds with the reality Ben knows. Not just Ben, but all their friends notice Kate’s eccentric behavior, including her parents, who tell Ben she’s always been that way, making her own reality.

When Kate explains it to Ben, it sounds even crazier. When Kate sleeps, she awakens in 1593 England as a consort to a rich man. She speaks Italian, in addition to Elizabethan English. She meets a writer hanging on the coattails of a lord, who turns out to be Will Shakespeare. Then Kate begins to believe in her dreams, which might be more than dreams, she’s doing things that change the future, her real world of 2000. Whenever she returns, things are different, different buildings, wars, presidents, and the like. Will reinforces her belief that she, one person, is changing the course of history, because he reveals that he, too, shares the apocalyptic vision she has, namely the smoking shell of a city.

The first half of the novel relates mostly her dream life, and Newman nicely captures the times, down to the smells and diction. The second half deals with Kate in real time after much has changed and she has been diagnosed as mentally ill. In this reality, she’s pregnant. And she has learned or is convinced she is a time traveler, one in a succession of individuals who create a chain that preserve each other and affect the timeline. In her reality, the final reality, the world is crappy place along the lines of most dystopian denouements.

While the book is thoughtful and not nearly as confusing given the changing perspectives, it does tend to be dark and sometimes sluggish. So, readers who either dislike, or like, this novel might want to give Elan Mastal’s All Our Wrong Todays a look. It’s a humorous romp through time, wherein the character starts out in a near perfect world, messes it up (that is, turns it into our world), and then is left to put things right.
. ( )
  write-review | Nov 4, 2021 |
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"A young man, Ben, meets a young woman, Kate--and they begin to fall in love. From their first meeting, Ben knows Kate is unworldly and fanciful, so at first he isn't that concerned when she tells him about the recurring dream she's had since childhood. In the dream, she's transported to the past, where she lives a second life as Emilia, the mistress of a nobleman in Elizabethan England. But for Kate, the dream becomes increasingly real and compelling until it threatens to overwhelm her life."--

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