The Heavens by Sandra Newman
A review
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 My Year of Rest and Relaxation and R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries)
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.
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.
May 2nd, 2019 by Granta Books
 |
| Grove Atlantic edition cover |
***
The historical Emilia Lanier was born in a family of Italian
musicians who served the Tudor court.
She married into another famous family of court musicians, the
Laniers. Of these, Nicholas Lanier, is
by far the best-known, having been the first Master of the King’s Music.
Music plays an important part in the 16th/17th Century
segments of the novel. Viol consorts
where a regular entertainment in the Tudor and Stuart courts. Here’s
a viol consort performance of Fancy for six Viols by Orlando Gibbons (1583 –
1625)
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