The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace is a compendium of four different myth-like stories. The preface of the story involves Eve, the symbol of womanhood in mythology, re-telling the myth of creation which involves her running from Orion the Hunter. During this original pursuit, Orion is entranced by Eve and needs to “have” her. Eve does not desire him back and runs away from him jumping into a river of stars. As the river carries her away from Orion, it takes her into an unknown heaven with constellations Eve has never seen before. These constellations open up to Eve and invite her into their stories, which take place in different universes with their own set of social system and beliefs.
The Knife is the first constellation that tells the story of Souraya, the lady of the question. “The story that cannot be questioned is to be feared, it serves to conceal a story too dangerous to be told.” This tale begins in a marriage and ends in a death. Souraya is married to an iconoclast husband, who accommodates her along his other prized possessions and demands of her to adapt to his iconoclast way of life. Then, she becomes a mother and goes to the very extremes to protect her child, the only reflection she has of herself.
The story of Savour, the lady of creation, is symbolized in the second constellation named The Cauldron. “There is no ‘either… no’ in Heaven, but ‘both… and.’ Our sentences pause, but do not end.” Savour is an orphan who was sold as a slave for her talent in cooking. This talent lands her in the service of a princess and a general, who are colonizing towns, not unlike Savour’s own. Through the dominance of her art of cooking, which stems from killing something to give life to something else, Savour bends the path of this colonization.
The Nebula Paradise is the third constellation is the story of Rain, lady of suffering. “These are the damned… They destroy whatever they yearn for most deeply. The will kill what they love in order to have it.” In the universe that Storace builds for Rain, families can only have one girl as a child. If they have more, one of the girls must be “gifted” to an escort house. Rain is born a twin to her sister Dolphin and because of Rain’s insurgency in a religious activity; her father decides to “gift” her. In that house, Rain lives abusive experiences and stands up for her companion in the face of a natural catastrophe. Rain ends up becoming a deity to her companions after her death.
The fourth and final constellation called The Lover’s Cluster is about Princess Sheba, lady of loving. “My story is of the unfinished work love the bringing of the day when we will be as capable of loving as we are of killing, when to confess to love will have more impact than the confession of wrongdoing, when the sentence ‘I love him’ will be more final than the sentence ‘I killed him’.” There are five tribes in this story who all co-habit in the same territory. The Bana, to the north, who despise love and only mate for procreation. The Ellusha, to the west, who lived for pleasure. The Philosophers, to the south, who renounced love to pursue wisdom. The Zealots, to the east, who believed that love was just another aspect of war. In this story, Princess Sheba survives an attack and lives her remaining years singing and dancing on the road meanwhile meeting some interesting religiously historical figures.
This was the book I read during the Hurricane last year. I read it by candlelight and mosquitos, and even when I could barely see what the page held, it was almost impossible to put it down. It is wonderfully written and intensively inspiring. This book gave me the strength and power to carry on during harsh times. I wish it will do the same for you.
“We on Earth navigate by the stars, so it is no wonder we have gone so far off course – since we have never seen more than a fragment of Heaven.”