There's a blurb on the back of my copy of this book from Michael Cunningham, declaring that The Great Fire is an extraordinary love story. I ask simply, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GETTING THAT?

We have a so-called great love story between late 30s Aldred Leith and 17-year-old Helen Driscoll. The plot basically revolves around Leith trying to figure out how to marry Helen when she's underage and her parents are jerks. And apparently, waiting until she's an adult is not okay because she might fall in love with someone else. Yikes!

Here's the thing though, it ends up being not as creepy as it sounds because Helen has all the personality of a lamppost. This seems to be a thing Hazzard likes to write about, girls or women being acted upon by the men in their lives instead of showing the reader anything at all about the woman's inner life. Helen really reminded me of Caro from The Transit of Venus in that every man is in love with her, and she just kind of goes with the flow and we get no idea what she's thinking.

We get some pages about Helen's invalid brother, Leith's romantic conquests (one of which is his dead best friend's mom, who leaves Leith for Leith's dad... sounds like it could be intriguing, right? Nope, it's just boring and slightly weird), and some chapters dedicated to Leith's friend Peter Exley. I have no idea why Peter is in this book. He goes about his daily life, gets polio, and dips out. At least with Transit of Venus all of the random characters end up mattering in the end, when you find out this huge thing that changes how you understand the book. Nothing of the sort happens here. I cannot emphasize this enough, this book is dead boring.

How did I give this two stars instead of one though? Because Hazzard has some trippy lines. \\"At table, a lobster was prepared to give up its flesh without a struggle.\\" What a way to say lobster is for dinner. It's hilarious. There's quite a lot of those absolute wacky lines. Not that I'd recommend reading this, under any circumstances, ever. But I gotta give it up to Hazzard for lines like that.

Imagine if Jane Austen had come back to travel the world in the mid-20th century and read novelists like Henry James, E.M. Forster, and Graham Greene. What might she have written? Something like Shirley Hazzard's ''The Great Fire'' perhaps?

Austen lived through a tumultuous era with the Napoleonic wars raging, yet she deliberately kept the outside world at bay in her novels. Her world consisted of small English villages, and she persistently viewed it through the eyes of her female protagonists.

Hazzard's novel is like Austen's turned inside out. Her protagonist is male, and the story takes readers to various locations such as Japan, Hong Kong, England, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and even Berkeley. The great conflicts of World War II, which has just ended, and the Cold War, which is just beginning, are prominent in the book.

Yet, like Austen's books, ''The Great Fire'' is a romance - a love story where two people must overcome obstacles placed in their path by family and society. And like Austen, Hazzard rises above the common and mundane plotting of romance to create a work of sophistication and high intelligence. The novel is as bright as the Turner painting on the cover - and as filled with darkness and mystery.

It's 1947, and Aldred Leith, a 32-year-old Englishman, arrives in Japan after traveling across China to gather material for a book about the postwar world. Leith served bravely in World War II and was seriously wounded. His status as a decorated war hero opens many doors for him. He finds accommodation in what was once a Japanese admiral's retreat on an island near Hiroshima.

Now, the retreat is a British military hospital compound overseen by an Australian officer, Brigadier Barry Driscoll, an unpleasant man with a wife to match. One day, Leith witnesses a "hysterical" Driscoll "shrieking into the face of" one of the Japanese servants. Shortly after, Leith discovers the servant's body - the young man has committed ritual suicide by disemboweling himself.

But the Driscolls have two brilliant and charming children: a 20-year-old son, Benedict, who is seriously ill, and a daughter, Helen, who is her older brother's constant companion. Leith and Helen will fall in love, but the obstacles to their union include animosity from Helen's parents and her devotion to her brother. There is also the age difference between them - Helen has just turned 17.

In fact, Leith has experienced an age disparity from the other side before. When he was 20, he had an affair with a woman in her late 30s. His other relationships with women have ended unhappily. Helen holds out a special promise for Leith - a future he once thought the war had taken from him. But even geography will separate them when Leith has to return to England after his father's death, and the Driscolls take Helen to New Zealand.

Obstacles are what fiction overcomes, and Hazzard's narrative strategy is to provide distractions as well - the rich and busy life. She occasionally shifts the focus to Leith's friend Peter Exley, an Australian officer stationed in Hong Kong, where he investigates war crimes. Exley is almost an alter ego for Leith, and his story suggests what Leith's life might have been like under different circumstances.

The war serves as a refining fire that purges away Exley's and Leith's provincialism. When they meet in Cairo in 1943, they both realize how the war has opened up a wider world for them. Hazzard's novel succeeds through its surprising turns of phrase and narrative, and her boldness in keeping the story full of life. New characters are introduced until the final chapters. Despite its flaws, this is a novel with flavor and substance.

Well, I, for one, am glad she decided to stop writing this one and let us read it.

Hazzard's writing style is the dominant feature of this highly literary work.

I'm not entirely certain whether the narrator was a help or a hindrance. Her pronunciation was flawless, yet each sentence ended with a downward tone, unlike the typical Australian accent which rises. This initially put me off a little.

Most of the characters are extremely well-read and intelligent. Their minds are filled with the contents of thesauri and the less frequently visited pages of dictionaries. Despite this rather pretentious verbosity, I found the slow-paced, ill-fated romance between the war-hero and cultural writer Aldred and the intellectually precocious teenager Helen to be strangely captivating.

Eventually, my perception of Hazzard's apparent pretentiousness and preciousness evolved into an acknowledgement that this style harks back to the classic literary elegance of, for example, Henry James or perhaps Edith Wharton.

If "The Great Fire" had been published in 1903 instead of 2003, I probably wouldn't have noticed the style as much.

That being said, the story is beautifully told, filled with fascinating characters and intriguing side-stories. The descriptions of the settings - Hong Kong, Japan, Wellington NZ - are wonderfully evocative and accurately detailed (at least based on my recollection of a more recent Hong Kong).

In the end, I was deeply moved and haunted by the story. I'm glad I persevered.

The story presented is truly a brilliant and meandering one, with a remarkable emphasis on character development. The backdrop of post-war Japan provides a rich and evocative setting that adds depth and authenticity to the narrative.

Although this may not be my personal favorite type of writing, I have to admit that it has left a lasting impression on me. The way the author weaves the tale, bringing the characters to life and exploring their emotions and experiences, is truly captivating.

I am glad that I took the time to read this story, as it has given me a new perspective on a different era and culture. It has made me appreciate the power of literature to transport us to different worlds and allow us to connect with the human experience on a deeper level.

Overall, I would highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys a well-written and thought-provoking piece of literature.

Aldred Leith, a remarkable British war hero and an emerging author, makes his way to Japan in 1947. His mission is to document the harrowing aftermath of the atomic bomb. Laden with the scars of war and a past devoid of love, he stumbles upon the Driscoll siblings, Benedict and Helen. Benedict, a young man battling a terminal illness, and Helen, his dedicated sister, soon become the focal points of Leith's journey.

Notwithstanding the significant age gap between them, Leith and Helen forge a deep and profound connection. This connection challenges the established societal norms and their own personal inhibitions.

As Leith wrestles with his burgeoning feelings for Helen, he is simultaneously haunted by his wartime experiences and the all-pervasive sense of loss that looms over the postwar world. His friendship with Peter Exley, an Australian army lawyer engaged in the investigation of Japanese war crimes, further enriches the narrative. Exley's own struggles with postwar disillusionment and his unwavering pursuit of justice mirror Leith's internal conflicts. Their intertwined stories serve to illuminate the intricate and complex process of rebuilding lives in the wake of such immense destruction.

As numerous reviewers have pointed out, Hazzard's prose is both lyrical and exquisitely beautiful. It shines a light on the individuals who bore witness to these momentous events, presenting a perspective that, despite its historical importance, has seldom been explored with such depth and sensitivity.

The jury in my brain is still out on this book.

I'm in a state of conflict when it comes to deciding whether this is a strong three or a strong four star.

At certain moments, I felt a resounding FOUR, while at other times, it seemed more like a not-so-brilliant three.

I frequently found myself reading passages twice.

Either because I didn't quite understand what was happening (was it deliberately cryptic and/or was the author attempting to make me reach for my dictionary?), or simply because they were so exquisitely beautiful.

The entire book was a thing of beauty and it reminded me vividly of one of my all-time favorite books, "The English Patient".

In fact, I've gone so far as to search for "The English Patient" in my bookcase, and to my horror, it's vanished!

From what I can recall, both books share many similarities.

They both feature wounded, yet good souls who fall in love with unlikely individuals at the close of World War II.

Moreover, they possess an unparalleled poetic quality within their prose.

I've just placed an order for "The English Patient" and will now embark on a reread.

Perhaps this will offer me some much-needed perspective regarding this rating.

Set in various locations such as Japan, Hong Kong, England, and Australia, this book presents a vivid picture of the tragedy of war.

It shows how war shatters everything and leaves people isolated from one another. The characters in the story are official reviewers of the war, witnessing the aftermath of events like the bombing of Hiroshima, the destruction of Hong Kong, and the blitz in London.

However, the book delves deeper into how the war also ignited great fires within their own lives, from which they can never fully recover, despite their British stoicism and stiff upper lips.

The pace of the book is slow, and I often found myself dozing off while reading it. Nevertheless, I still had a great appreciation for it. It reminds me of "The Garden of Kyoto," with its similar measured pace and the grayness that war brings, as if we are looking at life, even our own, through a colorless window and not being able to enter.

This book offers a profound and thought-provoking exploration of the impact of war on both individuals and society.

I embarked on reading The Great Fire while on an airplane, an activity I almost never engage in. The cacophony of stimuli - the deafening roar of the engines, the annoyance of a seat being reclined right into my lap, and the piercing wail of a baby a few rows back - made it extremely challenging for me to concentrate. So, when I found myself having to reread the first page about three times before the words began to take any form in my mind, I naturally blamed my surroundings. It was a rather long flight, and as I was moving east, I was losing time. Moreover, I was anxious to get home after a midnight landing. Despite my initial misgivings, I persisted and read another 97 pages, struggling with the prose throughout. It wasn't until the next day, when I picked up the book again with my feet firmly on solid ground, that I realized, no, it wasn't the overstimulation of the flight that had made the writing seem so晦涩 and formless. This is simply a terrible book.

If, as sometimes occurs, Shirley Hazzard had passed away and left this manuscript in a desk drawer, and it had been published with the understanding that it was an unfinished draft of a work in progress, then perhaps there might be some measure of forbearance and even admiration on the part of the reader. However, as a completed, edited work of prose, The Great Fire is precisely where it belongs - in the trash. The fact that this hodgepodge of words received any critical acclaim, let alone the National Book Award, reveals all one needs to know about such endorsements.

This novel is truly epic in its scope, yet it manages to be incredibly intimate when it comes to character and emotion.

It weaves a captivating tale that encompasses war, terror, loss, survival, and unrequited love.

The post-war, occupied Japan setting is a refreshingly unique one that we don't often encounter in contemporary literature.

However, the question of how an occupying force treats the defeated enemy is just as relevant today as it was in the aftermath of 20th century conflicts.

Hazzard's prose is spare, yet it is also beautiful, evoking the likes of Shute, Hemingway, and Wolff.

Her writing style allows the story to unfold in a powerful and engaging way, drawing the reader in and making them feel as if they are a part of the characters' lives.

This novel is a must-read for anyone who enjoys a thought-provoking and emotionally charged story that explores the human condition in the face of war and occupation.

This book has been sitting on my bookshelves, unread, for at least a decade.

I vaguely recall starting it but giving up after a short while. I can now understand the reason, even though I awarded it 5 stars this time around.

It tells the story of a 32-year-old man who, after the end of the Second World War, is living in Japan and writing an account of that country. While there, he meets a 17-year-old Australian girl and they fall in love.

We also follow the man's friend who resides in Hong Kong and is engaged in bringing war criminals to justice.

Essentially, it's a love story with the recent war as a backdrop, influencing and reflecting everyone's lives. The story also takes us to England and Australia, but Japan and Hong Kong are the two main settings.

I was delighted when one character goes to dinner in Flagstaff House, which is now a tea museum that I visited during last year's literature festival in Hong Kong.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but initially, I struggled with the language. The main character, along with many others, speaks in a way that no one does in real life - long, literary, and beautiful sentences.

Clearly, this is a deliberate choice by Hazzard. Perhaps it's just her style (as this is the first novel of hers that I've read), but it did require some getting used to.

What a profound but sleepy novel it is! The prose within it is truly exquisite.

Aldred Leith, through a great deal of luck, managed to survive World War II and the POW camp. He was honored with Great Britain's highest military award. Tasked with writing about how China and Japan have been affected by the war, he is distressed by the actions of the Americans in those countries. After traversing across China, he travels to Hiroshima to assess the impact there. It is there that he meets the Driscolls. They are Australians, and the father holds an important administrative post. Leith forms a strong bond with their dying son Ben and their daughter Helen. Eventually, despite the fact that Leith is 32 and Helen is only 17, they admit their love for each other.

Peter Exley, another Australian, is engaged in prosecuting war criminals. Leith had saved Exley's life during a battle. Exley is afraid of returning to Australia. He had fled many years ago to pursue art history, although only after successfully completing his law studies as his father had desired.

Leith and Exley are the main characters in this exploration of how one moves on after surviving the horrors of war. They are likeable and good men. Exley has a more difficult time and may not yet be successful. Things seem to be looking better for Leith.

There are other, less prominent characters who are quite interesting, such as Audrey and Aurora, whom I would have liked to know better. While Helen is as present as Leith and Exley, I never felt as connected with her. Perhaps this is because she is younger and still in the process of exploring who she is.

Overall, the novel offers a deep and thought-provoking look at the aftermath of war and the complex relationships that develop within it.

Read this novel for the exquisitely crafted prose.

The sentences are understated, spare, and austere, yet luscious. It's truly a delight to read such beautifully constructed language.

Unfortunately, the story itself is skeletal. The main characters, with the exception of Aldred Leith, are thinly sketched. They lack depth and complexity, making it difficult for the reader to fully engage with them.

Also, all the characters think and speak in the same spare, luscious voice. While this may be believable for a war veteran of 33 like Leith, it is hardly so for a 17-year-old girl and her teenage brother. No matter how precocious they may be, teenagers simply don't have enough life experience to utter the wise sayings these munchkins do.

I would've liked to see more historical context. Although the war looms huge, we only see its aftereffects on the emotions and psyches of the characters. Not much about the devastation of Hiroshima is delved into, even though this is Leith's purpose for being in Japan. I guess the book is what it is. Maybe Hazzard excludes historical context from her repertoire.

It's a bummer how women are treated here. With one exception, they either endure lives of loneliness and quiet desperation, or are lovely exotic flowers destined to shrivel and die in their arid surroundings, or have learned from experience or the lack of desirable men to suppress their longings and hopes for the future. This portrayal of women is rather disheartening and could have been more nuanced.