I have a deep affection for Shirley Hazzard. Recently, I re-read her work for the Books On The Go podcast. It is a truly beautiful novel that vividly reminds me of the reasons why I hold her in such high regard.

Shirley Hazzard was an extremely erudite and astute writer. Her prose was elegant, clear, and rational. She had the remarkable ability to reveal a character's thought process with great precision, while also illuminating the complex ways in which humans act, the nature of desire, and the far-reaching effects of war. At the same time, her writing was also poetic, adding a touch of beauty and artistry to the narrative.

The novel is rich in details about Hong Kong and Japan, which gives readers a vivid sense of time and place. The interesting love story within the novel reads differently today, perhaps because our perspectives and understandings have changed over time. Nevertheless, it still manages to captivate and engage readers, drawing them into a world of emotions and experiences.

In conclusion, Shirley Hazzard's work is a literary gem that continues to shine brightly. Her writing is a testament to her talent and wisdom, and I look forward to re-reading her novels again and again.

Set in Japan in 1947, Aldred Leith, a highly decorated war hero, is on a mission to collect material for a book. During his stay at a compound run by her father, a rather boorish Australian, he meets a young woman named Helen, who is only 16 years old. Despite the significant age difference and the fact that her brother is suffering from a health affliction, Leith and Helen fall deeply in love. However, they have to postpone acting on their feelings due to these circumstances.

I was truly amazed by the beauty of the writing in this book. It was almost poetic, yet in a way that was sparse. I had only read about 30 pages, but it felt as if I had been engrossed in the story for months. So much was conveyed in so few words.

I particularly loved how Hazzard managed to develop the love story without it turning into melodrama. There were a couple of moments when I thought she might tip over into that territory, but she righted herself immediately.

The words that come to mind to describe this book are dense yet spare, lyrical, luminous, subtle, deep, and elegant. It's a unique combination that makes this book truly special.

One thing that did surprise me was the relatively little description there was about the bombing of Hiroshima and its effects. While the book was full of day-to-day details about the lives of the characters involved, the bombing seemed almost secondary. In an interview in Paris Review, Hazzard explains that she wanted to write a story of falling in love as a counterweight to the huge disillusion of a ravaged world. This perhaps explains why the bombing was not the central focus of the book.

I had a similar reaction to my friend Janice. She said that initially, she had some reservations about the style. However, as she delved deeper, she eventually came to appreciate it very much.

The "Great Fire" in the title refers to World War II. Although there are several lesser "great fires" mentioned along the way, it is also a love story. I adored the way the author explored the immediate aftermath of WWII in less familiar places (at least to me), such as Japan and China. It focused on how people were trying to recall or rediscover how to live in a tentative peacetime again, much like hesitant green shoots barely beginning to emerge in a fire-blackened landscape.

With a mix of Brits, Americans, and Aussies as the main characters, set mostly in Asian contexts, it has a unique and rich prose style. It combines love, suspense, philosophy, and the particulars of time and place. Unlike some other books I've read recently, it does not even hint vaguely at hours of research the author is determined to put to use. I'm definitely going to look for more books by Shirley Hazzard.

I'm eager to see what other literary treasures she has in store for readers. Her ability to bring these diverse elements together in a seamless and engaging narrative is truly remarkable. I can't wait to embark on another literary journey with her works.

The Transit of Venus initially frustrated me due to Shirley Hazzard's mannered and oblique style. However, I was eventually won over.

Her account of the romance between Aldred Leith, a war veteran, and 17-year-old Helen Driscoll is set against a large canvas, both geographically and historically. The action unfolds from Hiroshima and Hong Kong to London and Wellington, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, a time of great political and personal instability.

The choice of this backdrop for the central love story suggests ambition on Hazzard's part. It's not just an average star-crossed love story but about love in tumultuous times. The romance of Aldred and Helen is presented as more portentous because it occurs in a world that has been ripped apart and is still stumbling towards a new order.

Despite the book garnering critical acclaim, I found it only slightly better than The Bridges of Madison County. Aldred and Helen are dull protagonists, implausibly noble and sensitive, cut from the same phoney mold as Francesca and Robert. The Great Fire is a love story that's hard to take seriously, despite Hazzard's efforts.

Moreover, readers seeking insights into the postwar milieu of South East Asia during the collapse of colonialism will be disappointed. Hazzard has little of interest to add beyond generalized hand-wringing about the horrors of war. Compared to Paul Scott's nuanced account in The Raj Quartet, her commentary seems superficial.

Overall, The Great Fire seemed pedestrian to me, with two-dimensional characters that were unaffecting. I had more fun reading Skye O'Malley. Shirley Hazzard becomes less interesting the more of her work you read.

The Great Fire was truly disappointing. The writing felt stilted and it was a real slog to get through. I simply couldn't get a proper orientation to the places described, lacking that essential sense of place. In contrast, Hazzard's other works, such as the novel Transit of Venus and the nonfiction Greene on Capri, are beautifully written,展现出 a much higher level of literary craftsmanship.

Perhaps with The Great Fire, the author was deliberately writing in a particular style to create the feel and era of 1947, in which the story is set. However, I think this book would work better in a film or mini-series format rather than on the printed page. The visual medium could potentially bring the story to life in a more engaging and immersive way, compensating for the shortcomings in the written text.

Overall, while The Great Fire may have had some interesting elements, it ultimately failed to live up to the standards set by Hazzard's other works.

Hard to assess.

I was going to say 'Of its time', because I initially assumed it to be a much, much older book than it actually is (published in 2004). It truly inhabits the spirit of the 1940s quite well.

I found the way the plot maneuvered around the atrocities of war to be most interesting. For instance, our main character is conducting some sort of study (notice I'm being vague) on Hiroshima, resides nearby, and makes visits. His friend in Hong Kong, as part of his job (which I have no idea about), has to interview a Japanese prisoner accused of torturing POWs. Frustratingly, these elements didn't seem to come together in a way that I can firmly state that atrocity is a central subject of the novel. We only caught side-glances at Hiroshima. Although the fallout of war is omnipresent, the main plot progression is centered around romance.

Race: There are several pointed references to the White Australia Policy, including one where it is noted to predate the Nazis' racial laws. On the other hand, the novel is predominantly set in Japan, China, and Hong Kong, and no person other than Europeans or a couple of part-Europeans ever had a speaking role—aside from brief interjections.

Nicely written, albeit sometimes a bit obscure.

The novel is set at the end of the Second World War. It mainly focuses on the dissatisfaction of the victorious participants with the peace, as they somehow expected much more. They are uneasy about their role as conquerors and passively horrified that the world seems doomed to fall back into war and conflict, not only between Russia and the US but also with the emerging likelihood of a communist China.

The story revolves around Aldred Leith, a gentleman, intellectual, and war hero with an unnamed great medal. After the war, he is strangely commissioned by a French official to travel through China and then Japan (as the book begins), recording his views on the impact of the war on traditional culture. In Japan, he falls in love with the very young, well-read, and fey daughter of two Australians, who are believed to be uncouth and whose son is dying.

He also visits Shanghai, where we are introduced to Peter Exley, who seems like his clone in every aspect except for Leith's experience with women. Exley's mother implies that a cheerful young woman would redeem her son's restlessness, not realizing that the son, whose wanderings are far from wayward, is already over-redeemed in some respects. Exley's existence in the novel, although significant, seems pointless.

When Aldred's famous author father dies, he has to return to England, while Helen's family travels to New Zealand. The two write and share their experiences. Aldred meets his mother, helps some local working-class people, meets the childhood tutor of Helen and her brother, and his old lover who became his father's mistress. Helen spends time with local families discussing the melancholy of New Zealand. Then, when Helen's brother dies in the US, they are reunited when Helen refuses to travel with her parents and Aldred goes to New Zealand to meet her. The book ends with them making love for the first time.

The novel apparently took over twenty years to write, and it is evident that the author has spent a great deal of time on each sentence, perhaps even each word. The author is undoubtedly extremely talented and capable of great beauty and insight. However, unlike a Makine book where re-reading reveals additional insight, here, on many occasions, instead of beauty or insight, it simply reveals sentences that are over-engineered to the point of incomprehensibility. The characters are either working or middle-class stereotypes, meant to be unlikeable and in some cases, speaking in absurd dialogue, or (for Helen, her brother, Aldred, Exley, and a few others) one-dimensional and conversing in a strange old-fashioned present tense.

I wrote that author Shirley Hazard's previous novel, The Transit of Venus, was a book “…about Love but not in the cloying way I should imagine a Mills and Boons Novel being.”

This, The Great Fire, is not far removed from that statement. Where the former was for me about the “transient nature and the morality of (Love) as a weapon,” this book is about Love as a power to transform after trauma. In this case, the trauma is the events in WW2 and family bereavement.

The prose in The Great Fire is truly exceptional, and that is the novel's great strength. However, the plot is fairly thin. This has been a surprise to me in reading both of Hazard's 2 novels. I'm surprised that I can be drawn into them when the subject matter would hardly be my choice generally.

But in the end, the skinny plot did not prevent me from marking down the book in a comparison with The Transit of Venus. That earlier book is one to reread in order to discover its hidden secrets and meanings. This one, The Great Fire, is less so.

It should be noted that The Great Fire was the winner of the 2004 Miles Franklin Award, and perhaps deservedly so. But it's just not my kind of book.

The Great Fire is a captivating novel that delves into the chaotic aftermath of World War II. Set mainly in Japan, it chronicles the journey of Aldred Leith, a renowned British war veteran in his thirties. Having made a name for himself on the battlefields of Europe, Leith travels to Asia as the war ends to document its impact on the world.

The novel commences in 1947 with Leith in Japan. His observations lead us through a landscape marred by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. However, this is not just a historical narrative; it is a tale of human connections and emotional intricacies.

Leith's path crosses that of Peter Exley, an Australian friend investigating Japanese war crimes, and Helen Driscoll, an Australian teenager. Leith becomes infatuated with Helen, who lives with her family in the same compound where he is staying. The Driscolls, consisting of a rough Australian brigadier, his conniving wife, their brilliant but sickly son, and the adoring teen sister, become central to Leith's life.

Leith's obsessive attraction to Helen fuels much of the narrative. In his mind, he counts the days until she is older, enabling him to pursue his desires. The conflict between Leith's wartime experiences and his newfound feelings for Helen creates a powerful emotional turmoil.

As the story progresses, more characters emerge, and tragic events involving Leith's friend add further complexity. Hazzard's prose is both elegant and thought-provoking. Although the novel may not extensively focus on the geopolitical aspects of post-war Japan, it provides a profound exploration of human relationships and the choices we make in the face of disaster.

Shirley Hazzard's writing style is like that of a painter. She arranges the characters in a state of tension, not only with each other but also with the elements of their world, in a geometric manner.

She describes, "In the large setting, the city was small, rickety, irrelevant: unresponsive to destiny. And Helen saw herself creeping, Lilliputian, over that disregarded topography, walking to Kelburn without expectation of change." There is always a sense of a wide frame, with movement set against the background of a great stillness.

In this work, the devastation of the war, which lies quietly in the background of The Transit of Venus, is much more prominent here. Along with it is the fear of the rising Cold War. In every arrangement of love, the characters are brutally aware of how easy it would be to lose each other. The complex emotions and the harsh reality are vividly presented, making the readers deeply involved in the story and feeling the pain and struggle of the characters.

The Great Fire is the fifth novel penned by the Australian author, Shirley Hazzard.

It is initially set in the immediate post-war era in Japan and Hong Kong, and then progresses to England and New Zealand. The story revolves around Aldred Leith, an author who is researching a book on China and Japan, and Peter Exley, a solicitor and fine art enthusiast, who is investigating Japanese war crimes.

While researching in Hiroshima, Leith encounters a brother and sister, Ben and Helen Driscoll. Ben is suffering from a condition that is gradually taking his life, and Helen is on the verge of adulthood.

Essentially a love story, this novel is filled with exquisitely beautiful and descriptive prose. However, it builds at a very slow pace, and Hazzard seems to maintain a certain detachment from her characters. Her profound love for literature is quite evident.

I particularly liked the device that Hazzard used to indicate thoughts during dialogue, such as ‘this is what he said’, and then what he thought as he was saying it, ‘and what else he said’. It definitely made me pay closer attention to the quotation marks.

Similar to The Transit of Venus, this novel is beautifully written, and lovers of language will surely relish the experience. I found the plot and the characters in The Great Fire to be much better than those in The Transit of Venus. Overall, it is certainly a more satisfying novel.

While I truly desired to assign it a higher rating, I encountered significant difficulties in reading this book. At times, the author's writing style was extremely challenging for me to decipher, which unfortunately diminished my overall enjoyment of it.

On one hand, the sentences within the book could be truly lovely, intricate, and highly descriptive. For instance, there was a line that read: "Having expected, repeatedly, to die from the great fires into which his times had pitched him, he discovered a desire to live completely; by which he meant, with her." This kind of writing had the potential to draw the reader in and create a vivid mental image.

On the other hand, the author's use of language could be so subtle that it was almost unintelligible. I am by no means a novice reader, as I assume is quite evident. However, there were moments when it felt as if the author was deliberately trying to be confusing or was removing all but the most delicate hint of context from a sentence. As a result, I often had to read a sentence three times and allow it to sink in for a while before I could fully understand its meaning. Some individuals might appreciate this kind of writing, which is like a puzzle to be solved, but I, unfortunately, did not.

When I made an attempt to read certain passages aloud, it actually proved to be somewhat helpful. I also suspect that engaging in discussions about the book with others might have enhanced my understanding as well. Even so, considering it is a love story, it seemed rather distant and lacking in passion. The dialogue between the lovers was terser than what seemed necessary. Perhaps this is one of those rare books that I would have preferred to experience as a movie instead?