I devour love stories and have no particular interest in the literature of war; therefore my standards for both are high. Only a breathless recommendation from a demanding critic induced me to purchase Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire, which I read joyfully. Somewhere there must be an attic full of Hazzard’s drafts; there is no other explanation for the shine of each of the 326 pages of this novel set in the aftermath of World War Two.
A couple is in love but circumstances prevent their relationship’s realization. Around them, a world dies: a beloved brother is gravely ill; a good man dispenses advice and then passes away; and old age fells another generation. The plot is not intricate, but not so simple that the reader feels shortchanged. The well-chosen details happen in dense paragraphs or are subtly revealed in meditations, dialogue, or physical description.
It is in these modes where Hazzard shows her expertise in character and setting; her lush scenes would seem quaint if not for a complete lack of cheap sentimentality. When a sister and brother are united in spirit as she recites classical history to him, we feel enriched and charmed, as nowhere is Hazzard cheaply dropping names or pushing buttons. Elsewhere the cliche is drained from cliches and only beauty is left, as in an early passage describing Peter Exley’s close friendship with Aldred Leith:
[Peter's father] had given up expecting sense from this only son, whose bookishness led nowhere and who frittered the last of his youth scrambling round crammed little countries and learning dead inimical languages like Italian and Japanese.
Peter’s unaffected impressions were meanwhile sent to Leith, whose letters at this time comforted him, supplying a companionable measure of intelligence, and testifying, within Exley’s isolation, to a previous sharing. He saw how Leith, more reticent than he, nevertheless responded to new circumstances as to fresh existence, experiencing antipathy or charm as the essential matter of finite days; accessible, even so, to dreams engendered. Out of their mutual reprieve, Leith had salvaged immediacy; had kept the fugitive vow of every man in battle: If I get through this, the hours will be made to count.
Note that Hazzard takes some liberties with grammar and sentence structure; this combines with the aforementioned plot tendencies to create a book that demands vigilance not only with content but mechanics. The attention is easily given to a book of this caliber, however, and is repaid many times over. From Japan to China to Britain, from acres of ruin to the small internal revolutions of distant lovers, Hazzard is pitch-perfect, and the result is a masterpiece.
