January Rain

I’m trying to read more adult books in 2008, so I started the year listening to “The Great Fire” by Shirley Hazzard on CD.  I listened to the first 2 discs and gave up.  I can’t figure out what she was trying to do.  One scene in the book describes a party and then the author says something along the lines of, “And that was the scene you’d have seen in 1947,” and then goes right back into the narrative from the characters’ point of view in 1947. 

Here’s the description of the book from our catalog: 

In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier find that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself.

I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters or their concerns.  Another problem with the book is the title.  Everyone thinks it must be about the Great Fire of London.

Oh well.  There’s thousands of books in the library, so I’ll find something!

Tags: Books, fiction, Shirley Hazzard