The Great Fire was one of the less-talked about of the Orange Prize shortlist, which seems a little unfair.
Shirley Hazzard is one of those incredible novelists who has produced a minute body of work over a forty year period, but has to be one of the most significant writers alive. The Great Fire is an odd love story, one which handled differently could be an inappropriate love story: that of a 33 year old man for a 17 year old girl. But Hazzard manages to make it plausible, painful and beautiful and most of all understandable. In the convulsions of the immediate post war world her characters are all beached to some degree by the awfulness of it. Others have written of this kind of bitter enduring after trauma, loss, agony, but few so powerfully or precisely. I have to say I was surprised that she has pulled off a happy ending in this lyrically sad world - though not for all of her characters.
Of the many things that impress about Hazzard it is her understatedness that has the greatest impact. I have always admired her work and twenty-three years is a long wait between novels, but I can only assume that those twenty-three years have been spent ensuring that not one single word is wasted or misused. It is pin-point perfect throughout. The endorsements on the book's back cover are from great writers, writers I read and admire, but they are all pale in comparison to Shirley Hazzard's massive talent. Let it inspire you to find her other books as well.
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