"The Great Fire" by Shirley Hazzard

The only great thing about “The Great Fire” is its name.
This is one of those books that as you read it, you find yourself lost in thoughts about the morning commute, the long ago expired and still unpaid decal on your front windshield, about the dog, that you forgot to feed and you now know it repaid you by doing its business on the one spot of the carpet, which you fiercely guarded and hoped to protect before the weekend party with your boss and his pricy wife who for some time now has been…but then you collect your thoughts and try again to refocus your attention on this story of post war Japan and the Australian soldier who fell in love with a teenager, or was the chap British…and the she, the bosses wife, who strangely winked at you during the last Christmas party and you felt like choking…he must have been Australian since in the end he decided to stay with the girl in Australia…but now you know that the spot in the carpet would forever remain brownish with its if not putrid then at least nagging reminder of the day you forgot to feed the damn dog because the book you were tying to read…but who really cares whether the Australian and the teenager remained faithful to each other, after all the world really changed since 1947…and so you hope that the next paycheck would be enough for you to make a call to ‘Stanley Steamer’ and have them fix the memory of your immoral transgression...But back to the book! If you love British style novels of the kind where old ladies and younger chaps (with names like Bertram and Aldred) get together to have some tea, then in their spare time write long romantic letters, and from time to time remind each other of the horrid world war 2, this is the book for you. If you are like me, meaning you have so much on your mind that it’d take a much stronger novel to keep your attention pinned to its pages, then I highly recommend you withhold the urge to read this one.

- by Simon Cleveland