Rating: 
Summary: Quite Simply a Masterpiece.
Review: A poetic post-war novel that quite simply shows the modern day reader that masterpieces are still being written.
Rating:
Summary: The novel is even more poignant given Iraq
Review: As an English teacher, I am depressed to read that an author's having access to a sophisticated vocabulary is a drawback. Yet Shirley Hazzard's novel is an old-fashioned book--despite her elliptical style--for though the book is slender, the characters are fully rendered, and the theme of the novel--the absurdity and necessity of having a personal life in light of the destructive forces of war and politics--comes through clean and clear. There is so much mean-spiritedness in some of the reviews that it is difficult to know what to address first. Ben and Helen are old beyond their ages, first, because they read deeply and widely; second, because of the coldness of their family which has made it necessary for them to turn inward to books and to each other; and, third, because Ben is dying (look up the age at which Keats was writing his wonderful poetry or a biography of Sylvia Plath). Apparently, too, not one of the negative reviewers has ever actually been in love. One suspects that they took resumes from prospective mates! This story is also particularly poignant as a reminder of the cost of war.
I think reviewers and critics often miss the role taste plays in our evaluations of books. What I would like to see, in reading as in life, is a touch more humility before discouraging someone else from reading a book. I can't imagine that everyone associated with the Book Critics Circle is illiterate, despite the accusations of some of Amazon's reviewers. I thought Hazard's novel a beautifully written, fully realized novel and was disappointed to come to the end of it. However, I must confess that often, I don't get Borges. Does that make those that find his work valuable wrong? Is my denseness Borges' fault or my own?
Unfortunately, many of the reviewers remind me of (a few of) my eighteen-year-old students--oh, the weight of so much critical accumen and the wonder of being an age at which everyone is "stupid" except, perhaps, oneself. I'm sorry some of the readers were disappointed. Perhaps they should stick with the classics, and thereby not have to feel diminished by reading (gasp!) a love story (despite the number of love stories in classical literature, it is some comfort to read what is already vetted) or with the quick reads that do not demand much of the reader. There is nothing wrong with either approach to reading, only with trashing what one has not taken the time to understand or perhaps does not have an affinity for.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated...don't get fooled by the National Book Award
Review: Considerable hype on this book particularly after it won the National Book award. Save your time and money and pass on it. Book is choppy. Story line is somewhat disjointed. Writing is superb in areas and thin and transparent in others. Strongly suggest you move to Marianne Wiggins book...Evidence of Things Unseen, which was a National Book Award finalist in the same year.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: I am an avid reader of contemporary literary fiction, but I must admit that having read this novel I am at a loss to explain its National Book Award status or its four and five star reviews. Actually, that's not exactly accurate... the award I truly don't get but I suppose I can understand some of the very positive reviews, since there are aspects of this novel that undoubtedly would appeal to some readers. Shirley Hazzard is unquestionably a talented writer who can string together beautiful prose, especially as she puts you in the setting. But for me, that seems to be all she was interested in here. The story line goes basically nowhere, although I've read and liked novels in the past that don't necessarily have strong story lines. But those novels had engaging, real-life characters in circumstances that are easily related to. I didn't find that here at all - two of the main players (Aldred Leith and Peter Exley), aside from being almost undistinguishable from one another, were just plain boring.
But what annoyed me most of all was the dialogue. Does anyone else know anybody who speaks to one another like these characters? People just don't talk to one another like the characters in this book... especially the Driscoll children, Ben and Helen. There are so many good books to choose from out there, that I'd have to advise against spending time on this one. (Two books I would highly recommend would be Daniel Mason's "The Piano Tuner" and Tim Winton's "Dirt Music" - oh, and most anything by Jim Crace.)
Rating:
Summary: The Great Book
Review: I am intrigued by your readers' reviews of The Great Fire. They either love or hate this novel. I am of the former category. Shirley Hazzard has brought alive the post apocolyptic period of the late 1940's with her wonderful prose. This novel shows how the horrors of war affect people and also how they look at life and their futures. A lot of people think Ms Hazzard's writing is mannered. My advice is to read the book again and you might change your mind.
As an Australian I was very pleased to hear that The Great Fire has won our Miles Franklin Award. A truly deserved winner of this prestigious literary prize.
Rating:
Summary: The style can be annoying at times, but. . .
Review: I loved this book, much more so than "Transit of Venus." Set in post-war Asia, "Great Fire" focuses on the end of war, not the gory aftermath of Hiroshima, but the more subtle effects on the victors, in this case the British. Leith and his friends wander Asia looking for the end of the war and not quite finding it. For them the end is not V-J Day, a triumphant return home, a house in the suburbs. It's been too long, too wrenching. Rather, for Leith it's finding love in an unlikely place, with the teenage Helen. Yes, Helen seems one-dimensional and almost too good to be true, but Leith's tortured soul more than makes up for it--and I could easily see how two sensitive, isolated siblings could build the relationship she and her brother had.
Hazzard's style is a little obscure in places and I'll admit once or twice to just skippping something I didn't get on the second re-reading. But the plot and characterizations more than made up for it. And I liked the ending--Hazzard allows herself to satisfy us without falling into sentimentality. A good read!
Rating: 
Summary: Reading this book was a painful experience
Review: I really wanted to like this book--the plot framework was interesting enough. But the execution--aaargh! Hazzard's language was excruciating to read. The dialogue was so stilted and unrealistic that it made me laugh out loud sometimes. And the characters were flat and undeveloped, as other reviewers have noted--I couldn't keep Peter and Aldred straight, they were so similar. I can't imagine what the awards committee was thinking when they gave this book the National Book Award. Yeesh!
Rating: 
Summary: No spark
Review: I was very excited about this book but it did not fulfill my expectations. Shirley Hazzard is an excellent writer, and she has chosen an exciting place and time period (post WWII Asia) but "The Great Fire" lacked the spark to set the conflagration alight. The main character, Aldred, has come to postwar Japan to write a book on the effects of war on an ancient society. He meets an Australian military family and is much taken with their children-a young teenager named Helen, and Ben, who is certainly dying. The parents are awful in the way of awful people in 19th century Russian or French novels in that they are so bad you know they're out there someplace. The children's lives have been so constrained that they live through classic literature. Although Helen is still very young, Aldred falls in love with her. The other element of the plot concerns Aldred's friend Peter Exley who is in Japan to interrogate Japanese war criminals. His crisis has to do with how to spend his own future and whether he can he abandon his career in law to do what he really wants. "The Great Fire" has a very 19th century feel about it. The characters behave in ways that seem more fitting to people in 1847 than 1947. It is a very quiet book where a great deal happens, but when the book is over it is hard to explain exactly what. I found Shirley Hazzard's choice of time and place strangely out of sync with that she expresses. Ultimately, the book fails to engage and seems more like an academic exercise in "good" writing than something meant to move the reader.
Rating:
Summary: my literary reaction
Review: In the penumbrous, shadowy twilight, reading, alone. I come upon this passage - page 107 paragraph 9. The phrase " Pattie's pusillanimous plait". Tentative fingers play upon winter-scorched lips. The book is flung across the room. Discarded. Alone.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical & Profoundly Heard
Review: It is rare when a writer comes along and writes a poetic novel, wherein every sentence is a lyric, full of inspiration and pulse. I am reminded of Susan Minot's EVENING, and Maeve Binchy's NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS, and Jennifer Paddock's A SECRET WORD. Like all these novels, these scores of the human heart, THE GREAT FIRE roars!
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