From the celebrated author of the international bestseller Suite Française, a newly discovered novel, a story of passion and long-kept ...
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May 25, 2011
Jeanette
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"Fire in the blood, how quickly it burns out."
This extremely short novel is narrated by Silvio. He spent most of his life roaming the world and having exotic mistresses. Now he has come home to roost in a hovel near a small French village. Looking back on his life, he wonders why he ever felt the need to wander. All he wants now is to be left alone to drink his wine, write, and watch the seasons pass. He tells the stories of youth and passion and betrayal among some of More...
This extremely short novel is narrated by Silvio. He spent most of his life roaming the world and having exotic mistresses. Now he has come home to roost in a hovel near a small French village. Looking back on his life, he wonders why he ever felt the need to wander. All he wants now is to be left alone to drink his wine, write, and watch the seasons pass. He tells the stories of youth and passion and betrayal among some of More...
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Feb 06, 2009
Susan
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Fire in the Blood is a short novel by the same woman who wrote Suite Francaise. The novel is set in the years just before WWII in the same area of France as the second part of Suite Francaise . Like the larger unfinished novel, this one captures French countryside life and the varied characters that populate the rural areas of mid 20th-Century France with grace and honesty. The novel itself centers around the question of what we really know about the people around us and what happens when famil
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Feb 05, 2008
sage
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About ten years ago I took a course in French Women Writers (in translation). Irène Némirovsky wasn't included, but we read a lot of Colette, de Beauvoir, Duras, and Yourcenar.
There's a particular tone of writing they all have in common -- maybe it's a fundamental to the way women write in French, or maybe it's fundamental to the experience of being a French woman (although Yourcenar immigrated to eastern Canada). I don't know. But this fit in beautifully with what I read and love More...
There's a particular tone of writing they all have in common -- maybe it's a fundamental to the way women write in French, or maybe it's fundamental to the experience of being a French woman (although Yourcenar immigrated to eastern Canada). I don't know. But this fit in beautifully with what I read and love More...
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Sep 19, 2007
Delphine
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Dans un village des années 1930, Silvio se souvient des amours passées de François et Hélène. Leur fille Colette épouse Jean Dorin, mais celui-ci se noie accidentellement en rentrant chez lui. Mais était-ce bien un accident? Ce roman qui commence comme un récit paysan assez traditionnel finit par soulever les secrets des divers protagonistes, ceux que l'on croyait bien enfouis, mais que Silvio connait sur le bout des doigts.
J'ai bien aimé ce roman qui monte en puissance petit à petit More...
J'ai bien aimé ce roman qui monte en puissance petit à petit More...
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Sep 27, 2008
Amanda
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Nemirovsky's prose, translated from French into English, made me want to retake high school French all over again so I could read this beautiful novella in its original language. In Fire in the Blood, Nemirovsky explores the transition from the passion of youth to the wisdom of old age. The novella's narrator is an old french farmer who has lived out his adult life in the same rural french village. I found it interesting that Nemirovsky decided to tell the story from a male's perspective
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Jan 24, 2008
Laurel
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Irene Nemirovsky, author of Suite Francaise, wrote another winner in 1941 before her death at Auschwitz.The story takes place in an isolated French village before WW11. Silvio, a solitary person in his older years, is drawn into a scandal in this small village. "As his narration unvolds, we are given an intimate picture of the loves and infidelities, the scandals, the youthful ardor and regrets of age that tie Silvio to the long-guarded secrets of the past." This 129 page novel left m
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Jan 23, 2008
Chris
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This is a charming little novel set in France prior to World War 2. The story is of a man who has traveled and let an interesting life away from his home. He returns later in life and is quite content with the solitary life he is presently leading. But he is slowly drawn into the lives of his friends and neighbors, and quite a few secrets unfold. The author was born in Russia in 1903, and died in Auschwitz in 1942. The book was published for the first time in French in 2006, and translated
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Mar 12, 2008
teresa
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Suite Francaise was one of my favorite books I read last year so I am giving this a whirl.
3/11/08: finished. The main character, Silvio, is an old man who has moved back to his small farming community after a life spent traveling the world. Silvio watches the romantic entanglements of the next generation and is reminded of his youth and the 'fire in his blood." It is a meditation on youth, love, lust, and old age. An interesting story with throught provoking ideas but like More...
3/11/08: finished. The main character, Silvio, is an old man who has moved back to his small farming community after a life spent traveling the world. Silvio watches the romantic entanglements of the next generation and is reminded of his youth and the 'fire in his blood." It is a meditation on youth, love, lust, and old age. An interesting story with throught provoking ideas but like More...
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Jan 11, 2008
Ginette
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I enjoyed the book in that it gave me another glimpse into French life. Reading Nemirovsky has also brought surprising light onto why I am the way I am because of having grown up in France. I also had a really heavy wave of homesickness at one point in the story, I think when the author was describing the French countryside.
I didn't like it as much as Suite Francaise--The ending was a bit abrupt. Don't know whether I would have felt differently if I hadn't read the books so closely t More...
I didn't like it as much as Suite Francaise--The ending was a bit abrupt. Don't know whether I would have felt differently if I hadn't read the books so closely t More...
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Jan 24, 2012
T.
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"And aren't the most beautiful follies the ones linked to love?" (43)
"When you're twenty love is like a fever, it makes you almost delirious. When it's over you can hardly remember how it happened...Fire in the blood, how quickly it burns itself out." (45)
"The flesh is easy to satisfy. It's the heart that is insatiable, the heart that needs to love, to despair, to burn with any kind of fire...That was what we wanted. To burn, to be consumed, to de More...
"When you're twenty love is like a fever, it makes you almost delirious. When it's over you can hardly remember how it happened...Fire in the blood, how quickly it burns itself out." (45)
"The flesh is easy to satisfy. It's the heart that is insatiable, the heart that needs to love, to despair, to burn with any kind of fire...That was what we wanted. To burn, to be consumed, to de More...
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Jan 11, 2009
Susan
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Wonderful!
The preface to the French edition is printed in the back, and it describes this book so well, I'll quote it here:
"Constructed around a gradually revealed secret, Fire in the Blood describes, as a naturalist might describe, a predatory community of extreme cunning. Behind the pretty rural scenery, beasts lurk in the shadows, ready to pounce, and as the reader's eye becomes accustomed to the dark, we can't miss them."
And later, "it was her love of More...
The preface to the French edition is printed in the back, and it describes this book so well, I'll quote it here:
"Constructed around a gradually revealed secret, Fire in the Blood describes, as a naturalist might describe, a predatory community of extreme cunning. Behind the pretty rural scenery, beasts lurk in the shadows, ready to pounce, and as the reader's eye becomes accustomed to the dark, we can't miss them."
And later, "it was her love of More...
Dec 30, 2007
korey
rated it:
You just can't go wrong with Irene Nemirovsky. Her books are so great to read. Like Suite Francaise, Fire in the Blood is a book about people and place. This book is similar to Dolce in Suite Francaise. She had such a talent for characterization and description of place. It's as if you are there with these people. And, like Nemirovsky's other stories, she throws in twists and turns that you never really saw coming. I love that. This is definitely a "Must Read" if you liked Suite Franc
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Oct 15, 2011
Roberta
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Chaleur du sang
Stanotte attraverseranno un gran numero di paesini tranquilli, di villaggi sonnolenti, e passeranno accanto alle grandi case silenziose e scure perdute nella campagna: non immagineranno nemmeno che ogni cosa ha una vita profonda e segreta, che loro sono destinati a non conoscere.
In un paesino della campagna francese, Issi-l'Eveque, un uomo ormai anziano, Silvio, vive isolato, come un fauno in ritiro, nella propria casa. I suoi parenti, invece, Hélène e Francois, han More...
Stanotte attraverseranno un gran numero di paesini tranquilli, di villaggi sonnolenti, e passeranno accanto alle grandi case silenziose e scure perdute nella campagna: non immagineranno nemmeno che ogni cosa ha una vita profonda e segreta, che loro sono destinati a non conoscere.
In un paesino della campagna francese, Issi-l'Eveque, un uomo ormai anziano, Silvio, vive isolato, come un fauno in ritiro, nella propria casa. I suoi parenti, invece, Hélène e Francois, han More...
Oct 02, 2011
Oh, I very much enjoyed this. As slim as it is, hell, I figured that I’d read a few pages then set it aside. But I finished reading it in one sitting, and dammit, I loved it.
[And with much thanks to Sandra Smith, the translator -- the language was fluid, and had the grace that I so missed when I read Dimanche and Other Stories, which was translated by someone else.]
So. It’s a very insular tale — compact and organic, too, so finely crafted. It’s easy to assume that this is More...
[And with much thanks to Sandra Smith, the translator -- the language was fluid, and had the grace that I so missed when I read Dimanche and Other Stories, which was translated by someone else.]
So. It’s a very insular tale — compact and organic, too, so finely crafted. It’s easy to assume that this is More...
Aug 26, 2010
Rebekah
rated it: 
I snatched this book up in a fit of joy when I was recently at my favorite bookstore, Half Price Books. A book I’ve been dying to read, in hardback, for $4,98!!! Heaven!
If you have not been introduced to the thrills of Irene Nemirovsky, RUN and pick up Suite Francaise, the gorgeous, painful story of various families in France trying to outrun the Nazi invasion. There are lots of beautifully-interwoven characters drenched in flawless prose dropped against a dramatic historical land More...
If you have not been introduced to the thrills of Irene Nemirovsky, RUN and pick up Suite Francaise, the gorgeous, painful story of various families in France trying to outrun the Nazi invasion. There are lots of beautifully-interwoven characters drenched in flawless prose dropped against a dramatic historical land More...
Aug 03, 2009
Heather
rated it:
Suite Francaise has been quite the hype lately so I headed to the library to pick it up. Disappointed in not finding it, I found this novel written by her instead and decided to take it home. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this novel has a very similar background to Suite Francaise (see summary above). And truth be told it is the author's background as much as the story (perhaps even more so) that make this novel fascinating.
By itself, this is an interesting story, one of lo More...
By itself, this is an interesting story, one of lo More...
Sep 30, 2011
Bastet
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El germen que llevó a Irène Némirovsky a escribir esta magnÃfica novela corta o relato largo (ella misma dudaba) es lo que ella llama el "ardor de la sangre", esa "llamarada de sueños", ese "fuego sordo y oculto" que nos consume en la juventud.
Es meritoria la capacidad de Némirovsky a la hora de condensar en tan pocas páginas la historia de dos generaciones de una familia en un pueblo francés. El tema de la novela es la herencia de padres a hijos (en este caso More...
Es meritoria la capacidad de Némirovsky a la hora de condensar en tan pocas páginas la historia de dos generaciones de una familia en un pueblo francés. El tema de la novela es la herencia de padres a hijos (en este caso More...
Jan 22, 2011
Creative Writing Critique (Satis Shroff): FIRE IN THE BLOOD
Review: Irene Nemirovsky Fire in the Blood, Vintage Books, London 2008,
153 pages, 7,99 Sterling Pounds (ISBN: 978-0-099-51609-5)
Denise Epstein was 13 when her mother Irene Nemirovsky was deported to Auschwitz, where she eventually died in 1942. The daughter is now an octogenarian and was instrumental in helping her mother attain her place in the world literature. Irene Nemirovsky was a writer who could look into More...
Review: Irene Nemirovsky Fire in the Blood, Vintage Books, London 2008,
153 pages, 7,99 Sterling Pounds (ISBN: 978-0-099-51609-5)
Denise Epstein was 13 when her mother Irene Nemirovsky was deported to Auschwitz, where she eventually died in 1942. The daughter is now an octogenarian and was instrumental in helping her mother attain her place in the world literature. Irene Nemirovsky was a writer who could look into More...
Aug 26, 2009
Jane
rated it:
Having been so deeply affected by Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, I was eager to read Fire in the Blood. Fire has the author's signature subtle wit and prodigious powers of observation. She presents early 1900s Burgundy peasant life and paints portraits of their most profound passions from the perspective of an older Cousin Silvio in 1938 reflecting on his youth and that of his family and neighbors.
From the first, we know Silvio has a secret. We identify with his weariness, but also w More...
From the first, we know Silvio has a secret. We identify with his weariness, but also w More...
Dec 15, 2011
Angelique
rated it:
So unerwartet hat mir noch selten ein Buch so gut gefallen. Ich wünschte, ich könnte es im Original auf Französisch lesen, doch sind meine diesbezüglichen Sprachfähigkeiten leider zu begrenzt. Warum ich mir das bei der Lektüre sehr gewünscht habe, liegt daran, dass ich das Gefühl hatte, die Sprach sei außergewöhnlich - doch gleichzeitig war ich mir der Übersetzung gar zu bewusst.
Doch kommen wir zum Inhalt: Absolut faszinierend - eine Geschichte die auf einer Idee beruht, über die man noch More...
Doch kommen wir zum Inhalt: Absolut faszinierend - eine Geschichte die auf einer Idee beruht, über die man noch More...
Feb 05, 2009
Given the astounding success of Suite Fran‚àö_üaise, critics were overjoyed to find another book by Ir‚àö¬Æne N‚àö¬©mirovsky, who wrote about a dozen novels and many short stories during her lifetime. (Though relatively new to American readers, N‚àö¬©mirovsky published a French best seller, David Golder, in 1929). Fire in the Blood, which survived as a partially typed manuscript, raises inevitable comparisons to Suite Fran‚àö_üaise. Reviewers agreed that despite its smaller, less powerful scope and lack
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Nov 17, 2009
Anastasia
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Well, it couldn't compare with Suite Francaise, and I suppose that, despite myself, I was hoping for that. Having now read the background on the (amazing) discovery of this novel long after Nemirovsky's death, I tend to think that she couldn't have considered the book finished. The characters aren't yet dimensional. They're in development, placed into the action by the author-god but not yet fully animated. If she'd been granted more time rather than death in a Nazi death camp, Nemirovsky would
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Jan 20, 2012
Julia
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This novel was discovered many years after Irene Nemirovsky's tragic death. It is technically unfinished, but not to the point where it cannot be read and enjoyed. The narrator is Silvio, aged in his 60s, who lives alone just outside a small French village. In his youth he traveled the world and had affairs, but now he regards that younger self as being so removed from him that it's almost as if it were someone else. He believes that "fire in the blood" is only for the young: livi
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Oct 22, 2010
Zoë
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"I’m undoubtedly wrong to generalise; there are people who are sensible at twenty, but I’ll take the recklessness of my youth over their restraint any day."
Fire in the Blood is my first read by Irène Némirovsky, most famous for Suite Française. The history behind the book is actually also quite interesting- only a partial text of the book was known to exist until recently when the manuscript which had been put into safe keeping when Némirovsky was deported to Auschwitz by More...
Fire in the Blood is my first read by Irène Némirovsky, most famous for Suite Française. The history behind the book is actually also quite interesting- only a partial text of the book was known to exist until recently when the manuscript which had been put into safe keeping when Némirovsky was deported to Auschwitz by More...
Jul 29, 2011
Shannon
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hmmm...not bad. i actually think the history behind the novel is far more intriguing than the actual story, which is a whimsical narrative of a little community in france that holds its own secrets and gossip. the authoress was actually deported and killed in auschwitz. before, she had been a successful writer. her husband had typed her novels for her on his typewriter. a huge chunk of this book, all the way up to pg. 37 with the words "i feel so old" were typed. the rest was missing a
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Nov 13, 2010
Mrsgaskell
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Suite Française was an outstanding novel so I wasn’t expecting this book to be as good. It’s not but it is still a worthwhile read and I enjoyed it. It does feel incomplete in some ways, as if it needed some rounding out and a bit of polishing. Having said that, it was interesting and the writing was excellent. Némirovsky’s descriptions enable one to really visualize this small rural French community and its inhabitants. Silvio, having now attained middle age, is content to live a quiet isolated
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Oct 05, 2009
Angie
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This novella, found among the writer's papers, is a gem. Surprising and haunting--for a woman nearing her fortieth year and the year of her death--the novel is told from the point of view of an older man who complains of having lost all desire for life at a family gathering to celebrate the engagement of his niece.
As the niece's marriage proves less than promising and another young woman's marriage to a much older man causes understandable difficulties, we discover that these patter More...
As the niece's marriage proves less than promising and another young woman's marriage to a much older man causes understandable difficulties, we discover that these patter More...
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Feb 24, 2008
Cherie
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B- I wasn't that into this in the middle--the beginning was very interesting, but the end got the most interesting. In the middle, you kind of wonder, "What's the point?" but the point is revealed when you discover a lot more about the seemingly innocent characters at the end.
May 05, 2009
Kathy
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This story is told from the point of view of a ~50-year-old bachelor, which she carries off with incredible acuity, especially being as young as she was (38 when this was written, 1 year before she died at Auschwitz). Her characters are intense and believable. The descriptions of places and time evocative. Her understanding of human nature and our tendency towards complicity at terrifying and tragic levels is way beyond her years would seem possible. The passion of her youth, or "fire in t
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Oct 08, 2011
Sarah
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This was a very quintessential "Nemirovsky" work. The writing was beautiful and there was the backbone of an amazing story, but there was very little resolution. Nemirovsky seems to be allowing the reader to create the ending that they wish, but sometimes I would like her to just spell it out so that I know how she wanted it to end.
Nemirovsky has such a beautiful way with words and with describing relationships. She does an amazing job with the first person narrative and brings h More...
Nemirovsky has such a beautiful way with words and with describing relationships. She does an amazing job with the first person narrative and brings h More...
