Maya's review
The Great Fire
by Shirley Hazzard
Maya's review
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Maya's review
rating:
This book was a huge disappointment for me. I don't remember much about it but I cribbed from this positive amazon review--I thought it was funny because all these "good" lines the Amazon reviewer likes are not good to me:
My words are inadequate to describe this book. To paraphrase Ms. Hazzard when she lets one character describe another's beauty by saying "no one has a right to look like that," I say that no one has a right to write like this. Her prose is graceful, concise and descriptive. I was hooked by page 7 with this description: "The man had a deep, low voice. If one had to put a colour to it, it would have been dark blue; or what people in costly shops call burgundy." Ms. Hazzard is able to say so much about the world in such few words. For example, a bridegoom is described as "pinstriped and trembling." On the brevity of life, a character says "'We are told that possessions are ephemeral, yet my God how they outlast us. . .'&q...more
My words are inadequate to describe this book. To paraphrase Ms. Hazzard when she lets one character describe another's beauty by saying "no one has a right to look like that," I say that no one has a right to write like this. Her prose is graceful, concise and descriptive. I was hooked by page 7 with this description: "The man had a deep, low voice. If one had to put a colour to it, it would have been dark blue; or what people in costly shops call burgundy." Ms. Hazzard is able to say so much about the world in such few words. For example, a bridegoom is described as "pinstriped and trembling." On the brevity of life, a character says "'We are told that possessions are ephemeral, yet my God how they outlast us. . .'&q...more
