Fire in the Blood (Vintage International)
by Irene Nemirovsky
List Price:
Our Price: $4.16
You Save: $8.79 (68%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Irene NemirovskyTranslator: Sandra Smith
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-07-15
ISBN: 030738800X
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Fire in the Blood (Vintage International)
Book Review: "Youthful ardor and regrets"
Summary: 4 Stars
Irène Némirovsky's "Fire in the Blood (Chaleur du sang)" is a novella about the intensity of youth and the affairs of the heart. It is pensive, melancholy, almost heartbreaking. Quite unlike her more well-known "Suite Française," it is about survival of a different sort. This time, it's surviving the pain of losing someone who's so fervently loved.
After years spent wandering the world, Silvio returns to his French roots, the rural village of Issy-l'Évêque in Burgundy. Decades go by and now an old man and having been forced to sell the land he's inherited, Silvio's days are spent in shabby existence--he falls asleep beside the fire, smokes his pipe and strokes his dog, seemingly pleased with the peace of his lonely country life--as "the days drag on while the years fly by."
His cousin Hélène and her family visit him, eager to share the news of Hélène's daughter's impending marriage. As the story progresses, we learn that Colette, the daughter, has been hiding a sordid secret and it involves a young married woman, Brigitte, and a handsome womanizer named Marc. As more revelations surface and a scandal becomes imminent, Silvio reluctantly revisits his memories of 1912, when as a young soldier, he fell madly in love with the woman of his dreams and unknowingly set into motion the tragedy of the present.
Némirovsky perished in Auschwitz in 1942, leaving behind her unfinished "Suite Française" and two pages of "Fire in the Blood." More pages of Fire were later discovered and mindful that she may not have been able to finish this as well, I shan't be too critical. It is decidedly elegiac, evidenced by Silvio's painful lament of a long-gone youth and the fire in him that has burned out. The secrets that emerge are indeed tragic, and given the time and mores, are quite believable. However, it has the feel of an unfinished novel and melodrama dominates throughout. Her descriptions of la vie rurale are authentic (the insularity, the suspicious attitudes toward outsiders, etc.), but the amour passionné is uncharacteristically histrionic. As to whether she would have edited it had she lived or the translation was too literal is anybody's guess.
Though not altogether as stirring as Suite, Fire is nonetheless an interesting and touching story. For some it may even be a reminder of an enduring passion, though I hope one of gladness rather than grief.
Summary of Fire in the Blood (Vintage International)
From the celebrated author of the international bestseller Suite Française, a newly discovered novel, a story of passion and long-kept secrets, set against the background of a rural French village in the years before World War II.Written in 1941, Fire in the Blood ? only now assembled in its entirety ? teems with the intertwined lives of an insular French village in the years before the war, when "peace" was less important as a political state than as a coveted personal condition: the untroubled pinnacle of happiness. At the center of the novel is Silvio, who has returned to this small town after years away. As his narration unfolds, 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.Amazon Best of the Month, October 2007: As the Nazis advanced on France, celebrated writer Irène Némirovsky composed two final masterworks: Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. The first, smuggled out in a suitcase by her escaping daughters when Némirovsky was taken to her death at Auschwitz in 1942, surfaced more than 60 years later and restored her bestselling status. The other, two pages of which slipped out in that same suitcase, was thought lost--until biographers discovered the rest of the manuscript in papers given to Némirovsky's editor for safekeeping. A worthy companion to Suite Française, it follows three interwoven stories across two decades, when the hot-blooded affairs of youth threaten the cool calm of middle age. Once it has all unraveled, the last line lodges in your heart like a sliver. If only there could have been more. --Mari Malcolm
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.11
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.73
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.95
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $4.60
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
All Our Worldly Goodsby Irene Nemirovsky
Chatto & Windus; Published: 2008-10-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.69
Jezebelby Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage Books; Published: 2010-08-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.65
Shadows of a Childhood: A Novelby Elisabeth Gille
New Press; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.17
Price in other shops:
The Dogs and the Wolvesby Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage Books; Published: 2010-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.70
The Life of Irene Nemirovsky: 1903-1942by Olivier Philipponnat, Patrick Lienhardt
Knopf; Published: 2010-05-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.94
Price in other shops:
Dimanche and Other Stories (Vintage International)by Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage; Published: 2010-04-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by her Daughter (New York Review Books Classics)by Elisabeth Gille
NYRB Classics; Published: 2011-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courilof Affair (Everyman's Library (Cloth))by Irene Nemirovsky
Everyman's Library; Published: 2008-01-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.00
Price in other shops:
Suite Francaiseby Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage; Published: 2007-04-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.18
Price in other shops:
All Our Worldly Goods (Vintage International Original)by Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage; Published: 2011-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.57
Price in other shops: