Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky audiobook

Fire in the Blood

By Irène Némirovsky
Translated by Sandra Smith
Read by Mark Bramhall

Random House Audio 9780307388001
3.45 Hours • • Unabridged
Format: Digital Download (In Stock)
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    ISBN: 9780739357774

Here is a missing piece of the remarkable posthumous legacy of Irène Némirovsky, author of the internationally acclaimed Suite Française. The novel–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 tale is Silvio: in his younger years he fled the boredom of the village and made a life of travel and adventure. Now he’s returned, living in a farmer’s hovel in the middle of the woods, and, much to his family’s chagrin, perfectly content with his solitude. 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.

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Summary

Summary

Amazon Best Book of the Month for October 2007

Here is a missing piece of the remarkable posthumous legacy of Irène Némirovsky, author of the internationally acclaimed Suite Française.

The novel–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 tale is Silvio: in his younger years he fled the boredom of the village and made a life of travel and adventure. Now he’s returned, living in a farmer’s hovel in the middle of the woods, and, much to his family’s chagrin, perfectly content with his solitude.

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.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Fire in the Blood, on which it seems she was still working when she was taken away to her death, confirms Némirovsky's brilliance as a storyteller with a deep understanding of the hidden flaws and cruelties not just in French society but in the human heart. —Anne Chisholm, The Telegraph (UK)
“Courageous, uncompromising . . . An entire world, vividly rendered, emerges from [these] pages . . . Némirovsky sets the tragedies of the plot in motion so unobtrusively, yet so surely, that when they come together the book has the inevitability–and yet the shock–that characterizes the books that mark us . . . If Thomas Hardy were alive to read Fire in the Blood, I think he'd recognize Némirovsky as kin. —Charles Taylor, Newsday
With startling economy, Némirovsky telegraphs the prejudices, passions and taboos that govern life in this isolated community . . . Subdued on its surface, but with a tamped-down sensuality that gives it a near-vicious narrative drive, the book has a powerful sting in its tail. Translator Sandra Smith deftly renders its noirish bite into English, giving us a taste of what Némirovsky the writer was like before history handed her the subject matter that killed her. —Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times
“Posthumous second acts are tough. But Fire in the Blood is an almost perfect miniature, a tale of divided loves and loyalties set in an insular rural French village. —O: Oprah Magazine
Stripped of the backdrop of war, the natural surroundings of Fire In The Blood add a depth and resonance to each of the story's characters, whether young or old, male or female. Subtle in its intention, this novella takes humanity in all its guises and captures the deep-seated desire for belonging and understanding. —Anna Millar, Scotland on Sunday
“An almost perfect miniature, a tale of divided loves and loyalties set in an insular rural French village.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
Passion and dispassion stare at each other with mutual lack of understanding. In a book fuelled with images of fire and embers, Némirovsky brilliantly depicts a closed-in, inward-looking community, then gives what happens in it universal resonance by exhibiting not only what people do to each other but what the passing of time does to us all. —Peter Kemp, Sunday Times (UK)
Like the second half of Suite Française, Fire in the Blood is set in a small, isolated village in rural France and displays, once again, Némirovsky's unnerving ability to map out her characters' internal faults with a humanity reminiscent of Chekhov.... Némirovsky is superb at teasing out people's personal worlds, disillusionment, moral hypocrisy and the ways in which old age invariably shows happiness to be little more than a youthful dream. —Metro (UK)
Exquisitely wrought . . . If you loved the author’s Suite Française–and how could you not?–you’ll likewise take to this recently discovered treasure . . . So great is Némirovsky’s reading of the human heart that her tale has the power of myth. And so true does it ring to reality that one could call it not so much a love but a life story. —Edward Cone, Library Journal (starred)
“Knowing that Némirovsky completed this book about the timeless fire of love at the very moment an all-too-historical fire of hatred was snaking through France adds a painful poignancy to the reading experience.” —New York Times Book Review
“Beautiful…An enjoyable…portrait of manners from the first half of the last century.” —Washington Post Book World
“Courageous, uncompromising…An entire world, vividly rendered, emerges from [these] pages.” —Newsday
“[Némirovsky] coolly explores the heat of passions old and new…leav[ing] readers profoundly satisfied with this portrait of la vieille France…so manifestly dear to her.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Némirovsky brilliantly depicts a closed-in, inward-looking community, then gives what happens in it universal resonance by exhibiting not only what people do to each other but what the passing of time does to us all.” —Sunday Times (London)
“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.” —Amazon.com, editorial review
“A small gem in its depiction of social relations in the French countryside.” —Bookmarks magazine
“Another keenly observed study of human nature…Némirovsky’s restraint in unfolding her story contributes to the emotional crescendo at the story’s denouement. In its penetrating distillation of manners and mores, this spare and elegant book makes a worthy follow-up to Suite.” —Publishers Weekly

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Author

Author Bio: Irène Némirovsky

Author Bio: Irène Némirovsky

Irène Némirovsky (1903–1942), was born in Kiev, Ukraine, into a wealthy banking family and emigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. After attending the Sorbonne in Paris, she began to write and swiftly achieved success with David Golder, which was followed by more than a dozen other books. Throughout her lifetime she published widely in French newspapers and literary journals. She died in Auschwitz in 1942. More than sixty years later, Suite Française was published posthumously, for the first time. It became an international bestseller, with nearly a million copies in print in the United States alone.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download
Category: Fiction
Runtime: 3.45
Audience: Adult
Language: English

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