Book Review: Fire In the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky

Fire In the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky
Translator: Sandra Smith
Publisher: Knopf, 2007
Print Price: $12.95
Ebook Price: $9.99

Silvio is old, poor, and unmarried and lives in a farmer's hovel in the French countryside. It wasn't always so. His family is "important", meaning they own a lot of land and have a lot of money, and occupy positions of power. At one time, Silvio too owned a lot of land worth a lot of money, but he spent his money travelling the world, and sold off almost all his land to fund those wanderings. Now, the little shack is about all he has left in this world besides his dog and his family. He doesn't mind the dog, but he DOES mind his family. Silvio would be quite content to just sit by his fire drinking wine for the rest of his years. At least that what he tells himself.

As the book, opens, Silvio's cousin, Helene, is visiting with her family to invite Silvio to the wedding between a mill owner, Jean Dorin, and her daughter, Colette. That marriage sets into motion a series of events that will drag Silvio back into the world of the living and respark memories of his own youth. At one time, he also had "fire in the blood". Silvio had passions, loves, lusts, but old age and isolation has locked those emotions up in his heart where he has forgotten them. It's only when he sees the young people of his family committing the same kind of foolish acts in the name of love that he realizes what he has lost.

Irene Nemirovsky was a Jewish author living in France during the time of its occupation by the Nazis during World War II. She was arrested in 1942 simply for being a Jew and sent to Auschwitz, where she died a month later from typhus. This book was only published recently because one part of it had been left with family and the other part with a friend and editor before she was arrested so the two sections had never been put together before.

While Fire In the Blood is put forth as a completed work, I would beg to differ on that claim. I have read a lot of books in my lifetime and I will say that when I got to the "end" of this novel you could tell it was not finished. Like an interrupted conversation. This book is not finished. It was probably simply put out to cash in on the popularity of Suite Francaise. And there's nothing wrong with that. It is a good book even in this form and well worth reading. I would rather read it like this than never to have had the chance to read it at all.

The thing that really makes this book is the character of Silvio. I really liked him. Because he thinks he's so cool because he no longer is moved by passion and love like all those around him. He's almost like a superman when it comes to avoiding human folly in his twilight years. Silvio doesn't judge anyone. He simply observes and maybe gives a bit of advice here and there to help people even though he doesn't really want to get involved in drama. He doesn't give advice from a condescending position, but more from a position of wisdom because he's seen it, done that. They say insanity is contagious. Well, so is fire in the blood, and Silvio cannot escape it by the end of the book.

Again, a really good book whose ending will leave you asking "And?"

My grade: A-