A Month of Novellas, Book 20: Fire in the Blood - Irene Nemirovsky (2007)

in the heat of the kitchen

I think almost everyone who reads even a little has by now heard of Irene Nemirovsky. She of the tragic tale, of the hidden manuscript years afterwards discovered. She wrote a novel called Suite Francaise which was lost after she was taken away to Auschitwz where she would later be killed. The novel was discovered and published recently to much acclaim. Now what I didn’t realize is that she was a well known writer all along. She was published during her lifetime and Suite Francaise turned out to be only one of the manuscripts that she left behind for safekeeping. One of the others was Fire in the Blood.

While researching which books I’d read (or try to read) for this month’s theme, I came upon this novella by the same author and thought it would be a good intro to her work.

The story takes place over many years. It’s narrated by Silvio, a late middle-age bachelor living in the French countryside. Once upon a time he went and traveled the world, but now he’s returned back home where he’s been settled for some time. And he’s happy to be mostly alone.

“But, in spite of everything, my idea of the perfect evening is this: I am completely alone; my housekeeper has just put the hens in their coop and gone home, and I am left with my pipe, my dog nestled between my legs, the sound of the mice in the attic, a crackling fire, no newspapers, no books, a bottle of red wine warming slowly on the hearth.” pp.4-5

I loved this description, which is something that in the past I might have wished for as well. But I’m not quite so anti-social anymore. I found myself marking this book more than any other one I’ve read this month. Each page one turns, there’s another paragraph that’s just begging to be quoted. I could probably write the equivalent to a five page post about Fire in the Blood. So much happens, the language is so rich, it’s all just so wonderful…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Silvio goes on to tell us of the many goings-ons of his village and its’ inhabitants.

“Old Uncle Chapelain who married his cook, the two Montrifaut sisters, who haven’t spoken to each other in fourteen years, even though they live in the same street, because one of them once refused to lend the other her special jam-making pan, and the lawyer whose wife is in Paris with a travelling salesman, and … My God, a wedding in the provinces is such a gathering of ghosts! In big cities, people either see each other all the time or never, it’s simpler.” p.14

Being a city-slicker my whole life, I assumed that most of what would happen would be very, well, provincial, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We’re soon introduced to Silvio’s extended family, his cousins, their children, etc. Some are about to marry, some are about to be unfaithful, but the seasons go on and on.

“Once again, darkness falls at three o’clock, the crows circle the skies, there’s snow on the roads and, in each isolated house, life closes in on itself even more, or so it seems – the space it offers to the outside world grows even smaller: long hours spent sitting by the fire doing nothing, not reading, not drinking, not even dreaming.” p.29

In the middle of all this bucolic living, we start to see an inner layer of rottenness develop and the same kind of luridness only thought to exist within the (for the most part) anonymity of city life. Soon there are deaths and confessions and long held resentments brought back to life and you’ll get sucked into it all. I don’t really want to give away any more of the plot because a lot happens and the surprise of it all is half the fun. But rest assured this is an excellent novella.

It’s the type of book you simply don’t want to end because the writing is so beautiful and the setting is so gorgeous and you’ve felt like you’ve actually been in the French countryside and have met all these people and regardless of their faults, you don’t want to leave. But you know nothing lasts forever and that it too must conclude. And so you linger over the last few pages, gasping at what’s happened in the end and then you close it and you are content because you’ve spent a day in Ms. Nemirovsky’s world.