Night of Fire: A Novel

Loved it! Rich and deep in theme and character development. The writing is often beautiful. The author's long life as a world traveler enhance and inform each story within the story. I enjoyed and admired the novel's complex conceptual structure: short, subtly inter-related narratives about the lives and characters of each person who lives in a burning rooming house as it burns and as they die.The novel starts and ends with short narratives from the home-owner's point of view; in between are narratives of the other 5 or so tenants. The names and traits of some of the characters are repeated and, it seems, related -- perhaps each character is a different aspect of the same person? One gets a feeling that this is a deeply personal book for the author. Thubron's depiction of the characteristics of memory are layered, haunting, perceptive, and strange. I found this book immensely rewarding and haunting and am looking forward to rereading it in a few months. It is one of the best novels I've ever read.

It's the structure of the book that propels the story. One after another, a floor of a boarding house burns taking with it inhabitants and treasures. While the borders may not know each other well, their lives are intertwined. The landlord on the roof is saved for last. Highly suspenseful.

outstanding writing and concept. One of the most beautifully written and conceived novels I have ever read.

It got a great review in The New York Review of Books but I could only get through one CD (a few chapters). To be fair to the author, part of the problem for me may have been the audio book narrator, who sounded almost too English, like a caricature of a snobbish English gentleman, telling you a story that might be interesting but sounds so damn priggish and condescending, it's hard to care.But I suspect I would still have a problem with the book in that for me, it doesn't grip me, it causes almost no identification with characters, so it's difficult to invest in the story. I would accept a defense from the author or those readers who liked the book that this means I may just not "get" the book and I may be a bit shallow. That is, someone who is an avid reader and more interested in the form of text and the descriptive powers of the author than story may find this book very interesting. I'm just not one of them.

Would love to meet all the charecters again in a fantasy after the fire--specially the naturalist.

Loved this book. So well written. What an amazing concept for a book. This is a book that I actually may re read.

I just didn't see the point of this story I guess. While some of the characters were mildly interesting and their stories relateable to the trials we all face in life, I don't think they were interesting enough to write a book about. I kept slogging through thinking, "Why do I care about any of this? " I understand the author is a travel writer. I suppose some readers were impressed with his descriptions of the landscapes and cultures, but this isn't a travel book.

No review.

I enjoyed this book as much for its 'purpose' as for its prose. It's thought provoking, infuriating at times, wistful and heartbreaking at others. Some knowledge of religions, neuroscience and physics is helpful, but not necessary for appreciating the book. Will be thinking about this text for a while.

An excellent novel with some imaginative writing. I enjoyed the earliest 'stories' best. Liked the mystical post-modern merging of the separate narratives at the end. I share the author's wonder at the glories of the night sky; its permanence an effective counterpoint to the impermanences and uncertainties deatiled earlier in the novel.

Slightly uneven but delivers a genuine emotional impact, suffused with Thubron's typical gentle melancholy. First if his fiction books I have read but his style is distinctive from the travel work

A fascinating novel with a very unusual structure , which is in essence 6 short stories of fragments of different lives brought together in the life / dreams of the Landlord of a structure consumed by fire. Beautifully written and thought provoking, and strangely moving.

The English was poor, the plot repetitive. I thought the structure was good. I would not recommend it. Read in my book club and the lowest score since we started 10 years ago