Four Fires

By: Bryce Courtenay

Narrated by: Humphrey Bower

Length: 29 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

The four fires in this story are passion, religion, warfare, and fire itself. While there are many more fires that drive the human spirit, love being perhaps the brightest flame of all, it is these four that have moulded us most as Australian people. The four fires give us our sense of place and, for better or for worse, shape our national character.

©2013 Christine Courtenay; 2010 Bryce Courtenay (P)2008 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"Humphrey Bower, speaking as Mole, delivers every possible nuance and emotion of his character’s story, and shows a startling aptitude for other dialects as well. Close family friends and enemies include surviving Polish Jews, an East Indian healer, an Irish Catholic priest, Japanese prison camp soldiers, and many others. All of them, young and old, male and female, spring to vivid life in Bower’s versatile voice. Narrative passages and dialogue elicit tears and laughter by turns, without a minute of boredom in the 30-hour production." ( AudioFile magazine)

Fantastic!

Wow, what an enthralling story presented by a very talented narrator. Humphrey makes the characters come alive with superb personalisation of each voice. I came away with a new appreciation of the rough, yet tender life in rural Australia. I loved the aussie slang that is peppered throughout the book.

Bryce wrote this novel with such exquisite detail that it made me feel like I was a part of the Maloney family, experiencing the ups and downs of fire, war, religion and relationships.

Highly recommended!

Captivating Charaters

The narrator for this book is awesome. The story is very imaginative and the characters come to life when given such good narration.

Excellent is all I can say!

Where does Four Fires rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This even supersedes Power of One, which I absolutely loved, but only just!

What did you like best about this story?

The whole art of integrating different characters,different viewpoints,different dialects is made to look easy when listening to this book. Bryce Courtenany brings his characters alive and with such compelling storylines that it's hard to stop listening.

Have you listened to any of Humphrey Bower’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I had already read this book an age ago but on discovering Humphrey Bowers ability to bring other books alive with his truly wonderful accents and nuances with each different character,was not disappointed when listening to this performance,absolutely one of his best to date!

If you could take any character from Four Fires out to dinner, who would it be and why?

It would be wonderful to be at dinner with the whole of the extended Maloney family, to be able to watch the interactions going on all around and feeling that you know them so well due to the depth of the authors and narrators performance

Very Good, Not Great

What made the experience of listening to Four Fires the most enjoyable?

As usual, the partnership between Courtenay and Bower is fantastic.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Most of the Characters are very well done. This difference between this novel and The Power of One or even Tandia is that there are many characters followed over a generation. Maybe too many. In those previous books there was one main character - Peekay - and many supplementary ones. In Four Fires there are many main characters. The characters are well developed, but we don't fall in love with them like we do Peekay.

What does Humphrey Bower bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He's the best in the business.

Who was the most memorable character of Four Fires and why?

Tommy. Finding out how the war changed him was brutal.

Any additional comments?

Absolutely worth the read, but not on the level of The Power of One.

Superb Narration !!

The book is typical of Courtenay. He can tell a story. Yes his characters are larger than life and the melodrama is at times a bit thick but still, he pulls it off. There is to me always a bit of an overly romantic quality to his books that would be very hard to take if it wasn't for his skill as a writer. So I know that what I am listening to is at times way over the top and that for one as cynical and jaded as I am this is not a typical choice of book but I enjoyed it immensely..
A lot of the credit for this belongs to the narrator. Bower is as good as it gets.

Four Fires

I wasn't certian that I would fully appreciate this book since it is by an Austrailian author with the story background set in Australia. I can say without reservation that this is one of the best books that I haver ever listened to. The narrater is amazing! It was easy to forget that it was read by a single person because his voice changed with each character. I am sure that this is a book that I will listen to again sometime in the future. Thank you!

Another excellent story from BC, Down Under

Recent history unfolds with page turning entertainment bringing us the Aussie experience of immigration that parallels our own(US). From WWII to post Viet Nam era, the author relates one family's saga with humor, tolerance, hope and love. Examining a modern phenomena, PTSD, the effects of trauma on all human beings, the author educates as he entertains us with depth of characterization and detailed information on the realities of war, natural challenges, and the strength within each of us to survive and thrive.

Great writer, great storyteller.

Bryce Courtney is a great storyteller and entertaining writer. His books could be up there with some of the "Greats" but he gets down into the details of the social gutter too much at times to appeal to a wider audience. A little more discretion on the social/human dark side would allow me to recommend this to a lot more people.

A wonderful read

This is an exceptional story by Bryce Courtenay, as an Australian who lives in the area the main characters are set in, Bryce Courtenay's descriptions of the landscape and the Australian way of life in that era are spot on.
Humphrey Bowers narration is perfect, the tempo is just right and his accents are incredible.
The story is beautifully enhanced by the narration.

Very well written & performed. One I will remember

Would you consider the audio edition of Four Fires to be better than the print version?

I don't know.

Who was your favorite character and why?

None in particular, I enjoyed the narrator who was the character "Mole".

What does Humphrey Bower bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Loved his narrative, rarely does a performance made story come to life as Humphrey did. Accents did not sound pitifully fake as many narrators do. Even the women's voices were appealing. I would listen to more of his narrations.

If you could take any character from Four Fires out to dinner, who would it be and why?

The mother, I liked her attitude.