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well-written and involving account and story of the german invasion of Paris and of the countryside and the impact on everyone's lives.
I couldn't put it down and when I did, I had tears in my eyes. This was the January choice of our book club and unfortunately I missed the discussion, so I don't know whether people liked it or disliked it, but for me it was one great read. Knowing that the author died in a concentration camp, made it all the more poignant for me. That the war (WWII) brought silence for this author, made me ask myself again, Is War the Answer.
Némirovsky began writing Suite Francaise in 1940 and would only complete two out of the five planned parts for the book before her death. At the outbreak of WWII Némirovsky was a successful writer and had converted to Catholicsm. She was to meet a tragic ending. Those two parts are complied in Suite Francaise. There is the Pericand family, a well-to-do lot whose controlling mother struggles to keep the family together, and the Michaunds, the most relateable characters. After her death, Némirovsky's older daughter, Denise, kept the notebook containing the manuscript for Suite Française for fifty years without reading it, thinking it was a journal or diary of her mother's, which would be too painful to read. This is a moving and powerful book, and celebrates the power of the human spirit over evil while exposing the selfishness in us all. On July 13, 1942 the French police knocked at her door.
Her mother was abusive (a cruel and vain women, Nemirovsky's mother was "revolted at the sight of her" because to look at her reminded her of her "aging beauty") and her father, a prominent banker, was never home.To escape, Irene became a writer. Irene Némirovsky was born in Kiev 1903 to a wealthy Jewish family. There is Gabriel Corte, the narcissistic and successful writer who is a worm of a man. It is a dark work, but given the dark world in which it was written, it is obvious. Like a Tolstoy novel, their personalities dictate the happenings of the novel.What is striking are the contrasts between these protagonists, namely between the upper and middle classes.
That Nemirovsky could write so succinctly about the events happening simultaneously around her is shocking and demands recognition of her talent. Abused by their boss and worried for their son who is on the front lines, Beautiful descriptions of the French landscape (which can get a bit wordy) are precluded by death and occupation. The fact that the novel was published so long after it was begun is a cause for celebration and illustrates the redemptive power of art. What is remarkable is that this is not an historical novel, but was written during the events that it describes. She published her first novel to critical acclaim in her mid-20's and gained wide recognition.
At 14, Némirovsky's began studying the writing style of Turgenev which would have a huge impact on her life as a writer. To repeat, this is a novel of survival, one in which the reader is plunged into the depths of an evil that the world had not experienced before and has not experienced since. It is a striking piece of art, powerful in its tenacity and the cruel existentialism exhibited by the characters. It was only after deciding to donate her mother's papers to France that Denise decided to examine the notebook and found the book. The plot of the novel follows a relentless and commanding path: survival. She would meticulously outline the characters in detail before she started writing.
She lived in fine material conditions but suffered a dismal childhood. The appendix of the book, a snapshot of the notebook that Denise found her mother's novel in, is a fascinating look into the workings of a writer. It is not a pleasurable read, it often left me cold and morose--but it is affecting, and a worthy piece of literature. Then she would use different colored pencils to highlight the parts of their personalities that she wanted to keep.
She had completed two out of the five parts. The characters are what's important. Tragically, the Nazi's didn't care--she had been born a Jew. Némirovsky dreamed of a book of five parts and a thousand pages, each section differing in tone and rhythm, prose mingling with the structures and melodies of Beethoven.
Set in France in 1940, the year the Nazis invaded France, the novel introduces us to the world that the Nazi's have made. Since there is little room to expand such a suffocating theme, there is little plot to speak of. From there, she would begin her books with the "living" characters that she had birthed.Suite Francaise is a conceptual novel, modeled after the five movements of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. She was transported to Auschwitz and died little more than a month later [.].
What we have in Suite Francaise is really an unfinished work in progress. Of course in the end it is what we have within that sustains us all, courage and honor do not always follow class lines. This part of the story is slower paced, and examines how the lives of the oppressed often become intertwined with their oppressors. Although a few characters from the first part of the book are referenced we are introduced to an entirely new set of people. Originally planned to be a Suite in 5 parts Nemirovsky only finished the two novellas that complete this book. She converted to Catholicism upon her marriage but was sent to Auschwitz in 1942 where she died at age 39.
Her belongings were in the possession of her children, but for 60 years they did not go through them all; when the manuscript for this book was found it was published an became an international best seller. What is most compelling about Suite Francaise is the story was written as the chaos of WWII was happening all around the author. This is the kind of book that the background of the story colors the way you feel about the work, much the way the knowledge of what happened to Anne Frank makes her diary all the more moving. It is that feeling of being cheated of a wonderful talent that remains after the last page is turned, to be denied that chance to see what more this author could have given us. Nemerovsky comes down hard on those of privilege who used their status to obtain special favors while others around them died in the streets. The second half of the book is called Dulce (sweet) and focuses on the behaviors of a small village in the countryside that is occupied by a German Army unit in the year between the French armistice and the beginning of the German invasion of Russia in 1941. The appendices of the book that describe the background story make the reading of the book that much more compelling.
The tone of this novella is in itself written in a disjointed sort of way, focusing on a few characters, but jumping around quite a bit, which in essence reflects the panic and chaos of the exodus. The author was Irene Nemirovsky, a well known writer who fled Russia and settled in France. Friendships are formed; love affairs are born, while under it all resentment and anger also wells up.Although I enjoyed the book overall I didn't love it, mostly because it does feel incomplete- which of course it is. The first is Storm in June, which details the utter chaos that occurred when the Germans invaded France and made their way to Paris. There are a few characters we come to care about, but Ms. I would love to have seen what this book could have become had it been completed the way the author wanted it to be.
It realistically portrays the spirit and ethos in the worst of circumstances. She could be talking of Poland, Italy or any other occupied country. Her portrayal of the French citizenry in the days of occupation represent one of the greatest books ever written that documents the human condition in times of war. We have all suffered as a result of her being unable to complete the Suite because of the Nazi program of extermination. A must read for all of us that have had families suffer through the second World War.
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