Suite Française

by Irene Nemirovsky

published

April 11th 2006 (first published 2004) by Knopf

edit

binding

Hardcover, 416 pages

isbn

1400044731 (isbn13: 9781400044733)

description

By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky began working on what would become Suite Française—the first two parts of a p...more

[close] By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky began working on what would become Suite Française—the first two parts of a planned five-part novel—she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz: a month later she was dead at the age of thirty-nine. Two years earlier, living in a small village in central France—where she, her husband, and their two small daughters had fled in a vain attempt to elude the Nazis—she’d begun her novel, a luminous portrayal of a human drama in which she herself would become a victim. When she was arrested, she had completed two parts of the epic, the handwritten manuscripts of which were hidden in a suitcase that her daughters would take with them into hiding and eventually into freedom. Sixty-four years later, at long last, we can read Némirovsky’s literary masterpiece

The first part, “A Storm in June,” opens in the chaos of the massive 1940 exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion during which several families and individuals are thrown together under circumstances beyond their control. They share nothing but the harsh demands of survival—some trying to maintain lives of privilege, others struggling simply to preserve their lives—but soon, all together, they will be forced to face the awful exigencies of physical and emotional displacement, and the annihilation of the world they know. In the second part, “Dolce,” we enter the increasingly complex life of a German-occupied provincial village. Coexisting uneasily with the soldiers billeted among them, the villagers—from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants—cope as best they can. Some choose resistance, others collaboration, and as their community is transformed by these acts, the lives of these these men and women reveal nothing less than the very essence of humanity.

Suite Française is a singularly piercing evocation—at once subtle and severe, deeply compassionate and fiercely ironic—of life and death in occupied France, and a brilliant, profoundly moving work of art. [close]

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | compare prices ...

discuss this book

topics	replies	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: TNBBC Top Books	31	65	2 hours, 29 min ago
books for a buck: one dollar book store score	2	12	6 days ago, 11:19PM
The Next Best Boo...: World War fiction	44	99	10/17/2008 06:30AM
BFF Book Club: Let's get things started...	10	4	10/07/2008 06:43PM
anti-semitism and Irene Nemirovsky's writing	7	91	07/21/2008 10:31AM

new topic

groups with this book

view all groups »

friend reviews (0)

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 12516)

all | this edition

LordBeardsley rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

09/07/07

bookshelves: read2007

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: those interested in the human experience during war

This book jolted me. It's rare when I read a book literally from cover to cover...and close it nearly in tears. This was witten as France was being occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, thus, this may well be the first fictional account of World War Two as it was happening. Needless to say, this is an immensely important book and in my opinion should be required reading in history classes. This is an unfinished work by a Russian-French author who died in Auschwitz before she ...more This book jolted me. It's rare when I read a book literally from cover to cover...and close it nearly in tears. This was witten as France was being occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, thus, this may well be the first fictional account of World War Two as it was happening. Needless to say, this is an immensely important book and in my opinion should be required reading in history classes. This is an unfinished work by a Russian-French author who died in Auschwitz before she could complete what she was hoping would be a novel-opus written in the style of a piece of music. This is definately an ambitious and frustrating read. But the readers must take in mind that this is an incomplete draft. As a writer, I enjoyed reading something unfinished. It was wonderful to be able to crawl into someone's imaginative workings as they are happening with all the frayed bits left strung out. It helped me in assessing my own approach to the creative process and I think I'll be referring back to this novel time and again to get some pointers on plot devices and flow.

As a story, this is flawed. If I was just giving points for the story itself I would only alot it three stars. The fourth is for the fact that the appendix's in the back as well as the forword to the French addition are utterly fascinating. This is a highly forgotten author and I'm looking forward to reading more of her work. It pains me that this was never completed.

*On a side note, I experienced a strange realization while reading this by finding out that the suburb of Paris where my girlfriend's grandmother lives, Drancy, is the site of a former concentration camp.*

This gives a fascinatingly detailed account of life during the French Occupation as it was happening through the eyes of a formerly (but that has never been known to stop Nazis) Jewish woman. She has a keen knack for expressing the human experience. The lives of those she describes are lives interrupted during war, whether it be French peasants or young, highly incompetent German soldiers in way over their heads. She described the young German soldiers with a tenderness and empathy I thought incredible. Thus, subverting their "power" by describing them as young boys caught up in something they have marginal understanding of. The most poignant scenes for me where those in which she described what happens to young people during wartime. How all the young French boys are away and the young girls secretly idolize their captors and their captors in turn court the young girls...after all they're still teenagers. That to me, was heart-breaking. Reading this, over sixty years after it was written and in another pseudo "war", makes me realize how useless the power displays of men playing king of the hill really are...especially when the lives of everyday people are involved....less

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

4 comments

Lucy rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

04/02/08

A masterpiece. And this is the rough draft.

I've spent the last day trying to decide if I loved this book because I'm sentimental. The author, Irene Nemirovsky, was a Russian Jew who wrote this while living in occupied France. A respected author, she had married Micheal Epstein who had also fled Russia when the Bolsheviks revolted. They had sincerely adopted France as their home country, converted to Catholicism and were the parents of two daughters. She began writing this novel while simulta...more A masterpiece. And this is the rough draft.

I've spent the last day trying to decide if I loved this book because I'm sentimental. The author, Irene Nemirovsky, was a Russian Jew who wrote this while living in occupied France. A respected author, she had married Micheal Epstein who had also fled Russia when the Bolsheviks revolted. They had sincerely adopted France as their home country, converted to Catholicism and were the parents of two daughters. She began writing this novel while simultaneously experiencing it. She and her family had lived in Paris but had fled when German troops invaded the city. While most of the country was occupied, she moved to a French village and tried to survive amidst the new harsh laws concerning anyone of Jewish decent. She could no longer publish her works, could not cash checks, could not travel freely. Her life and freedom, as well as those of her husband and daughters were threatened daily. She had every excuse to be as frightened and as hysteric as anyone.

Yet, she managed to write an unbelievably candid look at Frenchmen in their hour of need. Her intention was to write a five part novella in the idea of a musical symphony much like Beethoven's Fifth examining the behavior of people from different classes of society. She succeeded in writing two of the five parts: Storm in June and Dolce. Storm in June begins as rumors of a German invasion into Paris reach a frenzied level and characters decide whether or not evacuate their homes. The attitude, priorities and expectations vary greatly between the elite and working class. Desperation brings out the very worst in most, but not all. Food, gas, shelter - the basic needs of any person, become scarce and the desire to survive seems to super cede any desire to help a neighbor. Nemirovsky is an expert at exposing this without focusing on the misery. Instead, in her own words, she shows "the prosperity that contrasts with it. . . one word for misery, ten for egotism, cowardice, closing ranks, crime. But it's true that it's this very atmosphere I'm breathing. It is easy to imagine it: the obsession with food." Writing about the contrast is very effective. `What impresses me more is that Nemirovsky was part of this aristocrat class. She was privileged. To have the ability to understand at all the confusion and need of those without shows great compassion, I think.

The second part of the novel, Dolce, is quite different. Rather than following several loosely related characters, she focuses on a small village adjusting to life with the German troop based there. Most of the upper class members of the village, farmers, land owners etc., had to house the officers of the German army at the same time their husbands, sons, and brothers were being held as prisoners of war someplace else. Nemirovsky manages to weave in a few of the characters from Storm into the story but the overall pace and feeling is much slower and calmer (ah....dolce!) The slower tempo and close proximity force many of the French to look at the Germans as humans rather than simply soldiers. Boredom resulting from the restrictions placed on the villagers, jealousy and greed as supplies and food are scarce for many cause tensions to run high. The most interesting part of this story to me was the relationship between Lucille and the German officer staying at their chateau all the while under the persecution of an unforgiving and pompous mother-in-law. How disappointing when this story ended and there was no more.

Following the two stories are the handwritten notes written by the author. Plans for the third part to be titled "Captivity" were outlined and different story lines attempted. The realization that this was all a rough draft boggles my mind. They seem so....done and flawless. What a loss. After the appendix showing Nemirovsky's plans for the novel is another with the letters recovered from her and her family, acquaintances, editors etc. during this time period. The tone in these letters is so different from the tone in her notes for the novel. It's as if she was somehow push away her fear and trepidation while writing and thinking. Her personal correspondence, however, reveals that she was very aware of the danger facing her. Her last letter is written to her husband as she is being taken to a concentration camp. Following letters show the desperation of her husband, trying to find out where she has been taken and how she can be saved. then those stop as he is arrested and also taken to a concentration camp. They were both killed at Auschwitz.

Her daughters were hid by a close friend for years until the war was over. Her eldest daughter carried around this manuscript in a suitcase wherever they traveled as a link to her mother and finally had it published and translated sixty years later.

I don't think I loved this just because I am sentimental although I love it for that very reason. Independent of the author's tragic parallel story is the creation of something unique and special. It is as if someone was holding a mirror up to the French during the war but this mirror is alluring and beautiful, so much so that you can't help but pick it up and just gaze. But it's more than just a look at the French people during a specific period of time. It is also a timeless portrait of humanity. Highly, highly recommended....less

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

1 comments

TheDane rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

03/02/08

bookshelves: bookclub-read

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: People interested in the affects of war on the conquered

Recognizing beforehand that this wouldn't be a complete story arc, I had to try to approach the book without any prejudice toward it for having a weak ending (i.e., no ending). Unfinished books can be interesting to read to view the storytelling process in the midst of its evolution, but are rarely satisfying as stories in their own right. Némirovsky's work here is perhaps more polished than a simple draft, but even her notes suggest that the finished chapters and two volumes that *were* pu...more Recognizing beforehand that this wouldn't be a complete story arc, I had to try to approach the book without any prejudice toward it for having a weak ending (i.e., no ending). Unfinished books can be interesting to read to view the storytelling process in the midst of its evolution, but are rarely satisfying as stories in their own right. Némirovsky's work here is perhaps more polished than a simple draft, but even her notes suggest that the finished chapters and two volumes that *were* published are not likely how they would appear in her final product.

So then, what about what we are given?

It's, well, pretty good. It's not riveting by any means. There is no climax to her first act ("Storm in June") and her second act plays out pretty softly (appropriately enough for a section entitled "Dolce"). While each segment picks up interest in later chapters, both start off at such a slowburn that many readers won't make it past a hundred pages. Character-wise, Némirovsky doesn't provide the reader with many sympathetic characters either. Not only are almost all the inhabitants of her story arrogant hypocrites, but they are almost universally uninteresting as well.

The first book is a pile of vignettes describing the circumstances of several families and individuals as they flee Paris on the eve of its fall into German hands on 14 June 1940. The narrative is as disorganized and haphazard, perhaps, as was the exodus it chronicles. There are flourishes of course and moments of interest (notably a chapter written from the perspective of a cat in heat), but on the whole it functions better as documentary than as story. The second book is easily superior, but much slower paced. There are more sympathetic characters and much more time for introspection. In a way, book two ("Dolce") could function as some sort of Jane Austen work, only with Nazis and crap.

Back to characters. Reading, Suite Française, I first thought that Némirovsky was an out-and-out misanthrope, despising all humanity, no matter its form or station. Gradually, I came to see that there is a certain class of person whom Némirovsky bears little ill will and seems to believe at least capable of being both genuine and rational. Those people seem to fit in the lower middle class and be young enough to still see beauty in the world (the Michaud couple are only in their early forties or so, and are an exception to the youthfulness qualification). Her sympathetic characters are the Michauds, Jean-Marie Michaud, Lucile, the young engaged couple fleeing from Paris on their wedding day, Bruno (the German soldier staying with Lucille's family), Madeleine (to some extent), and Hubert (after he rejects the hypocrisy and privilege of his class).

I should note I really did appreciate Némirovsky's ability to describe the hypocrisies of her characters through the various perspectives of her other characters. This actually makes it a little more difficult to pin down the author's own feelings toward others.

I'd be curious to read Némirovsky's other works to see how she paints the classes as a general rule, but if they're not more interesting books than Suite Française, I think I'll skip....less

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

add a comment

Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

09/14/08

bookshelves: fiction, francebooks, historicalnovels

Read in September, 2008

I liked this book. I thought that the writing was sweeping and vibrant. "Dolce" was sad and moving for me. It was interesting to take in WWII through the eyes of the women left behind. However, when I read the appendixes, I was appalled.

We went to a book club meeting about this book and it was interesting to me to hear how diverse peoples' opinions were. Some people thought that the book was written as a "get out of jail pass" to give to the Germans if they came to take ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

5 comments

Marigold rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

06/29/08

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: everyone

What a fabulous book. Thought-provoking, beautifully written, sad and yet oddly hopeful. Romantic, violent and unflinching. Irene Nemirovsky was a Russian Jew who became exiled from Russia at a young age & had lived in France for many years by the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite being a well-known writer, she was never granted French citizenship. She started Suite Francaise after the outbreak of the war in Europe, wanting to document what she saw going on around her. She planned to...more What a fabulous book. Thought-provoking, beautifully written, sad and yet oddly hopeful. Romantic, violent and unflinching. Irene Nemirovsky was a Russian Jew who became exiled from Russia at a young age & had lived in France for many years by the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite being a well-known writer, she was never granted French citizenship. She started Suite Francaise after the outbreak of the war in Europe, wanting to document what she saw going on around her. She planned to write the novel in five parts, as a symphony would be written, and with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in mind, with each part of the novel echoing or evoking a particular mood or state of being. She wrote the first two parts, Storm in June and Dolce, and made extensive notes for the third part, plus outline notes about the rest. The notes she made about the book and about what was going on in France at the time, are included in the book & are required reading to appreciate her achievement and the circumstances surrounding it. (Also the heartbreaking letters she & her husband wrote between 1936 & 1945.) In June 1942 Irene felt she would not be able to finish the book, as she became convinced that she would be arrested. She made a will & left detailed instructions with the governess of her two daughters, asking her to care for them if needed. In July 1942 Irene was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. At the time of her arrest, her husband Michel Epstein, didn’t understand that to be arrested & deported meant only one thing. He wrote a series of letters to everyone he could think of in a position of influence, trying to find out where Irene had been taken (which he didn’t know) & volunteering to take her place in the concentration camp, because of her delicate health. He got no response, & in October 1942 he was also arrested & taken to Auschwitz where he was sent immediately to the gas chamber. After that, the police actually hunted for the daughters – who were hidden by their governess & a series of teachers. The older daughter, Denise, hid the manuscript of Suite Francaise in a suitcase as they were fleeing the village where they’d lived before her father’s arrest. She didn’t realize it was a novel & thought it was a diary of her mother’s. After the war, she kept it but she & her sister never read it, finding it too painful. Many years later, they decided to give the manuscript to an organization dedicated to preserving & documenting the memories of those who died in WWII. Before giving it up, Denise decided to translate & type it out, & only then discovered the novel Suite Francaise, which she then gave to a publisher.

Irene had planned to edit and revise the novel after she had written the five parts, so the two parts contained in the published version are unfinished, but it’s difficult to see how it could have been better, though it’s obvious that the remaining sections would have tied it all together. Storm in June simply tells the stories of a series of loosely connected people fleeing Paris at the start of the German occupation. Some of them are good people, some not so good, many selfish, many ready to do or say anything to the Germans just to get some food, all of them exhausted, hungry and suddenly homeless. It’s a telling picture of what happens to people under the very worst of circumstances, particularly when they’ve had no time to prepare for what’s happening. The second section, Dolce, is a story about a small village where each home and farm has to take in a German occupying soldier. What happens when an attractive, charming, intelligent German officer comes to live with Lucile, whose husband is a prisoner of war but Lucile didn’t like him much to begin with, and Lucile’s mother-in-law? This is a story that makes you think about how you might react in similar circumstances. If your country has been defeated in war, & the victors are coming to live in your village, what can you do besides live with them? Do you become an outlaw, a fighter? Do you resolve to be nice on the outside but continue hating on the inside? Do you wait for an opportunity to kill one if you can? Or, like Lucile’s mother-in-law, would you spend your days shut up in your room to avoid talking to them, in hatred & suspicion & a state of suspended animation until something shakes you out of it. Do you try to find the good in the individual soldiers who are suddenly living in your town, maybe in your own home? If your village in general finds a way to get along with the outsiders, if things are friendly on the outside, is there always a kernel of something on the inside, something that will keep you apart forever? If you were the Germans in the situation, would you try to be kind to the people you had to live with? Would you share your life with them? Could you ever be comfortable and trusting? Or would you always be looking over your shoulder? It was fascinating to learn more about how young people responded to the French occupation, compared to older people who had been through World War I, many of them losing family members to the Germans in that war.

Where Storm is a series of hard-hitting little vignettes, Dolce is a story that builds slowly, using the details of each day – the weather, meals, the life of the farm & village, the books that Lucile reads, the music she listens to – to convey not only the sense of life going on despite horrible circumstances, but also the different ways of responding, & how things are not usually black or white – even in war, people have different & conflicting feelings, sometimes within the course of the same day. Nemirovsky is brilliant at creating two entirely different moods in the two sections. It would have been fascinating to read the other planned sections – if she had carried out her intention of modeling the narrative after a symphonic structure, & had succeeded as well as the first two sections do, I’m sure this would have been one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. What a loss for all of us.
...less

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comments

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

04/04/08

Read in April, 2008

I really really wanted to love this book... Instead I'm having a hard time deciding what I really think about it, other than that I pushed through it to finish.

WWII is a somber subject, no way around it and so, of course, the book is somber. But even somber subjects can be compelling and I had a hard time finding a reason to be compelled...

There are two "books" within the cover and I feel like I need to review each quickly but separately. (perhaps this is part of my struggle -...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

add a comment

Becky rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

06/06/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: ANYONE

this book was reccommended to me by my dear friend and avid reader, kimi. For literary mastery I would have given this book four stars, but given the history and circumstances for which this book endured to be written -and published 50 years later, well...its phenomenal! Irene Nemirovsky had intended the book to be five mini-books within one binding. She didn't live to write the final three and ironically titled the final two with (question marks at the end) battle? peace?. She wrote this ex...more this book was reccommended to me by my dear friend and avid reader, kimi. For literary mastery I would have given this book four stars, but given the history and circumstances for which this book endured to be written -and published 50 years later, well...its phenomenal! Irene Nemirovsky had intended the book to be five mini-books within one binding. She didn't live to write the final three and ironically titled the final two with (question marks at the end) battle? peace?. She wrote this extraordinary novel during fall of France and Nazi occupation. The depth of detail, humanity of characters, and depiction of cruelty/evil and compassion/justice places the reader in the midst of French humiliation.

As the citizens of France struggle to reconcile their current defeat, German soldiers invade their town and lives. Nemirovsky does not villify the Nazi regime, but rather shows them as they were, young men, soldiers, some cruel, others kind. In reading it, I have to wonder if she would have changed her characters had she known the bredth of Nazi atrocities/cruelty/inhumanity. Or if she had lived to see the Americans liberate France and had the ability to reflect on the time period considering all of the horror of Nazi cruelty. There is very little mentioned about the Jews, only fleeting references of characters that worry/wonder about the fate of the Jewish French.

In a twist of irony this acclaimed Catholic author was later arrested and eventually died in Auchwitz in 1942. Her Jewish ancestry ultimately led to her arrest and in her husbands desperate attempts to free her, he condemmed himself by showing he too had Jewish ancestry but was a devote Catholic. He believed her arrest was mostly due to a misunderstanding about her Russian heritage. How could he have known they would murder her for a bloodline she didn't even claim? Or that he too would be sent to the same camp and gassed for having a similar ancestry? When Irene was writing this amazing novel, she could not have known of the camps, the millions who would die, the horror of a madman's vision. Who, other then those who lived it and those who were in Germany and later Poland, could have known what evil was capable of?

She wrote this novel as a current events. She never lived to see the depth of French struggle, the thousands hunted and killed, the battles between the Allies and Germany, the liberation of France, PEACE. She would never know of Hitlers genocide, the rise of communism, or the rebuilding of Europe. She would never get the chance to polish up her novel. But this work, in its purity is so well illustrated, so beautiful. It is a novel, through the eyes of one who was LIVING it.

**a side note her daughters, hid in cellars during the end of the war bc they were being hunted by the French police (commissioned by the SS), saved her notebook containing this novel. Neither had the heart to read it- thinking it notes and journal, until a few years ago. when she discovered it was a novel, she had is published immediately....less

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

add a comment

Qt rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

04/07/08

bookshelves: drama, history, world-war-ii

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Qt by: KW
recommends it for: those interested in history, or simply fans of good books

An amazing book--wholly engrossing, and completely gripping. The writing is beautiful, fluid, and descriptive; the book itself is a very moving portrait of the events in France, as seen through the eyes of several very different characters. In Book One, Parisians flee Paris and take refuge in the countryside, and Book Two describes the occupation of a French village.
There are only a few scenes of violence; the focus of the book is more on people--their emotions, their actions, what they do to...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

10 comments

Otis rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

09/22/08

bookshelves: history

Read in September, 2008

A great snapshot of history. It's about the experiences of ordinary French people as they flee Paris in 1940 when the Germans are invading. The second part is about after the Germans occupy France, how people in the towns get along with their hosts.

I loved the class breakdowns that occur. When the rules of society are no longer being enforced, having money or being a famous writer no longer make you more special than the next person. The descriptions of the characters prejudices, which were...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

2 comments

Melissa rated it:

05/08/08

Read in May, 2008

The story of the author and how the book came to be published so many years after her death is a much more compelling story than this, although if Nemirovsky had the chance to complete the book to her vision I may think differently. As it is, the book was well-done in its portrayal of the many facets of human nature that show themselves in times of crises. Nemirovsky shows a sympathy for basic human responses, even if those reactions are abhorrent to common values and sentiments.

The book als...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Jamie rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

03/18/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in March, 2008

i'm nearly finished with this book, and would like to discuss it with someone. it has an extremely interesting dynamic. it is written about internally displaced persons fleeing the Nazi invasion of france, by a person in that same situation. the author ultimately was not able to finish the book as she died in a concentration camp... apparently, she was born into a Jewish family, but she converted to Catholicism. she might have authored some anti-semitic works during her hey-day as a famous write...more i'm nearly finished with this book, and would like to discuss it with someone. it has an extremely interesting dynamic. it is written about internally displaced persons fleeing the Nazi invasion of france, by a person in that same situation. the author ultimately was not able to finish the book as she died in a concentration camp... apparently, she was born into a Jewish family, but she converted to Catholicism. she might have authored some anti-semitic works during her hey-day as a famous writer before the war, and there is speculation whether she did this as a cover to save her children, or if she really bought into this racism, etc.. suite francaise is not among that category of writing. it is a very interesting portrayal of the daily interactions of french with their occupiers, giving everyone a human view. most works about racism and war often fail to create a humanistic vision, a realistic context. this sort of blanket stereotyping of people who commit crimes against humanity actually helps to perpetuate situations in which people do this. its much easier to believe that people who are racist, etc. are "all bad" and that people who are not "all bad" (which in reality is no one) have more leeway when it comes to committing crimes... maybe they think that its wrong, but they can be excused because its not typical for them and theyre not that type... etc. it makes you realize that people who commit horrific acts are often caught up in a system, and perhaps they can be reasoned with. that idea offers hope for rebuilding lives and links after conflicts. another interesting aspect of the book are the similarities to other conflicts. many of the things that happen in the book could describe the israel-palestine conflict, just with a different language. (quartering of troops, seizure of property, the necessity of interacting with your occupier on a daily basis and sometimes forging friendships with them while being int he awkward position of still fighting for freedom and life). it is incredibly eerie to read this book and know that this very perceptive writer was put to death at the hands of the people whose emotions she tried to rationalize... because they failed to rationalize hers.
any of my friends interested in discussing this book, please let me know! i cansend you my copy when i am done reading it.
***update after reading-
the end of the book contains appendices which are just as, if not more, interesting than the fiction. the first appendix contains the author's diary, during the period of writing the book. she plans the remainder of the book, and makes plans to actually re-write the first 2 parts that she actually wrote (i think some of these changes she managed to make before internment, others not). she also writes a bit about her feelings, the rumors, daily life while living in Nazi-occupied France. The second appendix contains correspondence between Irene, her husband, Irene's publisher and others. This also documents the trials Irene went through- unable to find employment because Jews became banned from many types of work; even the royalties from her writing under Nazi law had to be sent to a blocked bank account. Whenever new deals were discussed such as films or publication of her work, clients would actually write in to ask if she were Aryan or Jewish in order o verify if they could go ahead with the project. In spite of all this, it doesn't seem like Irene and any of the letter writers, as well as the characters in Irene's book, fully comprehended the magnitude of the destruction this war would cause. This section of the book is particularly interesting these days, when our world seems so far removed from that time, and it offers such an intimate view into the life of a person who was impacted so much by the Holocaust that she eventually lost her life to it. This point of view I can relate to even more now as an adult, to an adult perspective that worried about husband/livelihood/morals/posterity/children,etc. (added responsbility of care-taking) than to a child's perspective (a la Anne Frank).
Anyways, I am still interested in discussing both the style and context of the book with any of my friends who has read it or would like to. Drop me a line! ...less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comments

Kristin rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

03/20/08

Read in March, 2008

I LOVE this book!! It is absolutely amazing. Definitely one of the best I have ever read. If you are looking for a fantastic book...please please please read this one.

The author, Irene Nemirovsky, was a Russian Jew who fled the Bolsheviks in 1919 during the Russian Revolution. Her family emigrated to France when she was a teenager. Irene attended the Sorbonne, became a best-selling author, got married, and had two little girls. Irene, her husband, and children fled Paris during WWII during t...more I LOVE this book!! It is absolutely amazing. Definitely one of the best I have ever read. If you are looking for a fantastic book...please please please read this one.

The author, Irene Nemirovsky, was a Russian Jew who fled the Bolsheviks in 1919 during the Russian Revolution. Her family emigrated to France when she was a teenager. Irene attended the Sorbonne, became a best-selling author, got married, and had two little girls. Irene, her husband, and children fled Paris during WWII during the German invasion and took refuge in a small village in France. During the occupation by the Nazis life as she knew it ended. Although she had lived in France for over twenty years, her children were French citizens, and the family had converted to Catholicism she was labeled a Jew and was subjected to the all the humiliations and restrictions enforced by the Nazi regime. She no longer had any freedom. She could not publish her writing, nor be paid for any writing she that she had done, she could not travel etc.

This book was written after her family had fled Paris and were living in the country. It was intended to be a five-part novella, constructed like a symphony, and modeled after Beethoven's Fifth. Irene Nemirovsky was only able to complete the first two parts. During the writing of this book she was arrested sent to Auschwitz where she died at the age of thirty-nine. The two parts of this book that were completed where hidden in a suitcase by her ten year-old daughter, Denise. Her daughters kept with them as they moved from place to place hiding from the Nazis. They decided to have the manuscript published sixty plus years after their mother's death.

The first part of the book is called "Storm in June" and introduces us to several different characters from all walks of life and tells their stories as they flee Paris during the German invasion. I particularly loved the Pericand Family with their large and boisterous family and the sweet middle-aged couple the Michauds. It was beautifully written with touches of humor and glimpses of humanity and horror as the masses fled Paris with bombs falling all around them.

The second part of the book is called "Dolce" and focuses mainly on one family in a rural village during the occupation. All households had to take in German soldiers and house them during the occupation. I loved the friendship and budding romance between Lucile, whose adulterous husband was a prisoner of war, and Bruno, a German soldier, who ends up living with Lucile and her ornery mother-in-law.

The next three parts of the book were meant to integrate the characters from the first two parts and how their lives intertwined. Sadly...they were never written. In Appendix I are the notes from Irene Nemirovsky's notebook with character and plot sketches and outlines and we are given a glimpse of how she intended the storyline to progress...so you aren't left completely hanging...but what a tragedy.

In Appendix II it shows letter after letter of the correspondence between Irene and her publisher and then heart-wrenchingly after her arrest it is the correspondence of her husband as he frantically writes to influential people trying to find out her location and any information on her. He tirelessly tries to find someone who can intercede on her behalf. At one point he writes to the government officials asking to trade places with her...

But what truly broke my heart were the last two letters from Irene to her family...one quickly written at the police station shortly after her arrest and a final one hastily scribbled at the train station as she was boarding the train headed to the concentration camp. Just a few lines but unbelievably moving.

Also included is a biographical sketch of her life and what happens to her family. Her husband was arrested a few months after she was and sent to the gas chamber. They left behind two daughter ages 5 and 10 who were taken in by a family friend. It amazes me that a ten year-old had the foresight to preserve her mother's manuscript.

This book was absolutely stunning. I marveled that she was writing about history while living it...and yet had such perspective on the events that were unfolding. Amazing. The characters are colorful, vivid, and will stay deeply-etched in my heart. The writing is beautiful, captivating and gripping. I truly couldn't put it down.

I HIGHLY recommend this book. It was beautiful and touching. A MUST read.

I rate it: EXCELLENT!! ...less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Lindy rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

02/19/08

Read in October, 2007

The story behind this book looms so large that it coloured every page that I read. A successful writer who considers herself a French Catholic (but who ultimately is perceived by the French community she feels part of, to be a Russian Jewess) writes about a group of individuals fleeing Paris after the Nazi invasion. The writer's previous work was acclaimed in France in the 1920s and 30's, however this novel was not uncovered and published until the early 2000's (and then initially only in France...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

11/13/07

Read in November, 2007

Part I ("Storm in June") - Follow the lives of average Parisians as they evacuate the chaotic and dangerous French countryside during the German invasion of World War II.

Part II ("Dolce") - A German regiment settles in a small French town, and the villagers must learn to live with their new occupiers, for better or worse.

The descriptions in this novel were rich and beautiful; the author brilliantly wove striking metaphorical images into the scenes to illustrate the em...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Ginette rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

01/01/08

bookshelves: historical-fiction

Read in December, 2007

Suite Francaise is brilliant in its simple and masterful prose, its candid look into the lives of mostly upper-class French during the invasion and then occupation of France by the Nazis, and its almost clairvoyant predictions of what was yet to come.

Nemirovsky actually intended to write this story in five parts, as in the five musical parts of a symphony. Tragically, the Russian Jewish author living in France at the time was seized and taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp where she ev...more Suite Francaise is brilliant in its simple and masterful prose, its candid look into the lives of mostly upper-class French during the invasion and then occupation of France by the Nazis, and its almost clairvoyant predictions of what was yet to come.

Nemirovsky actually intended to write this story in five parts, as in the five musical parts of a symphony. Tragically, the Russian Jewish author living in France at the time was seized and taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp where she eventually died. She only completed the first two parts, in which the lives of several families and individuals, (including that of a German soldier,) forever changed by the war, begin to intertwine and affect each other in ways even they aren't aware of. It ends abruptly and with many plotlines left incomplete. The author's notes offer her delineation of the last three parts and give a small sense of closure. Still, the reader is left with a bittersweet taste knowing the savage reason the book was not completed, yet relishing this newly discovered masterpiece.

This should not discourage anyone from reading Suite Francaise. This little piece of history gives a direct look into the souls, minds, and hearts of French people in the wake of a humiliating and catastrophic defeat. It is written from the point of view of an upper-class French woman, and much of it is autobiographical. Nemirovsky is often brutally honest about the shameless convictions and actions of some of her French characters, and most likely herself, but she also recognizes the humanity and even the humor in this terrible plight that has overcome the French and their beloved country; she even takes an almost maternal stance when writing about the Nazi invaders, the enemy, making her tale all the more poignant and ironic in light of knowing that Nemirovsky herself will be hunted down and murdered.

Pick up this book with the knowledge of its sober and tragic history, but also with the appreciation and excitement that you are about to read a real gem.
...less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Joyce rated it:

(review of isbn 1400096278)

08/09/07

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

I can't imagine what the other novellas would have read like since this wonderful 2 part novella remained hidden due to the author Irene Nemirov's unfortunate demise in Auschwitz. The book was originally intended to be written in 5 parts, but only two were completed. Nimerov's daughters recently found this manuscript and hence a wonderful, honest, insightful, and wonderfully written novel was given life.
Nemirov's lush prose brings the reader back to early 1940's when the French were invaded...more