Suite Française

published	April 10th 2007 by Vintage
binding	Paperback
isbn	1400096278 (isbn13: 9781400096275)
pages	448
description	Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in c...more [close] Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts. When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, 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, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown. [close]
date added	01-31-07 edit book

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Marigold rated it:

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.
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Lucy rated it:

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

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Kristin rated it:

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

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Jamie rated it:

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

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Jaclyn rated it:

05/12/08

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: everyone!

Amazing... spectacular... breath-taking... monumental... no, I give up. I just can't think of enough superlatives to describe "Suite Francaise." Irene Nemirovsky's final work is, even in its unfinished form, one of the most important books of the twentieth century. I'd feel that way even if I didn't know the author's remarkable story, but having some context in which to place the book makes it that much more marvelous.

Irene Nemirovsky intended "Suite Francaise" to be a...more Amazing... spectacular... breath-taking... monumental... no, I give up. I just can't think of enough superlatives to describe "Suite Francaise." Irene Nemirovsky's final work is, even in its unfinished form, one of the most important books of the twentieth century. I'd feel that way even if I didn't know the author's remarkable story, but having some context in which to place the book makes it that much more marvelous.

Irene Nemirovsky intended "Suite Francaise" to be a literary symphony composed of five novellas and modeled after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Tragically, she was only able to complete two of her intended five parts - and those in rough draft form, although rarely have I met a more polished draft. Before she was able to complete her masterwork, Nemirovsky, a Ukranian-born Jew living in France, was arrested by the Nazis and died in Auschwitz. She wrote the first two sections of her work as she was living them - the first part, "Storm in June," depicts the June 1940 Paris evacuation, in which Nemirovsky and her family took part. The second novella, "Dolce," concerns life in a small French village under Nazi occupation. Both novellas start quietly and build up to dramatic conclusions. The truly remarkable thing about "Suite Francaise" is that Nemirovsky "held a mirror up to France," as the French prologue reads, showing life in wartime France with great empathy but without glossing over truth. Many of the characters are unsympathetic, yes. But that's reality. In a crisis, we'd all like to think that we'd be heroes and heroines, but the fact of the matter is that heroics are often cast aside in favor of the rather stronger self-preservation instinct. Nemirovsky tells it like it is, but somehow without judging her characters. And the reader understands that as much as we might want to judge Madame Pericand, Corte, Hubert or any of the other characters, odds are we'd behave in exactly the same way in their position. Nemirovksy's extraordinary empathy even extends to the German soldiers in "Dolce," some of whom she portrays as cruel, but others of whom she depicts as young, talented, with their lives and potentials tragically wasted by a war they did not start and in which they are only doing a job. The fact that Nemirovsky was able to find the grace and courage to not judge German soldiers as a group and to paint them as individuals and not a collective, many-headed monster, is incredible. In her position, hearing the rumors of concentration camps and struggling to hide my family, I certainly would not be able to do so. That's what makes "Suite Francaise" so amazing - Irene Nemirovsky lived in the pages of her book, yet somehow remains above it all, dealing with her characters fairly, honestly, and kindly even when she is eviscerating them for their human failings.

The third part of the book helps to place Nemirovsky's work in context with the times. It presents her plans for the three remaining novellas, which she was never able to write, as well as her correspondence prior to her arrest and her husband's correspondence in his attempt to have her returned to her family after she was stolen from them. The book concludes with the prologue from the French edition, which explains the historical significance of the book and the story of its publication: Nemirovsky's ten-year-old daughter took the manuscript with her into hiding and kept it for sixty-four years before she was able to bring herself to read it. She believed it was a diary, but when she finally opened the book and realized it was an unfinished masterwork, she published it immediately. As a result, we have a ten-year-old with extraordinary presence of mind to thank for preserving one of the most important pieces of French literature. It's tragic that this book ever had occasion to be written, but it is transcendent in its beauty....less

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LordBeardsley rated it:

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

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TheDane rated it:

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

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Becky rated it:

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

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Núria rated it:

02/10/08

bookshelves: 2008, favorites, owned

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: todo el mundo, absolutamente todo el mundo.

Este libro es un prodigio. Y aún lo es más si tenemos en cuenta que Irène Némirovsky lo escribió prácticamente en directo, es decir, narrando los hechos que iban sucediendo prácticamente en el mismo momento que sucedían. Sorprende pensar que tuvo muy poco tiempo para revisar la obra y aún así le salió redonda. Está inacabada, pero las dos partes que se terminaron están perfectamente bien trabadas. La primera parte narra la huída de París antes de la entrada de los alemanes durante...more Este libro es un prodigio. Y aún lo es más si tenemos en cuenta que Irène Némirovsky lo escribió prácticamente en directo, es decir, narrando los hechos que iban sucediendo prácticamente en el mismo momento que sucedían. Sorprende pensar que tuvo muy poco tiempo para revisar la obra y aún así le salió redonda. Está inacabada, pero las dos partes que se terminaron están perfectamente bien trabadas. La primera parte narra la huída de París antes de la entrada de los alemanes durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Y la segunda parte narra la vida en un pueblo de provincias durante la ocupación alemana. Pero los grandes hechos históricos quedan de lado y se centra en la vida cotidiana. Hay una gran cantidad de personajes, y ninguno bueno, y todos con múltiples matices y una personalidad compleja, por más poco que aparezcan en la trama. Y del mismo modo que no hay buenos, tampoco hay personajes totalmente malos, ni siquiera los alemanes. Y es maravilloso ver como las vidas de todos los personajes se van entrecruzando poco a poco. Está todo tan planificado y pensado, pero la trama se desenvuelve de una forma totalmente natural y real. Esta obra tiene una estructura y un empaque clásicos y al leerla se tiene la misma sensación que se tiene cuando lees según qué obras clásicas, la sensación de que estás ante algo realmente grande y que por más años que pasen siempre permanecerá.

Como se trata de una obra de Némirovsky no faltan altas dosis de mordacidad. Némirovsky es una escritora tremendamente lúcida y nos enseña como en las situaciones límite surge lo peor de nosotros, pero sin abandonar nunca el sentido del humor. Es una obra que habla del egoísmo y la mezquindad. Probablemente sólo hay dos personajes que se puedan llamar nobles, son el matrimonio Michaud, pero tampoco son un matrimonio perfecto, tienen sus tiranteces, pero se quieren de una forma reposada y más bien creada por la costumbre. Es una obra que también habla de las oposiciones de clase, como ni siquiera en los peores momentos éstas se pueden olvidar. La primera parte es episódica pero con una gran unidad, mientras que la segunda tiene una trama clásica de planeamiento-nudo-desenlace, construida con una perícia y una delicadeza admirables. La segunda parte en lugar de tener un gran número de pequeñas historias se centra más en tres mujeres, todas mujeres de carácter a su modo pero muy distintas. Pero la más protagonista de todas es Lucile, un personaje maravilloso, con una historia de amor platónica con un oficial alemán, una historia de amor platónico que es de una belleza y una sutilidad sobrecogedoras. En conjunto es una obra perfecta: a ratos melancólica y a ratos divertida. De una intensidad fuera de lo común. Con una riqueza temática envidiable. Una obra en la que la cotidianeidad y la profundidad van cogidas de la mano. Es perfecta. No hay palabras para describirla.
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Rick rated it:

01/10/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in June, 2007

Suite Francaise is among the best novels I’ve read this year. It is like reading Tolstoy or Flaubert, a great novel, however incomplete. Reading the novel, two seamless novellas really with three more imagined, and the appendices, a magical look at a writer’s thought processes as she wrestled with the times and her artistic vision, adds a level of aesthetic tragedy to the moral and personal tragedy that befell her with the Nazi conquest and Vichy collaboration. (Nemirovsky was arrested in mi...more Suite Francaise is among the best novels I’ve read this year. It is like reading Tolstoy or Flaubert, a great novel, however incomplete. Reading the novel, two seamless novellas really with three more imagined, and the appendices, a magical look at a writer’s thought processes as she wrestled with the times and her artistic vision, adds a level of aesthetic tragedy to the moral and personal tragedy that befell her with the Nazi conquest and Vichy collaboration. (Nemirovsky was arrested in mid-July 1942 by the French police and immediately sent to Auschwitz, where in mid-August she was killed.) There are many amazing things about the novel, not least that she was composing it at all, let alone in near real time, yet it has nothing of the limitations of even great journalism. It provides an unflinching perspective of the panicked evacuation of Paris (“Storm in June”) and the immediate accommodations and feeble, yet somehow heroic, resistances to the occupation (“Dolce”). In the first part the Germans are an off-stage scourge, approaching, but rarely present. Instead, the focus is on the responses, often selfish, even despicable—a band of poor urban kids murder the priest escorting them out of Paris so they can ransack an abandoned estate, an upper class snob out of petrol in his escape tricks a young couple so that he can steal their fuel—of the French. Heroism, is as rare in this crisis as it is in normal times, perhaps rarer, and contemptible behavior is no less common, perhaps more so, than in normal times. In the second part, a brute becomes a hero of a kind and a wife whose husband is a prisoner of war, risks two kinds of reprisals: one for coming too close to falling in love with the German officer boarding at her house; one for using the officer’s infatuation to hide a Frenchman who has killed a German officer. Brilliantly, the falling for the officer is a human response to loneliness and a dreary life, not a ploy so she can dupe the officer. The woman’s wretched mother-in-law spends much of the section being appalling in oh so many ways but turns out to be a brilliant tactician when it comes to hiding someone and helping them to escape. Anti-semitism, the camps, and the holocaust were destined for later parts of the suite but, in a way, their absence is no less ominous for want of overt foreshadowing. It is a magnificent novel, with great characters and narrative depth. I will read anything by Nemirovsky I can get my hands on. ...less

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rinabeana rated it:

01/04/08

bookshelves: book-club

Read in April, 2007

The story of Irène Némirovsky was really my motivation for reading the book, but I was delighted to find that the novellas were wonderful in their own rite and not just good considering the circumstances under which they were written. I will admit that WWII is not my area of expertise, given that we never reached that time period in a single history class I've taken, and I've not read much literature from the period, and certainly not from the French perspective. However, the fact that my hist...more The story of Irène Némirovsky was really my motivation for reading the book, but I was delighted to find that the novellas were wonderful in their own rite and not just good considering the circumstances under which they were written. I will admit that WWII is not my area of expertise, given that we never reached that time period in a single history class I've taken, and I've not read much literature from the period, and certainly not from the French perspective. However, the fact that my historical background was sorely lacking didn't hinder my enjoyment of the stories at all. Némirovsky swept us along with the refugees from Paris and described the flight in eloquent detail. She focused on a variety of characters, replete with faults, but also such that the reader is sure to relate to at least one of them. Then in Dolce, the second novella, some of the characters from Storm in June, the first novella, make ancillary appearances, but the tone is completely different. The provincial town of Bussy doesn't seem overly affected by the war, except that there are German troops living among the residents. They don't seem to be the evil conquerors the French anticipated, however. The reactions of different characters to the occupation are fascinating, ranging from thinly veiled hostility to bonding over common interests to making nice to obtain favors later. Some people could overcome the fact that the soldiers were just doing a job (and being relatively polite about it), but some could not reconcile that with sons/husbands/etc. in German prisons. It's really difficult to say how I would feel in the same situation and the different perspectives provided by Némirovsky really made me think.

The book also contains appendices with information from Némirovsky's notebooks about the novellas that were never completed, as well as the writing process and desired edits for Storm in June and Dolce. It was rather haunting to read, I thought. I really wanted to know what happened to the characters (so did Némirovsky as she wasn't sure what to write since the war wasn't over), but I couldn't stop thinking about what a waste it was that her life was cut so short. The appendices also contain correspondence from 1936-1945 between Némirovsky and her family and friends.

To sum up, this is an amazing book and I highly recommend it!...less

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Ginette rated it:

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.
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Joyce rated it:

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

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Katherine rated it:

03/27/08

bookshelves: adult-fiction

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com

This extraordinary work of fiction about the German occupation of France is embedded in a real story as gripping and complex as the invented one. Composed in 1941-42 by an accomplished writer who had published several well-received novels, Suite Française, her last work, was written under the tremendous pressure of a constant danger that was to catch up with her and kill ...more From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com

This extraordinary work of fiction about the German occupation of France is embedded in a real story as gripping and complex as the invented one. Composed in 1941-42 by an accomplished writer who had published several well-received novels, Suite Française, her last work, was written under the tremendous pressure of a constant danger that was to catch up with her and kill her before she had finished.

Irène Némirovsky was a Jewish, Russian immigrant from a wealthy family who had fled the Bolsheviks as a teenager. She spent her adult life in France, wrote in French but preserved the detachment and cool distance of the outsider. She and her husband were deported to Auschwitz in 1942, where he was gassed upon arrival and she died in the infirmary at the age of 39.

Her manuscript, in minuscule and barely readable handwriting, was preserved by her daughters, who, ignorant of the fact that these notebooks contained a full-fledged masterpiece, left it unread until 60 years later. Once published, with an appendix that illuminates the circumstances of its origin and the author's plan for its completion, it quickly became a bestseller in France. It is hard to imagine a reader who will not be wholly engrossed and moved by this book.

Némirovsky's plan consisted of five parts. She completed only the first two before she was murdered. Yet they are not fragmentary; they read like polished novellas.

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This was the first book I've read that deals with WWII without any mention of Jews or concentration camps. It was interesting to see the war from the prospective of people who were not of Jewish descent, but were still forced to evacuate and/or allow Germans to live with them during the occupation.

The book follows a number of characters. The first part (Storm) introduces most of them, while the second part (Dolce) mainly focuses on two families. Némirovsky meant to intermingle the characters more in later sections of the book.

I plan to read her other (completed) works now as well. ...less

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Melody rated it:

11/21/07

bookshelves: bookgroup, favorites, ww-ii

Read in November, 2007

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