The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by Her Daughter

by Élisabeth Gille, Marina Harss (Translator)

A New York Review Books Original
 
Élisabeth Gille was only five-years-old when the Gestapo arrested her mother, and she grew up remembering next to nothing of her. Her mother was a figure, a name, Irène Némirovsky, a once popular novelist, a Russian émigré from an immensely rich family, a Jew who didn’t consider herself one and who even contributed to collaborationist periodicals, and a woman who died in Auschwitz because she was a Jew. To her daughter she was a tragic enigma and a stranger.

It was to come to terms with that stranger that Gille wrote, in The Mirador, her mother’s memoirs. The first part of the book, dated 1929, the year David Golder made Némirovsky famous, takes us back to her difficult childhood in Kiev and St. Petersburg. Her father is doting, her mother a beautiful monster, while Irene herself is bookish and self-absorbed. There are pogroms and riots, parties and excursions, then revolution, from which the family flees to France, a country of “moderation, freedom, and generosity,” where at last she is happy.

Some thirteen years later Irène picks up her pen again. Everything has changed. Abandoned by friends and colleagues, she lives in the countryside and waits for the knock on the door. Written a decade before the publication of Suite Française made Irène Némirovsky famous once more (something Gille did not live to see), The Mirador is a haunted and a haunting book, an unflinching reckoning with the tragic past, and a triumph not only of the imagination but of love.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, France, History, Memoir, Holocaust, Biography Memoir

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Élisabeth Gille, née Élisabeth Epstein le 20 mars 1937 et décédée le 30 septembre 1996, est une traductrice, directrice littéraire et écrivaine française.

Élisabeth Gille, née Élisabeth Epstein, was the younger daughter of the French novelist Irène Némirovsky.

Born on March 20, 1937, only five years before her mother's death at the German camp Auschwitz in German Occupied Poland, she and her sister survived the war. She is best known for her book The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky.

Reviews

[Elena Papadopol · Rating 4 out of 5]

O altfel de biografie - pe fondul contextului socio-politic intre anii 1903-1942, avem ocazia sa vedem lumea prin ochii Irenei Nemirovsky. De la descrierea oraselor in care familia acesteia a fost nevoita sa se mute, pana la dinamica relatiilor familiale si sociale, totul este prezentat cu sinceritate si naturalete. Fara sa existe scene explicit violente, exista totusi o continua senzatie de apasare, de angoasa.

In paralel cu naratiunea Irenei, la inceputul fiecarui capitol ne sunt prezentate scurte imagini/momente din viata celor doua fiice ale familiei Nemirovsky-Epstein - Denise si Elisabeth (cu accent pe Elisabeth).

Dupa aceasta lectura sunt foarte curioasa sa vad cum si despre ce a scris Irene :).

"[...] Ce sa mai zic despre epoca mea, cu revolutii, pogromuri si nesfarsite razboaie, cu tineri sfartecati, ingropati pentru totdeauna in pamantul rece sau haraziti infirmitatii pe viata si mizeriei? Ce sa spun despre propria-mi soarta nesigura?"

"Cand acest oribil razboi se va termina, oricare i-ar fi sfarsitul, faptele vor fi deformate, iar adevarul, care nu cunoaste nici negrul, nici albul, va fi violentat de comentatori intr-un fel sau altul, dupa cum o sa fim invingatori sau invinsi."

"[...] Jur acum, oricat de justificata mi-ar fi ranchiuna, sa nu mai invinovatesc niciodata o masa de oameni, oricare ar fi rasa, religia, convingerile, prejudecatile, greselile."

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elisabeth Gille was only five years old when her mother, Irene Nemirovsky, was taken away to Auschwitz. She never saw her mother again, and had almost no concrete memories of her. She wrote The Mirador in the first person, as if she were Irene telling her own life story. The result is a work that often reads more like a combination of autobiography and history book than a conventional novel.

The book is divided into two parts, with Part I being the stronger of the two in terms of readability. Part I covers Irene's early life in Russia, the family's flight to France in the wake of the Revolution, and several years in France living among other Russian emigres. I've always been fascinated by the history of Russia in the early 1900s, so it was especially interesting for me to learn of the lifestyle and political leanings of her wealthy Russian Jewish family. I could see the parallels in the Nemirovsky family's plight with that of the family in Irene's short work of fiction, Snow in Autumn.

Part II jumps forward in time to World War II, when Irene is a married mother of two daughters, living in rural France. The contrast between her previous life of privilege and her wartime reduced circumstances really stands out. She seems to have clung to the attitudes of the privileged, not believing she would ever be a victim of the Holocaust because of who she was. She had been encouraged by her father and others to go to America long before it was too late, but she was almost scornful of those admonishments. I felt there was a stylistic change between Parts I and II, making Part II a little weaker in narrative flow, although certainly not any less interesting in the particulars of Irene's life story.

The most compelling writing in the book is in the snippets of memory tacked on to the end of each chapter, where we see Elisabeth first as a young girl and then a young woman, living a life overshadowed by the early loss of her mother and the subsequent trauma of the war. [4.5 stars]

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

How well do any of us know our mothers save what we have been told and discovered through proximity. Elisabeth Gille was only five years old when her mother, the wonderful novelist Irene Nemerovsky, died in Auschewitz. Through her mother's evocative writings and scant memories, Gille wrote this homage to her mother in 1992, creating an "autobiography" for her. It reads as smoothly as Suite Francais, thanks in part to this lovely new translation, which is long overdue and only can have the effect of enhancing Nemerovsky's reputation in the English-speaking world. As with the newly translated works of Hans Fallada, this is a view of Europe from within the horrors of the mid-20th century, told only as one who lived it can. It wrenches the heart, particularly when observations are made from the point of view of "the child" as a child and when she is long past the point of being a child.

[piperitapitta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ottobre 1991
La bambina non lo è più da molto tempo. Alla sua età potrebbe quasi essere la madre della propria madre, che ha trentanove anni per l'eternità. Ha compiuto il lungo viaggio e rievocato l'irrevocabile. Ora dice a se stessa: A partire da questo limite, nessuno, nemmeno le sue figlie, può seguirla.
E lascia parlare la Storia.

Non si può chiudere questo libro senza sentire un nodo alla gola o, se si è più inclini alle lacrime, sentirle scorrere e rigare il proprio viso.
Élisabeth Gille, secondogenita di Irène Némirovsky, regala al mondo quest'autobiografia "sognata" della madre Irène, morta ad Auschwitz a soli trentanove anni, quando lei ne aveva solo cinque e la sorella Denise dodici.
Ma soprattutto è un regalo che fa a se stessa, quello di accogliere finalmente la memoria di una madre che ormai è destinata ad esserle per sempre figlia.
Per chi conosce la produzione letteraria della Némirovsky questo scritto non aggiungerà niente di nuovo, sarà solo un modo per ripercorrere le sue opere e incasellarle cronologicamente nella vita dell'autrice, comprendendo, una volta per tutte, che l'Irène scrittrice e l'Irène donna sono una sola ed unica persona.
Irène, cara Irène, testimone luminoso di tutte quelle vite bruciate dall'umana follia.
Nei miei momenti di infantilismo, faccio assegnamento sulla profezia di Nostradamus, che per il 1944 prevede la fine delle nostre sciagure. Ma sarò ancora qui fra due anni?

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27 Agosto 2011
Era ora!
Finalmente è stato tradotto Le Mirador la biografia di Irène Némirovsky scritta dalla figlia Élizabeth.
Io l'ho già acquistato su Amazon, anche se per averlo dovrò aspettare che arrivi Settembre.
Non finirò mai di ringraziare Lucifer* che me l'ha segnalato.

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Qualche tempo fa, in conclusione al mio commento a Un bambino prodigio scrivevo:
Mi aveva colpito molto la prefazione a questo breve racconto: scritta in maniera impeccabile, appassionata, assolutamente esaustiva, tutto questo in poco meno di cinque pagine. Il nome, Elizabeth Gille, al momento non mi diceva nulla - Sarà una scrittrice - ho pensato. Poi mi è venuta un'illuminazione, che solo qualche minuto fa ho potuto verificare: Elizabeth Gille era la secondogenita di Irène Némirovsky. Non era solo un'autrice che parlava di una scrittrice riscoperta, ma una figlia che raccontava ai lettori di una madre perduta.

Qui c'è la prefazione di Elizabeth Gille

[Aprile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho terminato pochi giorni fa la lettura di Jezabel che era stata anticipata, negli ultimi tre anni, dalle letture di Il Malinteso, Il ballo, Due, e Il calore del sangue. Ero piuttosto perplessa. La scrittura è senz’altro scorrevole, invoglia a proseguire, la Némirovsky analizza con precisione certe sfaccettature del comportamento umano, ma trovavo che avesse un limite, proprio il fatto che ad essere analizzate e denunciate fossero solo certe sfaccettature, sempre le stesse: l’amore smodato per il denaro e per il fasto, la mentalità da parvenu che ostenta la propria ricchezza nell’arroganza e nel cattivo gusto, l’atteggiamento - comune a molte donne - da patetica civetta divorata della brama di conquistare e sedurre, il sogno di eterna giovinezza che può spingere all’omicidio, i rapporti freddi tra madri e figlie, figlie che spesso trovano l’unico conforto nelle governanti, i rapporti coniugali basati su una tacita tolleranza ed accettazione dei tradimenti reciproci. Solo a questo è legato il suo successo? Non accenna, lei ebrea, alle persecuzioni, ai pogrom? Nei suoi scritti si limita alla condanna degli atteggiamenti alto-borghesi? Allora ho iniziato a leggere Mirador. Irène Némirovsky, mia madre biografia scritta nel 1992 da Élisabeth Gille, secondogenita di Irène, traduttrice, editrice e solo verso il finire della sua vita, scrittrice. E’ stata una lettura emozionante. Élisabeth Gille racconta con la voce della madre, come se Irène stessa stesse scrivendo la propria biografia. Quelli descritti sono anni colmi di sconvolgimenti politici e sociali in Russia, seguiamo le vicende sue e della sua famiglia nel paese di nascita - ora Ucraina -, i suoi soggiorni da viaggiatrice prima e da esiliata dopo, in Finlandia e in Francia, ma le sue esperienze sono quelle di una donna ricca che può permettersi, nel bel mezzo di rivoluzioni sociali, di badare solamente alle sfumature dei comportamenti umani. La presa di coscienza politica della Némirovsky fu troppo lenta, avvenne solo all’inizio della seconda guerra mondiale. In un’intervista Élisabeth Gille dice: “Nella mia adolescenza, ce l’avevo con lei per via della sua mancanza di coscienza politica. Non era scappata, sebbene avesse avuto la possibilità di farlo, e aveva messo mia sorella e me in pericolo. Siamo state arrestate e avremmo dovuto, a rigor di logica, finire come lei e come mio padre, ad Auschwitz. La sua cecità era criminale. Negli anni Trenta, persino nella sua opera, non era affatto colpita da quanto capitava ai poveri ebrei dei quartieri popolari di Parigi. Mia madre, tuttavia, non era di destra: giustificava la Rivoluzione sovietica. Ma viveva in un mondo privilegiato senza capire cosa accadesse intorno a lei.” La sua tardiva presa di coscienza sarà evidente in Suite Francese, tardiva a tal punto che Suite Francese è rimasto incompiuto perché Irène morì ad Auschwitz prima di poterlo terminare. Avrebbe potuto scrivere grandi cose, era cresciuta.


Ho terminato pochi giorni fa la lettura di Jezabel che era stata anticipata, negli ultimi tre anni, dalle letture di Il Malinteso, Il ballo, Due, e Il calore del sangue. Ero piuttosto perplessa. La scrittura è senz’altro scorrevole, invoglia a proseguire, la Némirovsky analizza con precisione certe sfaccettature del comportamento umano, ma trovavo che avesse un limite, proprio il fatto che ad essere analizzate e denunciate fossero solo certe sfaccettature, sempre le stesse: l’amore smodato per il denaro e per il fasto, la mentalità da parvenu che ostenta la propria ricchezza nell’arroganza e nel cattivo gusto, l’atteggiamento - comune a molte donne - da patetica civetta divorata della brama di conquistare e sedurre, il sogno di eterna giovinezza che può spingere all’omicidio, i rapporti freddi tra madri e figlie, figlie che spesso trovano l’unico conforto nelle governanti, i rapporti coniugali basati su una tacita tolleranza ed accettazione dei tradimenti reciproci. Solo a questo è legato il suo successo? Non accenna, lei ebrea, alle persecuzioni, ai pogrom? Nei suoi scritti si limita alla condanna degli atteggiamenti alto-borghesi? Allora ho iniziato a leggere Mirador. Irène Némirovsky, mia madre biografia scritta nel 1992 da Élisabeth Gille, secondogenita di Irène, traduttrice, editrice e solo verso il finire della sua vita, scrittrice. E’ stata una lettura emozionante. Élisabeth Gille racconta con la voce della madre, come se Irène stessa stesse scrivendo la propria biografia. Quelli descritti sono anni colmi di sconvolgimenti politici e sociali in Russia, seguiamo le vicende sue e della sua famiglia nel paese di nascita - ora Ucraina -, i suoi soggiorni da viaggiatrice prima e da esiliata dopo, in Finlandia e in Francia, ma la presa di coscienza politica della Némirovsky fu troppo lenta, avvenne solo all’inizio della seconda guerra mondiale. In un’intervista Élisabeth Gille dice: “Nella mia adolescenza, ce l’avevo con lei per via della sua mancanza di coscienza politica. Non era scappata, sebbene avesse avuto la possibilità di farlo, e aveva messo mia sorella e me in pericolo. Siamo state arrestate e avremmo dovuto, a rigor di logica, finire come lei e come mio padre, ad Auschwitz. La sua cecità era criminale. Negli anni Trenta, persino nella sua opera, non era affatto colpita da quanto capitava ai poveri ebrei dei quartieri popolari di Parigi. Mia madre, tuttavia, non era di destra: giustificava la Rivoluzione sovietica. Ma viveva in un mondo privilegiato senza capire cosa accadesse intorno a lei.” La sua tardiva presa di coscienza sarà evidente in Suite Francese, tardiva a tal punto che Suite Francese è rimasto incompiuto perché Irène morì ad Auschwitz prima di poterlo terminare. Avrebbe potuto scrivere grandi cose, era cresciuta.

[Lynne Perednia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elisabeth Gille was five years old when her mother was taken to the death camps and didn't return. Her father suffered the same fate. She and her older sister survived when a German officer saw the older girl's blonde hair and told their governess they were not taking any children that night. The governess understood. She and the children disappeared.

Decades later, when she was older than her mother ever became, and although she remembered nothing about her, Elisabeth tried to see the world through her mother's eyes. That attempt is The Mirador. Her mother was the once acclaimed, then forgotten, then reclaimed, writer Irene Nemirovsky. In pre-WWII France, Nemirovsky was greatly admired for her novels such as David Golder, the story of a Jewish banker who loses, then regains, a fortune. Reactions to this novel and Nemirovsky's being published in right-wing journals before her death made her a controversial figure as well as a celebrated writer.

In The Mirador, Gille writes from her mother's point of view about being raised in a secular home of a rich banker where the tenents of their family's heritage were never celebrated. She imagines her mother coming of age during the Russian Revolution, moving back and forth from the gilded cities of Russia as that world crumbled and Paris. Irene is portrayed as preternatural, a wise beyond her years woman child who nontheless has no clue about how dire her family's situation is. Instead, she is wrapped up in resentment of her mother, who spends her evenings with varied men friends while her father travels the world on business, and her books. It is a lovely world, and the fact we know it will soon disappear adds to its poignant elegance.

After the revolution and her family's safe return to France, there is a gap in the story. Now it's 1942 and Irene has married and given birth to two daughters. Their neighbors in the village where they moved are starting to shun them. A daughter needs emergency surgery; one neighbor finally succumbs to human kindness to take the child to another village to find one doctor who finally agrees to perform the surgery, then immediately sends the girl back. The family will lose their Parisian apartment; relatives make one last trip to retrieve some valuables they can sell to live on.

First her husband's employer refuses to help them, then Irene discovers that her belief that they are safe because she is a famous French writer is false. The literary establishment that once embraced her as a talented young woman who came to them from Russia is as unable to stand up to the Nazis as the rest of mainstream French society.

At the end of each chapter is a short look at Irene from the viewpoint of her daughter years later, adding to the feeling of impending doom.

If viewed only as a work of fiction, The Mirador has a flimsy quality to it; its strengths are more in the way of capturing certain scenes such as wintry sleigh rides and helpless aristocrats trapped in a hotel rather than a tightly woven narrative. As a way to try to come to terms with a complicated woman's life and complicated outlook, however, The Mirador is an emotionally open work that makes the reader feel compassion toward its author and her aims. It also sparks new interest in examining all of Nemirovsky's works in a new light, especially her most famous, incomplete work, Suite Francaise.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book - I've never read anything quite like it. Elisabeth Gille was naturally enough troubled by the utter blindness of her mother Irene Nemirovsky, a very successful novelist, to the dangers posed to her and her family by the Nazis while there was still time to flee from France. Elisabeth and her sister only barely escaped joining their parents in Auschwitz.

Many decades after the war Elisabeth Gill set out to write this fictional autobiography of her mother. The scenes set in the prosperous world of Tsarist Russia are very, very vivid and then she moves on to the period of her mother Irene's exile in a small French village. In this fiction, Irene comes to realize her terrible mistake but in reality in seems possible that she never did up until the moment she was sent to her death. Irene was simply so totally in love with French culture that she could not see that her Russian Jewish roots were what would define her to the French and German anti-Semites, and that love nearly led to her children's death along with her own and that of her equally naive husband. A wondrous book that should be read by anyone who appreciates Nemirovksy's fiction.

[Ryan Morrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The word “Mirador” translates to “viewpoint” or “vantage point” and it is an incredibly apt title for Elisabeth Gille's imagined memoir of her mother, the popular jewish-russian novelist Irene Nemirovsky. It is a glimpse into not only Irene’s unique and precarious life, but also into the conflicted soul of Elisabeth and the time leading up to WWII in both a now lost Russia and defiant France. It is a story of wealth and poverty, of politics and privilege, of dark perspectives, and of healing or at least understanding through the remembering of tragedy.
The fact that this is a book written by the daughter of such a well known writer and who’s relationship is nothing short of miraculous and tortured with her mother is incredible. The language is beautiful. The perspective is profound.
I found myself looking up many people, places, and things that I was unfamiliar with. There were "a lot” - as the story takes place in the late 1920’s - 1940’s in primarily Russia than France. I considered it an education in many ways. And I am better for the experience.
The book was a 4 star read for me until the last chapter. Which got me good and pushed me into the 5 star territory. Gille is able to capture so much blooming pain in a sort of simulated nostalgia and tragedy. This book will not be for everyone, but if you can get into the nuance of it it is well worth your time.
For anyone that's curious and something I caught deep into the book is that Elisabeth is a survivor of the holocaust while her mother who is the main character/perspective of the book died at Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 39.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a huge fan of Irène Némirovsky since I learned of her existence, and her fate, in 2004, with the appearance of a long-hidden manuscript of her final novel, Suite Française. Némirovsky was a fabulous story-teller, and I recommend all of her work. However, this fascinating book was written by her younger daughter. It tells the story of Némirovsky's life--from birth to her deportation from France and murder at Auschwitz in 1942--but in first person, from the perspective of Némirovsky herself. Though nearly all of it is told in exposition, making it very dense, even tiring, reading at times, rich, detailed descriptions make vivid the turbulent times and circumstances that formed this great writer, and brought about her tragic, criminal demise.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elisabeth Gille's imagined memoir of her mother, Russian-Ukrainian novelist Irene Nemirovsky, has been translated from its original French by Marina Harss.  Of Gille's curious mixture of fact and fiction, The Nation comments that she is 'not interested in defending her mother's reputation.  Instead, she sets out to live in her mother's head.'

Gille was only five years old when her mother was arrested by the Gestapo for being Jewish.  Nemirovsky had spent over half of her life in France after moving around Europe a lot with her parents, trying to escape the fallout from the Russian revolution.  Gille, understandably, 'grew up remembering next to nothing' about her mother, who was 'a figure, a name, Irene Nemirovsky, a once popular novelist, a Russian emigre from an immensely rich family, a Jew who didn't consider herself one and who even contributed to collaborationist periodicals, and a woman who died in Auschwitz because she was a Jew.  To her daughter she was a tragic enigma and a stranger.'  Both of Gille's parents were killed in Auschwitz; she and her sister Denise only survived because they were taken into hiding.

In her acknowledgment at the start of the book, Gille writes that her work 'was imagined on the basis of other books' - namely those which her mother wrote.  She goes on to say that all of the letters and citations which have been included throughout The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by Her Daughter are authentic, and have been taken from unpublished notes. Gille has attempted, throughout, to capture her mother's own writing style, and consequently the entire book is written from the imagined perspective of Nemirovsky.  The volume, published in English by NYRB, also includes an interview with Gille, and an afterword written by Rene de Ceccatty.

The Mirador has been split into two sections - November 1929 and June 1942.  The first part takes place in Kiev and St Petersburg.  Here, during Nemirovsky's childhood, there were 'pogroms and riots, parties and excursions, then revolution'.  At this point, Gille writes: 'For me, if Finland is winter and St. Petersburg, with its yellow mists shrouding the shores of the Neva is autumn, then Kiev is summer.  We were not yet rich when we lived there, just well-to-do.'  The family eventually settled in Paris, the place where Nemirovsky felt most content.  In these imaginings, particularly of Nemirovsky's early life, her own mother appears to be a floating figure, flitting around to give orders, and giving much of her attention to clothes and 'the season', rather than to Irene.

The imagined memories of Nemirovsky are interspersed with brief snapshots of the author's life when she was small.  In May 1920, for example, she 'pulls at her mother's sleeve; her mother is standing in the middle of the courtyard, reading.  The young woman shifts the book, pushes back her glasses, and smiles.  Her tender, myopic gaze caresses the child distractedly.  The child wrinkles her brow, releases the sleeve, and moves away.'

Gille's echoing of her mother's prose style has been lovingly handled, and feels relatively authentic throughout.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was essentially reading a work of fiction.  Like her mother's, Gille's writing is poetic and layered, filled with gorgeous and striking imagery.  Every sentence is in some way evocative, and her sentences are beautifully crafted.  A real sense of place and time have been deftly assembled.  When on a cruise down the River Dnieper, undertaken when Nemirovsky was quite young, for instance, Gille composes the following: 'In the immensity of the Russian sky, the moon looked green, touched by the dying rays of the setting sun and crisscrossed by spectral clouds that slid over its white surface, leaving behind a trail of dark shadows.  The silver domes of the church of Saint Andrew, which we had just passed, still glimmered faintly among the trees.  The immense branches of the forest, which descended to the very edge of the river, draped the shoreline in darkness, but the middle of the current was dappled with metallic-coloured spots as far as the eye could see.'  The historical and social contexts have been well set out too, and unfolds alongside Nemirovsky's own life.

The Mirador was not quite what I was expecting, and it is certainly unlike the majority of memoirs and biographies which I have read to date.  It was unusual, and I enjoyed the way in which Gille has approached her work.  There are some problems with the narrative, however.  It tends to jump around in place and time with no warning, and can be a little jarring in consequence.  The Mirador does, however, really come together.  It is both mesmerising and memorable, and I very much admire what Gille set out to do here.  The Mirador is vivid and sometimes quite surprising, and highlights a highly tumultuous period of history, and its effects upon one rather remarkable woman.

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning project, a beautiful book. Gille "dreams" a memoir by her now posthumously famous but more recently forgotten author mother Irene Némirovsky. It is so carefully wrought and crafted that it feels artless. How do we write about the past, when the past is obscured and cut short, as Nemirovsky's was by murderous Nazis?

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

me ha gustado bastante, me lo regalo Bosco por san Jordi , muy agradecida de que me conozca tan bien , Asia que super

[(P)Ila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quella della Nemirovky è una biografia particolare: si tratta di un libro scritto in prima persona ma le parole escono dalla penna della secondogenita di Irène, Elizabeth Gille. E' un aspetto che si percepisce immediatamente, per quanto Gille dia conferma del proprio talento, quello della madre fu sicuramente superiore e lo stile, in particolare, molto diverso delle due ha fatto in modo che la scelta della prima persona singolare non mi abbia convinta del tutto. Probabilmente avrei preferito un biografia classica, senza il bisogno di andare ad impersonare la propria madre, ma si tratta di un gusto del tutto personale.

Il testo si divide principalmente in due parti: la prima è dedicata in particolare ad una buona ricostruzione storica del periodo che va dalla fine della Grande Guerra all'inizio della Seconda Guerra mondiale con, nel mezzo, accenni alla rivoluzione russa e al malcontento popolare. Ovviamente si concentra maggiormente sulla visione ebraica della storia e quello che viene caratterizzato a dovere è il mondo borghese della suddetta comunità. Questa prima parte è molto più generica, non sono molti secondo me gli episodi che raccontano l'infanzia della Nemirovsky e soprattutto quel rapporto conflittuale, ormai noto, della scrittrice con la madre Fanny non è stato trattato a dovere; giusto qua e là si accenna ad episodi che mettono le due figure in contrasto ma mi aspettavo che fosse molto più trattato.
Stesso discorso vale per il marito: il salto temporale tra la prima e la seconda parte è proprio caratterizzato da quegli anni che videro l'incontro con il futuro marito; non si racconta praticamente nulla del loro incontro, della loro conoscenza graduale e del loro matrimonio. Si passa dalla ragazza spensierata e in lotta con la propria madre alla donna ormai sposata e madre di due bambine in lotta contro la patria che la tradirà.

La seconda parte invece l'ho trovata molto più coinvolgente della prima: la Nemirovsky ha lasciato Parigi per rifugiarsi in un piccolo paese lontano ormai da amici e conoscenti ma soprattutto lontano dalle voci che piano piano raggiungo l'intero paese. Mi è piaciuta questa figura che fino all'ultimo ha combattuto per le proprie figlie, nonostante anche l'abbandono di amici che mesi prima le erano accanto la sua speranza non è mai venuta meno e soprattutto l'amore verso il paese che un tempo l'aveva salvata non ha mai vacillato, questo mi ha colpito soprattutto di lei: l'infinito credo, l'amore per la Francia, un amore cieco che non le ha permesso di vedere la verità, quel futuro buio che le si stava proiettando davanti. Aveva la possibilità di lasciare il paese e partire per l'America dove il padre l'avrebbe accolta ma lei decise di fidarsi di quella che riteneva la propria casa, la sua nazione. Mai scelta fu più sbagliata.

Una cosa curiosa che ho apprezzato molto sono i piccoli frammenti in corsivo che aprono ogni capitolo: quelle poche frasi appartengono alla vera Elizabeth Gille e raccontano la sua storia, dalla nascita al presente della propria vita.
Insomma, questa è una biografia che mette a conoscenza il lettore della vita troppo breve dell'autrice ma che personalmente avrei apprezzato maggiormente se alcuni dettagli ed episodi fossero stati trattati in modo più approfondito; certo capisco che non deve essere stato facile con a disposizione solo i ricordi della sorella maggiore di Elizabeth e della non cospicua documentazione su Iréne.
Nonostante alcune mie perplessità è un romanzo che si legge volentieri, pieno di sentimenti e di una forte malinconia che traspare dalle pagine, è un romanzo che gli amanti di Irène Nemirovsky difficilmente potrebbero non apprezzare e che ha il grande pregio di voler (ri)scoprire ogni singola opera di un'autrice dalla penna poetica.

Voto: 3.5

[Ale Sandoval Tress · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me quedo con la pregunta: ¿qué tan difícil sería para la autora escribir este libro? a través de él, cuenta lo que pudo haber sido la vida de su madre, a quien ella apenas conoció pues cuando la autora tenía 5 años sería detenida por ser judía y enviada a su muerte durante la segunda guerra mundial. La autora y su hermana sobrevivirían porque personas en quienes sus padres confiaban las esconderían hasta el fin de la guerra y una vez terminada esta, verían por ellas.
A través de sus libros, cartas y diarios, la autora recrea lo que pudo haber sido la vida de su madre. Una niña hija única, envidiada por su juventud por su propia madre, que no quería que creciera, que le quitaba años para ella misma decir que tenía menos edad, que cuando Irena estaba embarazada de su segunda hija, su madre le pediría que abortara porque no podía ser otra vez abuela. Una abuela que cuando al finalizar la guerra, le llevaron a sus nietas a la puerta, dijo que había muchas insituciones para niños indigentes.
Esa madre terrible sería inspiración para Irene y muchos de sus libros tendrían estas madres obsesivas, no nutricias, totalmente materialistas.
Vivió en Rusia de manera cómoda, primero en Kiev, luego en San Petesburgo. Huyó de la revolución, viviendo en Finlandia, Estocolmo y finalmente se establecerían en Francia donde estudiaría letras en la sorbona. Una lectora desde temprana edad, acarició en silencio su sueño de ser escritora. Sus primeras obras las enviaría por correo a editoriales, sin decirle a nadie. Para su alegría, sería publicada y le pagarían por su trabajo. En vida, fue reconocida como una gran escritora, y tendría gran éxito en los círculos sociales de los escritores. Al comenzar la guerra comenzaría a ver lo que antes no había visto: un gran antisemitismo, un odio hacia los recién llegados (o llegados pocas generaciones antes), que no serían protegidos como unos iguales, sino dejados indefensos ante las regulaciones Alemanias en Francia.
Fue una madre muy diferente a la propia. Quizás sus últimos lamentos serían por no haber visto venir el peligro en que estarían ella y sus hijas, e hizo lo que pudo para mantenerlas a salvo.
Se dice que esta hija descubriría el trabajo de su madre cuando estudiaba, en la biblioteca de la escuela. Después de la guerra, no era la escritora aclamada que fue antes de ella.
La autora tuvo tiempo de escribir este libro, otro donde habla de su cáncer y el de "Un paisaje de cenizas".

https://bibliobulimica.wordpress.com/...

https://bibliobulimica.wordpress.com/...

[Montse Gallardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado mucho, y me han sorprendido algunas cosas. Es cierto que sabía lo más relevante de la biografía de Némiróvsky (nacidad en Rusia, judía, emigrada en Francia, y que terminó sus días en un campo de concentración). Pero hay tantos detalles en esta novela de aspectos nimios y anecdóticos de su vida, pero también de una Europa en cambio y transición, supuestamente a algo mejor... y la historia nos demuetra que no, que no fue a mejor. Y durante toda la lectura, no podía dejar de pensar que tampoco ahora las cosas están mejor...

Las referencias al liberalismo de Francia, a su acogimiento de cualquier persona, de cualquier pueblo, con generosidad y fraternidad, que posteriormente se convierte en rechazo a los judíos, marginación y connivencia con los nazis en su genocidio, se parece tanto a lo que ocurre hoy en día, ahora con los inmigrantes de origen árabe o musulmán...

Y es precisamente la confianza de Irène y su familia en que en Francia estarían a salvo lo que más me chocaba continuamente (claro, yo juego con ventaja, sé cómo iba a terminar la historia). No sé si era ceguera, inconsciencia o confianza plena, pero tantas oportunidades que tuvieron para marcharse de Francia y decidieron no hacerlo...

Y la novela me ha gustado mucho en su estructura. Cómo cada capítulo tiene una introducción sobre la vida de las hijas (la pequeña apenas tiene recuerdos de su madre; curioso que sea ella la que luego escribe su biografía; o no...) tan real, tan recordada, y a continuación la recreación de la vida de Irène, una niña infeliz, inteligente, amante de la lectura, temerosa del mundo; una adolescente rebelde, con ganas de comerse el mundo, soñadora, ilusionada; una mujer feliz, de éxito, segura, inteligente, interesante. Y siempre, en toda ocasión, dominada por su madre -tanto por su presencia constante, como por su ausencia buscada-

Es una biografía soñada, pero en ella reconoces las novelas de Irène Néminorovsky, sus pensamientos, su visión del mundo, sus cartas, sus diarios. No sé cuánto de verdad y cuánto de imaginado hay en esta novela, pero me ha resultado sumamente creíble, de verdad considero que he conocido a la Irène real.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elisabeth Gille was five years old when her mother, Irene Nemirovsky, was deported to Auschwitz. She and her sister managed to survive, and she became an editor and translator. She wrote The Mirador, her first book, at the age of 50, then went on to write other successful books in the few remaining years of her life.

This account is written mostly in the voice of Nemirovsky as Gille imagines it, looking back from two points - November 1929 and June 1942 - interspersed with brief vignettes describing her own life. The book adds much to a reading of Nemirovsky's work while also adding to an understanding of the times and places where she lived - from pre-revolutionary Kiev to post-WWI Paris. It also helps make sense of why it was that she refused to face the terrible reality that was closing in on her - that as Jew, even a secular and assimilated Jew, she was doomed, and her family with her. Reading the last pages, I thought of Chris Hedge's essay (published July 9 by Common Dreams) in which he writes of the sort of "collective capacity for self-delusion" he witnessed in Bosnia and Kosovo. In conclusion, he quotes another Russian, Doestoevsky, who had Dimitri ask Starov in “The Brothers Karamazov," “What must I do to win salvation?” The answer: “Above all else, never lie to yourself.” As she evokes the memory of her mother and imagines what her mother might have been thinking as she neared her end, Gille explores the same territory.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, certainly, and well-written. Yet in a way it felt like being in an old historical building that had been "restored" to its original condition - it might look exactly the same as it used to, but the walls aren't the same walls, the floors aren't the same floors, and the furniture isn't the same furniture. It might be a faithful reproduction, but it isn't authentic.

"In passages where, in another writer's work, we might be overly conscious of the will of the creator, here we are conscious only of the exigencies of the characters. Nothing more clearly reveals the gift of the storyteller." -Jean-Pierre Maxence, on Nemirovsky's writing (193-194)

"To leave this world? But what awaits me?
What could it be, this life beyond?
I would like to go away...But would it be an ending?
This nuisance of a soul, could it be immortal?"
-Tristan Bernard (204)

[Carol Bundy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this memoir/novel an amazing act of devotion. As an attempt to know an unknown mother, it is heroic. As a piece of fiction it is wonderful.I would like to read Nemirovsky's novel, David Golder, which is perhaps the most troubling evidence Elisabeth Gille had to work with regarding her mother.

[Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mirador straddles the perilous knife edge between both fiction and non, and does so in heartfelt and spellbinding manner, even if the final third of the project seems to collapse in on itself. In one sense it’s a biography of the legendary Ukrainian writer Irene Nemirovsky, who though famous in her own time, was catapulted to literary stardom in 2004 with the posthumous publication of her novel Suite Francaise, which is now largely regarded as one of the greatest literary works of the 20th century (though I cannot judge on this point: I have not read it)…Yet the Mirador is written by Irene’s own daughter Elisabeth Gille…Which is straightforward enough until you realize Gille was only five years old when her mother was killed by the Nazi’s in Auschwitz, and thus her mother remained something of a mystery to her. To add onto this quandary, the book is written from the first person perspective of Irene Nemirovsky…Elisabeth Gille set out to spelunk into her mother’s own head, a mother she never really knew, and parse out her own personal struggles and her plights through the tumultuous history in which she lived and was ultimately destroyed by. In totality the book achieves its goal. Gille has an almost uncanny ability to resurrect the past, through some combination of painstaking research and shear literary talent. Though it is not without its faults, and in some points left me feeling cold and completely asympathetic to Irene and her plight…

The book is divided into two main sections. The first follows Irene’s childhood and teenage years in the Ukraine and St Petersburg from the first decade of the 20thcentury on into the 20s, when the family finally decides to flee for France. A period that encompasses various pogroms, a world war, a revolution, and finally a brutal civil war…in which Gille renders palpable, and perfectly situates the readers within the mind of Irene, as she skirts this historical precipice with an almost disaffected manner of a coddled and precocious teenager. The second part of the novel picks things up during the last year of Irene’s life, during the German occupation of France in 1941….This section features an Irene that has grown world weary and hardened by the disastrous turns of history that her life has been subject to, even while attaining in her own personal life a considerable amount of success and fame as a writer and intellectual. It ends on the eve of her deportation to Auschwitz. The mood expressed here by Gille through her mother is one of regret and lingering guilt, as Irene (although a Jew) never really felt herself to be anyway Jewish, in fact many of the depictions of Jews found within her work were used and praised by various anti-Semitic publications throughout France. Irene also expresses regret at her disregard for politics and the course of European political history as it descends into a nightmarish inferno of hatred and genocide. She regrets not taking the advice of her father to immigrate to America, as she always considered France a bastion of tolerance, and enough distance away from the ideological “crackpots” in Germany and Russia, though that notion quickly turns into an ill-conceived fantasy. Though it’s in this section that Gille’s writing tends to feel rushed and thus falls flat, the subtle intricacies of Irene’s character built up throughout the first part begin to disintegrate, and the novel begins to read more like a summary of successive events than a compelling and emotive narrative. Though I commend Gille on her restraint from depicting Irene’s final weeks at the hands of the Germans, a move that would’ve felt exploitative and cheapened the whole artifice.

The Mirador is worth investigating for the first part alone due its gut wrenching depictions of the Russian revolution, even if falls a bit short of complete artistic success. Though I might recommend one to check out Teffi’s Journey from Moscow to the Black Sea, over this. As it’s written from a contemporaneous and firsthand account, with an even more immediate style of prose.
3.5/5

[Monalisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se trata de una biografía de la escritora de origen ruso Irène Némirovsky, escrita por su hija menor, huérfana desde los cinco años. Está escrita como si fuese una autobiografía, en primera persona; la autora da voz a la propia Némirovsky en estas memorias. Leyéndolas descubres que son aún más de lo que pensaba las similitudes entre su vida real y las historias y personajes de algunas de sus novelas. El libro se divide en dos partes, en la primera y más larga narra su infancia en Rusia, los acontecimientos de la Revolución rusa, el exilio en París, los años de juventud y sus inicios literarios. En la segunda parte, más corta, ya es madre de dos hijas, sus novelas son famosas y está refugiada con su familia en un pequeño pueblo francés, debido a su origen judío. La idílica imagen que tenía de Francia ha caído ante sus ojos y se siente traicionada por su país adoptivo. Aunque ya conocía a grandes rasgos la vida de la escritora ha sido una lectura muy interesante. En algún momento requiere bastante concentración, porque recrea la situación histórica y política, tanto en Rusia como en Francia, de manera muy detallada. Especialmente destacable las muchas referencias a sus lecturas en la infancia y juventud, que te dejan con ganas de leer a esos autores. El libro está muy bien escrito. Si tuviese que buscarle un "pero" sería lo demasiado "histórico" que resulta en algunos momentos y el no poder discernir claramente lo real de lo imaginado, aunque se nota que la autora está muy bien documentada y tiene información de primera mano. Al final me ha quedado una sensación de vacío, es una pena que la escritora falleciese a los 39 años en un campo de concentración. ¿Qué podía haber llegado a escribir? Y una pena que aún queden tantas novelas de ella por traducir. Una biografía muy recomendable para los amantes de las novelas de Némirovsky.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesantísimo. Cuenta la historia de las hijas y de la madre, en primera persona. Lo interesante es que son los escritos que la misma Nemirovsky dejó, en una maleta junto a sus preciadas hijas, cuando la arrestaron. La ayudante/amiga de Irene se hizo cargo de salvar a las niñas y la maleta. Sólo hasta cuando estuvieron grandes se atrevieron a leer lo que su madre dejó escrito... y decidieron publicarlo; corría el año 1995.

Es la vida de la escritora, desde su infancia en Rusia y el exilio de su familia en Francia hasta su arresto en la II guerra mundial.

Muy bien dibujados los ambientes, el revuelo de la guerra y la inconsistencia del alcance de la misma, en Rusia. Relato íntimo de cómo se fue desmoronando un mundo para nunca volver, pero narrado sin drama, ni sentimentalismo, más bien de modo dulcemente objetivo. Es decir, hay objetividad pero no es fría, hay una especie de contención ("así son las cosas").

Cuando aún no lo terminaba, despertó en mi muchas ganas de conocer Rusia; Moscú, San Petersburgo, Kiev, sus ríos, su gente.

Me impresiona lo rica que era esa sociedad en 1917. Quien lo relata pertenece a la pequeña burguesía en un comienzo y luego a la clase más rica; había electricidad, edificios fastuosos. Claro, todo con el trabajo de los siervos que se deslomaban en el trabajo diario. Con una diferencia tan profunda de realidades, no podía sino surgir la rebelión... una que se venía asomando desde Catalina la Grande y pocos, en Rusia, fueron capaces de leer. ¡Más aún con todos los cambios políticos en Europa, desde la revolución francesa! No bastaba con abolir la servidumbre, era necesario dar espacio para el crecimiento y el desarrollo.

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a huge surprise to me. I have read Suite Francaise but not any of Nemirovsky's other works, and was unaware of this work by her daughter. Read with #nyrbwomen23

A very moving, sad, and fascinating memoir/biography of Irène Némirovsky written by the daughter who was 5 at the time her mother was arrested. When Gille wrote this, she was middle-aged and had outlived her mother by a decade.

While this is "imagined"--and is the kind of thing that usually bothers me--it is not unsourced. Gille had her mother's journals as well as novels at her disposal, as well as the works of others (all cited in the Acknowledgements), as well as the memory of her sister, who was 7 years older and had many more memories.

This is so well done, and is both fascinating and hard to read as the reader already knows where it goes. I am sure it was incredibly difficult to write as well. Gille wrote this knowing her parents' naivete (though not her grandfather's--Nemirovsky's father intended to leave for New York and wanted their family to go also, but unexpectedly died before he could leave), and writing it out as she did must have been incredibly difficult but also perhaps cathartic in some way.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Dreamed memories" ---at the very end of the book, there is this passage from Alfred de Musset written after he attended a performance of a Moliere play"

"I was lost in my thoughts... [somebody seen at the performance] ...made me remember some singing, almost unknown verses from an unfinished poem by Andre Chenier, lines pure as chance and not so much written as dreamed. I wasn't afraid to speak them out loud, even in the presence of Moliere, whose great shade certainly wouldn't take offense...."

This book is not a memoir - how much can a five-year-old active child actually remember, and much less understand, all the danger and her parents not bending under it - and it's best that she does not actually remember. It's more along the lines, "your mom's and your voice are so much alike, I couldn't tell the difference" - but even their voices are not the same. Elisabeth Gille is a great writer in her own right, and I am looking forward to reading her "Shadows of a Childhood". What a shame she was not granted a longer life and we only have these two books to know her by. But what a wonderful, insightful, warm book she wrote about Irene Nemirovsky.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really interested in reading Elisabeth Gille's "dreamed memories" of her mother, Irene Nemirovsky. She was very young when her mother and father were taken away to their deaths for being Jewish, so many memories are from her sister, Denise and other sources. I love Irene's stories and find her life so interesting and truly sad. Many useless deaths from that brutal and inhumane treatment of the so called undesirables. In the closing interview with Elisabeth, she had been angry for her mother not being astute enough and listening about leaving France. I can understand her anger but it is easy to look back and guess what goes on in a person's mind, even her father's family did not leave. I kept on wishing as I read this, I truly would have liked Irene's own account. We have a lot of Irene in her stories which makes me so appreciate her and feel that we missed out on so much from her.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable, though tragic book in which the author speaks as the mother she never really knew, as if that mother was writing a memoir of sorts on the eve of being taken to the concentration camp where she died. The protagonist, for the main part of the book, is a wealthy, respected author who blinds herself in many ways to (or, possibly, stubbornly refuses to retreat from) the oncoming threat of anti-Semitism in France at the time, and so succumbs to that threat. But in her ignorance and her focus on the world of literature and celebrity, her life remains vibrant until it is too late to escape from the worst. It's an interesting idea for a book, and well done, with beautiful language and a creative method of combining stories into a possible image of a person who the author was too young to form a clear picture of, when she was alive.

[Sylvia Estrada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un texto conmovedor y muy bien documentado escrito por la hija menor de Irène Némirovsky. Contado en primera persona el relato atraviesa una de las épocas más importantes de la historia reciente, que abarca la Primera Guerra Mundial, la abdicación del zar de Rusia (que obligó a la familia Némirovsky a huir de Rusia para no volver jamás) y la instauración de la Unión Soviética, la caída de la bolsa en 1929 y la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
A los 39 años, Irène Némirovsky murió en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz, un destino que también sufriría su esposo y que dejó en la orfandad a sus dos hijas pequeñas.
La autora intercala fragmentos de su propia experiencia infantil a lo largo de la biografía. Lo que le da una profunda carga emotiva a la obra.

[Hiếu (Harry) Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book with zero knowledge of Irene Nemirovsky (im ignorant sue me), and by the end of it I was greatly impacted by the story of her life, or more precisely the story of Jewish people during the Nazi rule.

The author, Elisabeth Gille, was taken away from her mother, Irene Nemirovsky, when she was only 5 years old, and therefore she had none concrete memories of her. This "biography" of her mom, constructed from the daughter's "dreams", is a strange mix between fictional elements and real-life facts, spanning from Russia in the early 1900s to the countryside of France in the late 1930s.

I was not much concerned about the life of Irene Nemirovsky, knowing quickly after the first pages that she was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Russia. Her life and her unfortunate demise were, in a way, the consequences of her attitude and decisions. However, it was deeply interesting to learn about history, about Russia politics and society during that time (I fell into a rabbit hole reading about Rasputin's assassination), and the lives of Jews that were full of turmoils and danger.

In the end, this is a very dense book with roughly 240 pages. Compelling and intriguing, though at times not easy to follow if you're unfamiliar with World War II history especially in Russia.

[Maryana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Élisabeth Gille tenía 5 años cuando su madre Irène Némirovsky fue llevada a morir al campo de concentración de Auschwitz. Décadas después Élisabeth escribe la biografia de su madre poniéndose en los ojos de ella, de esta manera hace revivir a Irène. Este libro sincero y critico hace conocer y comprender mejor a la autora famosa por su novela póstuma "Suite Francesa".

Una obra realmente esclarecedora.

[Leila Kern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous read from a daughter who never knew her Mother! To live through such a time when the extermination of Jewish people and undesirables were being carried out, one has to admire their spirit. This book shows a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy and how the wealthy were not above being sent to the concentration camps! A glimpse into a world which no longer exists (at least one would hope)!

[Hippiemouse420 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not familiar with Irene Nemirovsky (never heard of her before reading this biography), and I know nothing about Russian literature, so I think a lot of the book was lost on me. Still an interesting story, though.