wonderful and full of history | Suite Française

Suite Frainces: Unfinished work of art. | Suite Française | Irene Nemirovsky

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	• Suite Française Irene Nemirovsky Knopf, 2006 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 374 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It's all about the writing

I read all the appendices, forwards, backstory, etc. before starting the book. I was prepared for an over-hyped memoiristic view of the depressing WWII occupation of France. I assumed the provenance of the book would override the actual quality. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The first character introduced by the author is - the war itself. Just brilliant - I was reminded of 'Blood Meridian,' in which the landscape is treated like a character in the novel. The war seems to have a mood and a temperament and interacts with all of the various characters in the story. It evolves and its affects on the characters changes.

So also I was reminded of 'Emma.' Remember that the title of 'Emma' could have been 'Perspectives' - the story unfolds in that events occur and then are interpreted by each character. 'Emma' proceeds like a series of little whirlpools in a stream. And so it goes in 'Suite Francaise,' with the Storm in June (the German invasion) roiling over the lives of the characters from every strata of French society.

Nemirovsky's technique of focusing on one set of characters in each chapter makes it easier for the reader to follow each thread than is possible in other novels with a vast array of principals (i.e. 'War and Peace' or '100 Years of Solitude'). Written without a central narrator, the flow of 'Suite Francaise' is surprisingly enjoyable to follow despite the lack of one point of view.

The book is also not as depressing as I expected. The presentation of war as a force of nature, a circumstance to be endured, an event which will pass - may have been common in the Europe of the 40's. Everyone endured WWI so this too would pass. It's certainly a style contrast with 'It Can't Happen Here,' a political diatribe against fascism in novel form which was published in the US in the late 1930's (don't get me wrong - I really liked that book, too). Perhaps Americans felt they could have more influence over events than the French, living adjacent to the Nazi menace.

The shocking and realistic qualities of this novel spring from Nemirovsky's vivid portrayal of human nature under stress. While reading, you feel as if she could be describing your next door neighbor, your boss, your mother-in-law. The question you find yourself asking is, when would I be tempted to do that, to stoop to that, to betray my beliefs - what would it take?

This is great writing. Enjoy it.

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wonderful and full of history

I enjoyed her writing and while reading her book, felt like I was in France under German occupation. GREAT STORY! What a tragic end she had in real life. So sad!

Suite Frainces: Unfinished work of art.

This book is part of an unfinished longer work the outline of which is set out in great detail in an appendix. Another appendix revels through a series of letters the story of the author's journey to the Gas chembers of Austerwitz. The language of the book is wonderful. The author captures the scene and the characters in great detail in commenting on a period while she was living through it. I would recomend it to anyone.

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One in a million

Read the preface by Myriam Anissimov (Wouldn't the story of Irène Némirovski's life make the most compelling of biographies?). Then leave her own tragic story set in the background. Read both novellas and don't forget the exchange of hearthbreaking letters between her husband and her publisher, both trying to find out about her after her arrest. And last but not least try to read it in her beautiful, easy, simple French. Tempete en Juin portrays the lives of ordinary people caught in that extraodinary exodus of June 1940 in a dispassionate, vivid and ironic way. Dolce offers an unusual account of the daily confrontation between villagers and Nazis in occupied France.
I haven't possibly read anything as powerful and masterful in years.

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