I didn't finish it. Though a fascinating piece of history the book is very long and tiring. Things should have been edited. ( )

You can read my full review on my Jew Wishes website. http://jewwishes.wordpress.com/2007/0...

Irene Nemirovsky has given us a compelling masterpiece, written with insight into the human condition, social classes, mores, individual values and ethics, that take place during the occupation of France beginning in 1940.

In “Storm in June” we are given characters who flee Paris city life and comforts, for what they believe is the safer countryside. In reality it is a frantic situation, as city refugees try to cope with chaos, and country farmers and peasants try to cope with the frenzy thrust upon them. Included in this chaos are characters whose lives intertwine and connect. We are given the scope of their souls during this time of extreme turmoil. The upper class and the lower class, all come together, within the same situational confines, and we see who is really made of character, strength and stoicism, and who can weather the storm.

In “Dolce”, we are given a continuation of some of the characters from “Storm in June”, and given new characters, set in a farming village in the countryside. This novella is filled with humor and poignancy, as we watch peasants, farmers and Germans inhabit the same village, and how they manage to exist together within the confines of German Officers have been billeted into homes.

Nemirovsky is compared to Proust and Tolstoy, and several other classic authors, but for me, Nemirovsky is beyond compare, with her compelling and intense writing, her descriptives flowing from one word to another, into sentences, creating two extremely realized novellas. ( )

Irene Nemirovsky had written only two of the planned five parts of her novel about the invasion and occupation of France by Germany in World War 2 when she was arrested, deported and kllled by the Third Reich. Though her husband was also liquidated, her daughters survived the war, and one of them held onto this manuscript as a memento of her mother.

Though it's a tragedy that the novel was never completed, what remains is still a masterpiece, which bears comparison with that other great narrative of occupation and resistance, "War and Peace". Nemirovsky portrays the fall of Paris and the first year of the German occupation with clarity and yet also with compassion for her characters, who intersect and interact in unexpected ways. The quality of the characterisation and the writing are both exceptionally good. This novel deserves to go in the must-read category. ( )

Ever since picking up my first work by Nemirovsky last year, I've admired her talent for observing the human condition. There's something about her observation of people and their actions that suggests a balance between optimistic humanism and world weariness. In Suite Francaise, she trains her fine eye on the way that people react, and then adjust, to war, specifically Germany's invasion of France in WWII.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section begins as the news spreads through France that the army has been unable to stop the Germans. With the Blitz heading towards Paris, panic spreads, and people begin to flee to the countryside. Nemirovsky quickly introduces several people, including one family, and the preparations they make to leave. At first, the sheer number of characters made it a bit confusing, but as the story progressed, I got to know the characters better and became able to distinguish them.

As the Parisians flee, they often find themselves in pretty harrowing circumstances. The invasion has thrown things into disorder, and people who've led lives of privilege and prestige suddenly find the charmed existence that they enjoyed has suddenly disappeared. At first the Germans appear only as news on the radio, but then there are bombings and aerial strafing, followed by pitched battles. The story reflects the horror and confusion of war. As the first section ends, the government has fallen, the fighting has ended and people are in the process of putting their lives back together.

The second section begins in the countryside, specifically in one of the villages to which one of the Parisians had fled. The Germans have gone from being an invading army to an occupying one, and in the process have gone from being an amorphous threat to having a very human face. In fact, the presence of all the young men in a village which has seen its own boys killed or taken prisoner gives rise to a strange dynamic of affection and resentment. This section felt even stronger, as Nemirovsky probes all the fault lines, allowing for a much slower boil of conflicting emotions and allegiances.

Because Nemirovsky was sent to the death camps, she never finished the novel, so the second section of the novel ends somewhat abruptly. Though not part of the novel, I couldn't help but contrast Nemirovsky's eye for day-to-day humanity with the sheer inhuman evil of the Holocaust. I also couldn't help wondering how this chronicle of the war, with all its fine detail and observations, would have continued had she lived. ( )

What can I say? It is the best book I've read in a long time. I don't know why I like it so much. She manages to capture the ordinary everyday feelings of her subjects at a time of great upheaval. The translation I had also featured some Appendices - Appendix 1 containing handwritten notes on the situation in France and her plans for the rest of the novel taken from her notebooks. She writes 1 July 1942 - twelve days before she was captured - "my deepest conviction. What lives on: 1. Our humble day-to-day lives 2. Art 3. God". It feels so contemporary it is hard to imagine that it was written nearly seventy years ago. I can't wait to read more of her books. Even though the book is unfinished it doesn't feel like that to me so I urge you not to be put off by that fact. It's not as if it stops mid-sentence or anything. In fact I think its unfinished quality adds to the haunting quality of the book - all the characters wonder when the war will end. It is an extraordinary work of art written by someone who was able to step to one side and observe the extraordinary period in which she was living. ( )