Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky
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Description
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940, this books 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 show more to coexist with the enemy -- in their town, their homes, even in their hearts. -- Back Cover. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
charlie68 Both books take place in France during the Second World War.
50
alalba Two books about occupied France during WWII
SqueakyChu Both are novels that take place in Nazi-occupied France during WWII.
21
pdebolt Both are very powerful books about German-occupied France during WWII and the role of women.
11
Yervant Both works focus on German occupation during World War II, one in France, the other in Guernsey. The storyline of a local woman falling in love with a German occupier is also a common thread, (though more successful and believable in my opinion in Nemirovsky's work than in Leroy's.)
11
chrisharpe Nothing to do with France or WWII, but in many ways a similar, acutely observed portrait of village life, with an especially keen eye on the bourgeois class.
02
Cecrow Both are fiction, written during and/or immediately after the occupation and showing significant reflection.
Member Reviews
What a wonderful range of people Nemirovsky created, with such depth that even minor figures don’t come across as caricatures or stereotypes. And it must have been a particular challenge to avoid stereotypes when she was writing during the German invasion of France and her own experience of evacuation to what she hoped would be a safe retreat with her children.
The first section of the book shows the chaos of the flight from Paris as the Germans appear ready to occupy the city. Everyone has different thoughts about what it means for them, from the wealthy bourgeois packing up to move to their country home, the effete artist worrying about his porcelain collection, but especially the Michauds, left behind by their boss but still show more expected to find their way to their work in Tour and thinking themselves lucky to at least be together. Although there are elements of satire poking at the venality and self-centredness of the more privileged classes, Nemirovsky still shows their humanity, worrying about a son or a parent. This section covers such a range of people and what they discover about themselves and their comrades under wartime assaults that it made me think of the characters in War and Peace as they contemplate war and its outcomes. Tolstoy, however, doesn’t manage to develop any characters below the nobility except as stereotypes, while Nemirovsky has a wide social range.
The second part of the book focuses mainly on the relationship between an affluent countrywoman and the German officer who boards in her home. Even in this section, though, Nemirovsky succeeds in showing a range of complex characters, French and German, drawn as individuals with families and futures at risk. This section, however, makes a contrast with the chaos and confusion of the first section. Here, village life is orderly, regular and commonplace, even with the German soldiers stationed in the village. The German soldiers who don’t speak French, for example, struggle to buy mementos in the local shops as if they were tourists. The French resent their presence, but can’t help treating them as friendly visitors and customers. It’s ironic that when the Germans arrange a grand celebration on the anniversary of the capture of Paris, they tactfully avoid mentioning the reason, although everyone knows it, and the French turn out to watch the dancing, music and fireworks. Everyone tries to act as normally as possible, even while resisting the situation where they can. This gives an interesting insight to life under enemy occupation, where attempting to live a decent human life can later appear as collaboration.
In the second part of the book, it almost seems as if the characters are all together in the upset of the war, until the killing of a German soldier forces everyone to see that they are on different sides, whether or not they choose to be. Nemirovsky touches on wartime collaboration, but in the book as it exists here, she doesn’t have room, or perhaps experience, to explore it as the post-war French writers did. She was killed before the issue of collaboration acquired its later dimensions.
It is tragic that such a humanist writer as Nemirovsky would become a victim of inhuman Naziism as she was working on the remaining parts of the book. The excerpts from her letters to her husband and her publisher are tragic. It’s particularly poignant when in her notes for the book she promises never to take out her bitterness on individuals – she shows the Germans, as well as French people of various classes, as complex real people. For a book written while under the threat of annihilation in war, it’s remarkable that Nemirovsky’s humanism is such a strong theme. Based on this book, I’d look forward to reading some of her earlier books. show less
The first section of the book shows the chaos of the flight from Paris as the Germans appear ready to occupy the city. Everyone has different thoughts about what it means for them, from the wealthy bourgeois packing up to move to their country home, the effete artist worrying about his porcelain collection, but especially the Michauds, left behind by their boss but still show more expected to find their way to their work in Tour and thinking themselves lucky to at least be together. Although there are elements of satire poking at the venality and self-centredness of the more privileged classes, Nemirovsky still shows their humanity, worrying about a son or a parent. This section covers such a range of people and what they discover about themselves and their comrades under wartime assaults that it made me think of the characters in War and Peace as they contemplate war and its outcomes. Tolstoy, however, doesn’t manage to develop any characters below the nobility except as stereotypes, while Nemirovsky has a wide social range.
The second part of the book focuses mainly on the relationship between an affluent countrywoman and the German officer who boards in her home. Even in this section, though, Nemirovsky succeeds in showing a range of complex characters, French and German, drawn as individuals with families and futures at risk. This section, however, makes a contrast with the chaos and confusion of the first section. Here, village life is orderly, regular and commonplace, even with the German soldiers stationed in the village. The German soldiers who don’t speak French, for example, struggle to buy mementos in the local shops as if they were tourists. The French resent their presence, but can’t help treating them as friendly visitors and customers. It’s ironic that when the Germans arrange a grand celebration on the anniversary of the capture of Paris, they tactfully avoid mentioning the reason, although everyone knows it, and the French turn out to watch the dancing, music and fireworks. Everyone tries to act as normally as possible, even while resisting the situation where they can. This gives an interesting insight to life under enemy occupation, where attempting to live a decent human life can later appear as collaboration.
In the second part of the book, it almost seems as if the characters are all together in the upset of the war, until the killing of a German soldier forces everyone to see that they are on different sides, whether or not they choose to be. Nemirovsky touches on wartime collaboration, but in the book as it exists here, she doesn’t have room, or perhaps experience, to explore it as the post-war French writers did. She was killed before the issue of collaboration acquired its later dimensions.
It is tragic that such a humanist writer as Nemirovsky would become a victim of inhuman Naziism as she was working on the remaining parts of the book. The excerpts from her letters to her husband and her publisher are tragic. It’s particularly poignant when in her notes for the book she promises never to take out her bitterness on individuals – she shows the Germans, as well as French people of various classes, as complex real people. For a book written while under the threat of annihilation in war, it’s remarkable that Nemirovsky’s humanism is such a strong theme. Based on this book, I’d look forward to reading some of her earlier books. show less
Avete visto il film Suite Francese? Beh, dimenticatelo, è una storiella d'amore insulsa in confronto a questo resoconto romanzato degli sfollamenti della Parigi bombardata durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale.
Un ritratto senza sconti di vite in guerra che con le bassezze della guerra devono fare i conti. Il risultato è un' avvincente storia incompiuta tratta dagli appunti di una grande scrittrice deportata ed "eliminata" in un campo di sterminio. E troviamo vigliacchi ed eroi, approfittatori e ingenui, temute divise di invasori indossate da uomini normali, spaccati di vita di quotidiana sopravvivenza.
Un bel, bellissimo libro, ma di certo non una storia d'amore.
Un ritratto senza sconti di vite in guerra che con le bassezze della guerra devono fare i conti. Il risultato è un' avvincente storia incompiuta tratta dagli appunti di una grande scrittrice deportata ed "eliminata" in un campo di sterminio. E troviamo vigliacchi ed eroi, approfittatori e ingenui, temute divise di invasori indossate da uomini normali, spaccati di vita di quotidiana sopravvivenza.
Un bel, bellissimo libro, ma di certo non una storia d'amore.
Bonjour Tristesse
This unfinished work contain two of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin who converted to Catholicism before WWII.
Unfinished because of Némirovsky was murdered by then Nazis in Auschwitz in 1942. Her daughter typed up the two novels from handwritten manuscripts and notes. It has since been translated into English and other languages.Obviously unfinished, Némirovsky’s light stil shines through.
This is a gem of a book. The first novel, “Storm in June” describes the flight of Parisians when Germany invaded in 1940. Scenes are reminiscent of the refugees in Prophet Song in that the refugees are white Europeans. However the imagery here is lighter, show more understated, concentrating on groups of people, and highlighting to class differences in the fleeing Parisians.
Some were wealthy, with family connections outside Paris. These had planned ahead, or felt comfortable enough to just show up at the châteaus of wealthy family or friends. Others had few possessions and had no destination, no means of transport as trains had stopped running and petrol/gas supplies , if they were lucky enough to have a car, were limited. The most terrifying part is not from the invaders, but from out-of-control poor French adolescents who murder a humble priest who has been caring for them. Here is an example Némirovsky showing her consciousness of class in French society. The humble priest is from a wealthy family, the boys who kill him are under-nourished san culottes
The second novel,”Dolce” has only tenuous connection with “Storm”. It’s obvious from writings in notebooks that these ties would be worked on and continued in the next three novels. Some of the notes were written in English. Possibly sixty years later by the daughter?
However I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the two novellas that survive. The style is consistent throughout.
“Storm” describes the German occupation of the French village of Bussy, a farming community in an idyllic setting. Here the Germans and French have ambiguous relationships with one another. Some French residents will not speak to the German soldiers they are forced to billet. Others have flings or affaires. Mostly the German troops are tolerated.
The two main characters are the German commander Bruno, and Lucile, a young French woman whose husband is a POW in Germany. The two have an almost affaire. Here the novel explores the deep and unbridgeable differences between the military Germans and the invaded French. For a fleeting time, four months, the two groups live in a fragile harmony with human decency ensuring a peaceful coexistence for most of the story.
Again Némirovsky shows the class differences that permeate French society. The rich exploit and despise the poor farmers who are the livelihood of the village. Two upper middle-class women joke about how they could eat crow soup but would despise the poor who would stoop so low as to devour it. The village mayor and his wife are without conscience when they fraternize with the Germans, whitest the poor do so of necessity or love.
With Bruno and Lucile, the would-be lovers, and an “‘incident” involving a local and the Germans, we move into page-turner territory. And it is here an alliance of sorts is made between the French rich and poor. Being French can after all, when push comes to shove, trump wealth.
I didn’t want this book to finish, and in the closing passages I was in tears when, knowing of the author’s fate, I read her parting words of hope for the future of the people she had created in these short works.
Highly recommended. show less
This unfinished work contain two of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin who converted to Catholicism before WWII.
Unfinished because of Némirovsky was murdered by then Nazis in Auschwitz in 1942. Her daughter typed up the two novels from handwritten manuscripts and notes. It has since been translated into English and other languages.Obviously unfinished, Némirovsky’s light stil shines through.
This is a gem of a book. The first novel, “Storm in June” describes the flight of Parisians when Germany invaded in 1940. Scenes are reminiscent of the refugees in Prophet Song in that the refugees are white Europeans. However the imagery here is lighter, show more understated, concentrating on groups of people, and highlighting to class differences in the fleeing Parisians.
Some were wealthy, with family connections outside Paris. These had planned ahead, or felt comfortable enough to just show up at the châteaus of wealthy family or friends. Others had few possessions and had no destination, no means of transport as trains had stopped running and petrol/gas supplies , if they were lucky enough to have a car, were limited. The most terrifying part is not from the invaders, but from out-of-control poor French adolescents who murder a humble priest who has been caring for them. Here is an example Némirovsky showing her consciousness of class in French society. The humble priest is from a wealthy family, the boys who kill him are under-nourished san culottes
The second novel,”Dolce” has only tenuous connection with “Storm”. It’s obvious from writings in notebooks that these ties would be worked on and continued in the next three novels. Some of the notes were written in English. Possibly sixty years later by the daughter?
However I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the two novellas that survive. The style is consistent throughout.
“Storm” describes the German occupation of the French village of Bussy, a farming community in an idyllic setting. Here the Germans and French have ambiguous relationships with one another. Some French residents will not speak to the German soldiers they are forced to billet. Others have flings or affaires. Mostly the German troops are tolerated.
The two main characters are the German commander Bruno, and Lucile, a young French woman whose husband is a POW in Germany. The two have an almost affaire. Here the novel explores the deep and unbridgeable differences between the military Germans and the invaded French. For a fleeting time, four months, the two groups live in a fragile harmony with human decency ensuring a peaceful coexistence for most of the story.
Again Némirovsky shows the class differences that permeate French society. The rich exploit and despise the poor farmers who are the livelihood of the village. Two upper middle-class women joke about how they could eat crow soup but would despise the poor who would stoop so low as to devour it. The village mayor and his wife are without conscience when they fraternize with the Germans, whitest the poor do so of necessity or love.
With Bruno and Lucile, the would-be lovers, and an “‘incident” involving a local and the Germans, we move into page-turner territory. And it is here an alliance of sorts is made between the French rich and poor. Being French can after all, when push comes to shove, trump wealth.
I didn’t want this book to finish, and in the closing passages I was in tears when, knowing of the author’s fate, I read her parting words of hope for the future of the people she had created in these short works.
Highly recommended. show less
During 1941-1942, Irène Némirovsky was living with her husband and daughters at Issy-l’Éveque, south-west of Dijon. Unable to publish because of the antisemitic laws in force in occupied France, she worked on a grand, unpublishable novel which would paint a comprehensive picture of France under the Germans. It would have stretched to at least four parts and 1000 pages, had she been able to complete her plan, and it might well have gone further than that as the war advanced. However, she was only able to complete the first two parts (already a good 500 pages) before being arrested by French gendarmes on 13 July 1942 and handed over to the Germans for deportation to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on arrival. Her daughters were show more able to go into hiding and survived the war, with the help of their governess. They preserved the manuscript, but, taking it for a private diary of her last days, they were reluctant to look at it. It only became clear sixty years later that it was actually an unfinished novel.
Tempête en juin opens the book with an episodic account of the panic of June 1940, as Parisians try to escape from the advancing invasion. Némirovsky follows several different groups of refugees through the chaos, and we get a good sense of where the book is going as she shows us the selfishness and cowardice of wealthy intellectuals, bourgeois families and business people as the panic develops and contrasts it with the much better behaviour of her lower-middle-class and peasant characters. Needless to say, most of the rich survive, despite their bad behaviour, whilst the self-sacrifice of the poor is unrewarded more often than not.
The second part, Dolce has a tighter, more narrative structure, looking at life in a French village where a German regiment has been stationed during the months leading up to July 1941. French villagers and German soldiers have to find a modus vivendi, but neither side can ever quite forget the real tensions underlying their relationships. Many of the French have husbands or sons who are prisoners of war or were killed during the invasion, and of course many of them still remember the previous war (or even the war of 1870). But most of the Germans, when you get to know them, are just normal people who in civil life love music and books, have wives and children at home, and so on. Némirovsky again makes fun of the selfishness of the bourgeois families and the total disconnection with real life of the local aristocracy — the Pétain-supporting countess may hate all Germans on principle, but she is also the only character in the book (so far) who really shares all their racist and authoritarian ideals. And she can’t understand why the local farmers hate her.
Having read about Némirovsky’s fate, I somehow expected this to be a “Holocaust novel”, but of course it’s nothing of the sort. In the two completed parts there aren’t even any Jewish characters (although some seem to have been planned for later parts). It’s a very French novel, about French society and the way it coped, or failed to cope, with one of its most difficult periods of history. In an odd way, it reminded me of Angela Thirkell’s “home front” novels from the same period, although of course Thirkell was writing about the same kind of wartime social collisions from a perspective in which all her sympathy was with the bourgeois and aristocratic characters forced to give up their privileged lifestyle. Némirovsky seems to find that it’s about time those privileged people had a dose of reality — even though she came from a pretty privileged background herself, and her most convincing and sympathetic characters are at least on the edge of those privileged families. show less
Tempête en juin opens the book with an episodic account of the panic of June 1940, as Parisians try to escape from the advancing invasion. Némirovsky follows several different groups of refugees through the chaos, and we get a good sense of where the book is going as she shows us the selfishness and cowardice of wealthy intellectuals, bourgeois families and business people as the panic develops and contrasts it with the much better behaviour of her lower-middle-class and peasant characters. Needless to say, most of the rich survive, despite their bad behaviour, whilst the self-sacrifice of the poor is unrewarded more often than not.
The second part, Dolce has a tighter, more narrative structure, looking at life in a French village where a German regiment has been stationed during the months leading up to July 1941. French villagers and German soldiers have to find a modus vivendi, but neither side can ever quite forget the real tensions underlying their relationships. Many of the French have husbands or sons who are prisoners of war or were killed during the invasion, and of course many of them still remember the previous war (or even the war of 1870). But most of the Germans, when you get to know them, are just normal people who in civil life love music and books, have wives and children at home, and so on. Némirovsky again makes fun of the selfishness of the bourgeois families and the total disconnection with real life of the local aristocracy — the Pétain-supporting countess may hate all Germans on principle, but she is also the only character in the book (so far) who really shares all their racist and authoritarian ideals. And she can’t understand why the local farmers hate her.
Having read about Némirovsky’s fate, I somehow expected this to be a “Holocaust novel”, but of course it’s nothing of the sort. In the two completed parts there aren’t even any Jewish characters (although some seem to have been planned for later parts). It’s a very French novel, about French society and the way it coped, or failed to cope, with one of its most difficult periods of history. In an odd way, it reminded me of Angela Thirkell’s “home front” novels from the same period, although of course Thirkell was writing about the same kind of wartime social collisions from a perspective in which all her sympathy was with the bourgeois and aristocratic characters forced to give up their privileged lifestyle. Némirovsky seems to find that it’s about time those privileged people had a dose of reality — even though she came from a pretty privileged background herself, and her most convincing and sympathetic characters are at least on the edge of those privileged families. show less
When I opened this book, I had long forgotten how it had come into my library some years before. Fortunately, I have a semblance of a TBR shelf, so it didn’t get lost amid the many other volumes. I noted the publication date: 2004. Oh this looks like good historical fiction! Happy with my discovery and before reading a page, I traveled in my mind to June 1940, imagining myself glaring angrily at the Nazis, marching into Paris. I thought of Casablanca, as Rick made the plans that would tear him away from Ilsa until the moment she walked into that gin joint a world away.
But in Paris, the fear and chaos jumped off the page. Sounds and smells and human reactions felt almost too sharp, too acrid, details almost like someone had been there. show more It begins:
“Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away. The first to hear the hum of the siren were those who couldn't sleep—the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. To them it began as a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh. It wasn't long before its wailing filled the sky. It came from afar, from beyond the horizon, slowly, almost lazily. Those still asleep dreamed of waves breaking over pebbles, a March storm whipping the woods, a herd of cows trampling the ground with their hooves, until finally sleep was shaken off and they struggled to open their eyes, murmuring, "Is it an air raid?"
I felt confused. What a remarkable recreation of a moment, almost a century gone by now. The voice was almost of someone who had been there. The necessary research and grasp of the social subtleties staggered me. I reflected on great works of historical fiction I have read: Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, Toni Morrison’ Beloved, and the delightful A Gentleman in Moscow from Amor Towles, for example. Surely there is historical fiction and great historical fiction!
Then I realized. The sights and sounds were fresh and believable not because of Némirovsky’s powers of reconstruction and creative authenticity. This was not historical fiction at all. She was there. A quick check revealed the truth: Némirovsky wrote the two novellas in this collection, probably not fully completed, nearly contemporaneously with the events they describe. The time frame is June 1940 to July 1941. The setting Paris and the French countryside. She was born a Ukrainian Jew in Kiev in 1903, fled to France in the face of the Russian Revolution, attended the Sorbonne, published a popular French novel in 1929, and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1939. She was arrested in July 1942 in front of her daughters - the Nazis evidently not impressed with her conversion - and died in Auschwitz a month later. Her daughter kept the manuscripts unread for fifty years thinking they were journals that would be too painful to read. Prior to donating the material to a French archive, she read it. Published to critical acclaim in 2004, Suite française became a best seller in France.
Némirovsky’s achievement is astonishing. There are many surviving accounts of historical moments. They tend to be observational in the form of diaries and witnessed reports. She not only described the events around her in miniature journalistic detail, but was able to craft her narrative with social commentary, psychological interpretation, perceptive analysis, and fully realized though fictional characters. She was inside the heads of her French compatriots even as she herself was enduring the hardships of danger and escape. And description fails to do justice to her efficient and reflective prose:
“The three young men stood up and clicked their heels. In the past, she had found this display of courtesy by the soldiers of the Reich old-fashioned and rather affected. Now, she thought how much she would miss this light jingling of spurs, the kiss on the hand, the admiration these soldiers showed her almost in spite of themselves, soldiers who were without family, without female companionship. There was in their respect for her a hint of tender melancholy: it was as if, thanks to her, they could recapture some remnant of their former lives where kindness, a good education, politeness towards women had far more value than getting drunk or taking an enemy position. There was gratitude and nostalgia in their attitude towards her; she could sense it and was touched by it.”
This is a fine work, a time capsule of a fraught and crucial period. Journalism has been described as the first rough draft of history. Némirovsky’s novel has the persuasive integrity of good journalism, but the draft feels anything but rough. show less
But in Paris, the fear and chaos jumped off the page. Sounds and smells and human reactions felt almost too sharp, too acrid, details almost like someone had been there. show more It begins:
“Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away. The first to hear the hum of the siren were those who couldn't sleep—the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. To them it began as a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh. It wasn't long before its wailing filled the sky. It came from afar, from beyond the horizon, slowly, almost lazily. Those still asleep dreamed of waves breaking over pebbles, a March storm whipping the woods, a herd of cows trampling the ground with their hooves, until finally sleep was shaken off and they struggled to open their eyes, murmuring, "Is it an air raid?"
I felt confused. What a remarkable recreation of a moment, almost a century gone by now. The voice was almost of someone who had been there. The necessary research and grasp of the social subtleties staggered me. I reflected on great works of historical fiction I have read: Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, Toni Morrison’ Beloved, and the delightful A Gentleman in Moscow from Amor Towles, for example. Surely there is historical fiction and great historical fiction!
Then I realized. The sights and sounds were fresh and believable not because of Némirovsky’s powers of reconstruction and creative authenticity. This was not historical fiction at all. She was there. A quick check revealed the truth: Némirovsky wrote the two novellas in this collection, probably not fully completed, nearly contemporaneously with the events they describe. The time frame is June 1940 to July 1941. The setting Paris and the French countryside. She was born a Ukrainian Jew in Kiev in 1903, fled to France in the face of the Russian Revolution, attended the Sorbonne, published a popular French novel in 1929, and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1939. She was arrested in July 1942 in front of her daughters - the Nazis evidently not impressed with her conversion - and died in Auschwitz a month later. Her daughter kept the manuscripts unread for fifty years thinking they were journals that would be too painful to read. Prior to donating the material to a French archive, she read it. Published to critical acclaim in 2004, Suite française became a best seller in France.
Némirovsky’s achievement is astonishing. There are many surviving accounts of historical moments. They tend to be observational in the form of diaries and witnessed reports. She not only described the events around her in miniature journalistic detail, but was able to craft her narrative with social commentary, psychological interpretation, perceptive analysis, and fully realized though fictional characters. She was inside the heads of her French compatriots even as she herself was enduring the hardships of danger and escape. And description fails to do justice to her efficient and reflective prose:
“The three young men stood up and clicked their heels. In the past, she had found this display of courtesy by the soldiers of the Reich old-fashioned and rather affected. Now, she thought how much she would miss this light jingling of spurs, the kiss on the hand, the admiration these soldiers showed her almost in spite of themselves, soldiers who were without family, without female companionship. There was in their respect for her a hint of tender melancholy: it was as if, thanks to her, they could recapture some remnant of their former lives where kindness, a good education, politeness towards women had far more value than getting drunk or taking an enemy position. There was gratitude and nostalgia in their attitude towards her; she could sense it and was touched by it.”
This is a fine work, a time capsule of a fraught and crucial period. Journalism has been described as the first rough draft of history. Némirovsky’s novel has the persuasive integrity of good journalism, but the draft feels anything but rough. show less
Filled with rich anecdotes of the Parisian elite, Irène Némirovsky’s novel, Suite Française (Vintage Books), reveals the trying times of families, artists, and bankers during World War II following the French defeat. The story moves with impeccable humor over the material and selfish concerns of the characters within the story, revealing not only shared interests between varying classes in French society, but the war’s “inconvenience” to civilian life.
Némirovsky, a French novelist during Nazi-occupied France, underscores the egocentricity of the elite class, embellishing scenes of seemingly charitable patrons looking after their own personal welfare and self-esteem as they flee Paris. Armed with silverware, mattresses, and show more linen, whole families unsuccessfully cram into cars leaving the French capital all at once before the German occupation, creating traffic jams that abandon them in villages along the countryside. Némirovsky toys with her characters, often illustrating how the war causes paranoia in those with material possessions.
More interestingly, however, are the relationships developed between characters as they share the space between themselves, people of the countryside, and the German occupiers. Although many attempt to preserve the status quo, some find themselves forced to deal with the discomfort of living among strangers and form unlikely bonds with them. The author’s emphasis on the basic humanity in those that are considered “the other” reveals the absurdity of ideas developed during times of peace.
Self-absorbed as many of the characters are, Némirovsky pays close attention to the circumstances in which they are thrown following the surrender of the French. The author’s voice speaks with clarity about even the pettiest disappointments but provides a portrait of defeat unfamiliar to many whose lives were previously unaffected by the war. show less
Némirovsky, a French novelist during Nazi-occupied France, underscores the egocentricity of the elite class, embellishing scenes of seemingly charitable patrons looking after their own personal welfare and self-esteem as they flee Paris. Armed with silverware, mattresses, and show more linen, whole families unsuccessfully cram into cars leaving the French capital all at once before the German occupation, creating traffic jams that abandon them in villages along the countryside. Némirovsky toys with her characters, often illustrating how the war causes paranoia in those with material possessions.
More interestingly, however, are the relationships developed between characters as they share the space between themselves, people of the countryside, and the German occupiers. Although many attempt to preserve the status quo, some find themselves forced to deal with the discomfort of living among strangers and form unlikely bonds with them. The author’s emphasis on the basic humanity in those that are considered “the other” reveals the absurdity of ideas developed during times of peace.
Self-absorbed as many of the characters are, Némirovsky pays close attention to the circumstances in which they are thrown following the surrender of the French. The author’s voice speaks with clarity about even the pettiest disappointments but provides a portrait of defeat unfamiliar to many whose lives were previously unaffected by the war. show less
Le prime due parti dell'ultimo, ambizioso lavoro della Nemirovsky, uno dei grandi autori zittiti dalla tragedia nazista.
Una prosa scintillante, precisa, impietosa, una perfetta conoscenza sia degli eventi che dell'animo umano, uno sguardo lucido sulla vigliaccheria del popolo in quanto tale, in contrapposizione con l'autentico eroismo e grandezza morale di pochi.
Una prosa scintillante, precisa, impietosa, una perfetta conoscenza sia degli eventi che dell'animo umano, uno sguardo lucido sulla vigliaccheria del popolo in quanto tale, in contrapposizione con l'autentico eroismo e grandezza morale di pochi.
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Irène Némirovsky wanted Suite Française to be a five-book cycle about the occupation of France, but only completed a draft of two books before the Nazis sent her to Auschwitz, and to the gas chambers, in 1942. Her manuscript was lost in a basement for sixty years until her daughter, who had been pursued by Nazis through the French countryside as a child, discovered and published it. And show more now, impossibly, we can read the two books of Suite Française. show less
added by paradoxosalpha
Less a Wheel than a Wave
added by MikeBriggs
French critics hailed "Suite Française" as a masterpiece when it was first published there in 2004. They weren't exaggerating. The writing is accomplished, the plotting sure, and the fact that Némirovsky could write about events like the fall of Paris with such assurance and irony just weeks after they occurred is nothing short of astonishing.
added by MikeBriggs
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- Canonical title
- Suite Française
- Original title
- Suite française
- Original publication date
- 2004
- People/Characters
- Charlotte Péricand; Philippe Péricand (oldest son, priest); Madeleine (maid); Auguste (valet); Maria (cook); Hubert Péricand (second oldest son) (show all 48); Bernard Péricand (son); Jacqueline Péricand (daughter); Emmanuel Péricand (youngest son); Adrien Péricand (Charlotte's husband); elder Monsieur Péricand (Adrien's father); Albert (Péricand children's cat); Gabriel Corte (writer); Florence (Gabriel's mistress); Madame Jeanne Michaud (bank secretary); Monsieur Maurice Michaud (Jeanne's husband); Jean-Marie Michaud (Jeanne's son, soldier); Monsieur Corbin (bank manager); Count de Furieres (second bank director); Madamoiselle Arlette Corail (dancer); Charles Langelet (wealthy man); The Major (Jean-Marie's commanding officer); Julie (Gabriel's maid); Jules; Arline (Jules' wife); René (a boy); Madame Goulot (hotel owner); Maitre Charboeuf (notary); Sister Marie of the Sacred Sacrament; Sister Marie of the Cherubin; Madeleine Sabarie (farmer's foster daughter); Cécile (farmer's daughter); Madame Craquant (Charlotte's mother); Benoit (Cécile's brother, Madeleine's husband); Louise (Madeleine's neighbor); Gaston Angellier (prisoner of war); elder Madame Angellier (Gaston's mother); Lucile Angellier (Gaston's wife); Kurt Bonnet (German soldier); Lieutenant Bruno von Falk (German soldier); Viscountess de Montmort (president of charity); Amaury (husband of Viscountess de Montmort); Marthe (elder Madame Angellier's cook); Jules Blanc (former Prime Minister); Madame Josse (hairdresser of Madame Michaud); Madame Nonnair (concierge); Hortense Gaillard (Charlie Langelet's housekeeper); the dressmaker
- Important places
- Paris, France; France
- Important events
- World War II, German Occupation of France (1940 | 1944); Holocaust; World War II (1939 | 1945)
- Related movies
- Suite française (2014 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- I dedicate this novel to the memory of my mother and father, to my sister Elisabeth Gille, to my children and grandchildren, and to everyone who has felt and continues to feel the tragedy of intolerance. Denise Epstein
- First words
- Irène Némirovsky wrote the two books that form Suite Francaise under extraordinary circumstances. While they may seem remarkably polished and complete, "Storm in June" and "Dolce" were actually part of a work-in-prog... (show all)ress. Had she survived, Irène Némirovsky would certainly have made corrections to these two books and completed the cycle she envisaged as her literary equivalent to a musical composition. -Translator's Note, Sandra Smith
Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It ws night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away. The first to hear the hum of the siren wee those who couldn't sleep - the il... (show all)l and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. -Storm in June, Chapter 1, War - Quotations
- Important events–whether serious, happy or unfortunate–do not change a man's soul, they merely bring it into relief, just as a strong gust of wind reveals the true shape of a tree when it blows off all the leaves.
Everything withdrew back into the night: the songs, the murmur of kisses, the soft brightness of the stars, the footsteps of the conqueror on the pavement and the sigh of the thirsty frog praying to the heavens for rain, in v... (show all)ain. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)All that remained of the German regiment was a little cloud of dust.
- Original language
- French
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 843.912
- Canonical LCC
- PQ2627.E4 S8513
- Disambiguation notice
- Although written between 1940 and 1942, this book was not published until 2004.
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 843.912 — Literature & rhetoric French Literature French fiction 1900- 20th Century 1900-1945
- LCC
- PQ2627 .E4 .S8513 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 1900-1960
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- ISBNs
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- ASINs
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