Suite Française (2004)

$5.56

It's that time of year again, April, May to read books about the war.
And this was an exceptional one.
It took me some time to read, because it's not an easy novel and also because it's quite a sad one. I loved it and admire the writer.

I find it very special to read the tragical story of Irène and her husband in the appendices. ( )

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky is a brilliant but sadly unfinished tale set in occupied France in the first years of the Second World War. Nemirovsky, who was Jewish, was killed in a concentration camp having only written two of her five planned novels.

The first book follows several Parisians on the days after France falls to the Germans, and the general exodus from the capital city ahead of the arrival of German troops. The second book is set in an occupied agricultural village where a regiment of German soldiers is billeted, and tells of the relationship between the conquerers and the villagers. It is a beautifully detailed story, full of description, so vivid that I could, with ease, picture characters and homes and fields throughout, which only increased the attraction of the book.

Although the novel is classified as historical fiction, I think that is important to remember that it was written during the Second World War and is probably very close to fact, given that Nemirovsky lived in Paris when France was invaded by Germany. There is undoubtedly verisimillitude in the intricate tales, and first-hand knowledge of the availabilty of food and the conditions of the people taking part in the general panicked rush from Paris to the countryside. Although it is lively fiction, it is also partly historical document, and a lot can be learned from it.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a slow read, as the novel unfolds gradually, and because I had such a busy week without much time to read, I kept having to go back a few pages to figure out what was going on when I'd put the book down two days ago. I became very attached to some of the characters, particularly the Michauds and Lucile. This is a book that I will read again, and which I will recommend to others. ( )

Irene Nemirovsky was Jewish. Her family escaped anti-semitic persecution from the Russian government during the 1917 revolution. She relocated to France, and after being arrested in 1942 died in the concentration camp Auschwitz at the age of thirty-nine.

"Suite Francaise" is in two parts. Nemirovsky’s intention was to write a five part novel, covering the entire duration of World War II, but was arrested before completing the last three segments. The novel does cover the Nazi invasion of France in 1940 and through the eyes of a variety of characters, the reader gets to experience exactly what that was like. It’s an understatement to say it was not pleasant. While the men were off fighting - suffering as prisoners of war - or already deceased, the women, children, and old men were under seige struggling to survive.

The local villages surrounding Paris were overrun with German soldiers. Despite food shortages - the German soldiers confiscated all the “bread, the flour, the potatoes... they had taken the petrol and the cars, and now they were taking the horses...... so there are prisoners, widows, misery, hunger, the occupation.” Most households had to accommodate at least one German boarder - relinquish their power over their own home to the very men who had possibly killed their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers.

And yet, Irene Nemirovsky writes with an unbiased non-judgmental viewpoint. War is bad. That is the message. And within the context of the story she makes a philosophical effort to understand the “struggle between personal destiny and collective destiny.”

One interesting point Nemirovky points out is it is easy to be a nice person with principles, kindness, and integrity when life is going well. It’s another story when confronted with catastrophe - like war. “It’s a truism that people are complicated, multifaceted, contradictory, surprising, but it takes the advent of war or other momentous events to be able to see it. It is the most fascinating and the most dreadful of spectacles.... the most dreadful because it is real; you can never pride yourself on truly knowing the sea unless you’ve seen it both calm and in a storm. Only the person who has observed men and women at times like this.... can be said to know them. And to know themselves.”

This is not a novel about the French Jewish population. It is about the French aristocracy that still owned large tracts of land, the local farmers, the ordinary country folk. If there were Jewish residents among them, it was not yet an issue within the time frame of the first two parts of "Suite Francaise". You can see the selfish “every man for himself” mentality begin to emerge as times became more difficult. However, the French were much more compassionate towards the Jews than other European nations. Of the 340,000 Jews in France at the time the German’s invaded France, 75 percent did survive the war. It is a tragedy that even one had to die, and that Irene Nemirovsky didn’t live to finish this novel.

i can’t vouch for the paper back, kindle, and later editions - but the 1st edition printed in English in 2006 has 2 lengthy Appendices (48 pages) of notes from Irene Nemirovsky’s private journal about the situation in France during the occupation and her ideas for the entire novel. Also included are correspondence amongst her family members after her arrest and the Preface to the French Edition - details about her arrest and how the manuscript for the book came to be in a publisher’s hands. ( )

Excellent ( )