

Loading... Suite Française (2004)by Irène Némirovsky
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Well written. Really thought the book was two stories: people fleeing Paris, and then the story of how the French lived with the Germans during occupation. ( ![]() This book was such a surprise. I bought it a few years ago, when the hype about it was everywhere. I tried reading it a couple of times and never got past the first few pages. Until now, that is… While reading I was of course aware that the author had died at Auschwitz, a victim of the same war she had so carefully portrayed the previous months. This meta-literature (Can I create a word?) experience, where author and story seem to confuse themselves, both attracted and deterred me. It felt it was too intimate of an experience, and maybe an even bigger desecration to the author’s life and death. So, the book sat in my bookcase for the past few years. But I am so glad that I finally gave it another try. I was mesmerized by Irene Nemirovsky's scope in telling this story. The German soldiers are as scared and homesick as the French soldiers. The immensity of war does not diminish the anguish of a bad marriage or, for that matter, does not make the smallness of some of the characters less pronounced. This book is actually only about one third of the projected book idea Irene Nemirovsky intended to write. What a tragedy in so many levels that she never had the chance to do it. I totally get that this book is important historically (the author wrote it concurrently while living in France during World War II, before being taken away to her eventual death at Auschwitz), but unfortunately that doesn’t help the fact that this book was at moments quite frustrating to read. It has good moments and its depictions of Parisians fleeing the city after the German invasion and of the changes brought upon a small country town by the German occupation are undoubtedly a useful chronicle of how the common people of France endured the War, but I couldn’t help feeling like the book could have been so much more. Obviously reading this book in its current iteration (as a single novel, rather than as two completely separate books in the same loosely bound series) led my perception in a specific way, since each half has a very different tone. The first (chronicling the exodus of refugees from Paris and the chaos that consumed the countryside at the outset of occupation) book felt rather frantic and disjointed to me, and was not altogether an enjoyable or memorable read due to the plethora of characters with no proper lead. The second half was much more concrete, as the central characters quickly emerged even among the cast of an entire village/regiment, and their story was incredibly engaging. The film that is based on this novel was clearly drawn from only the second section, as the relationship between the French girl and her German officer is one for the ages; I only wish that the novel had been presented as such. 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. Irene Nemirovsky was a very talented writer. This unfinished book (due to the author's arrest and subsequent death at Auschwitz in the summer of 1942) is well written with rich descriptions. There is a large cast of characters that can be a little hard to follow at times.
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 now, impossibly, we can read the two books of Suite Française. Less a Wheel than a Wave 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. THIS stunning book contains two narratives, one fictional and the other a fragmentary, factual account of how the fiction came into being. "Suite Française" itself consists of two novellas portraying life in France from June 4, 1940, as German forces prepare to invade Paris, through July 1, 1941, when some of Hitler's occupying troops leave France to join the assault on the Soviet Union. El descubrimiento de un manuscrito perdido de Irène Némirovsky causó una auténtica conmoción en el mundo editorial francés y europeo. Novela excepcional escrita en condiciones excepcionales, Suite francesa retrata con maestría una época fundamental de la Europa del siglo XX. En otoño de 2004 le fue concedido el premio Renaudot, otorgado por primera vez a un autor fallecido. Imbuida de un claro componente autobiográfico, Suite francesa se inicia en París los días previos a la invasión alemana, en un clima de incertidumbre e incredulidad. Enseguida, tras las primeras bombas, miles de familias se lanzan a las carreteras en coche, en bicicleta o a pie. Némirovsky dibuja con precisión las escenas, unas conmovedoras y otras grotescas, que se suceden en el camino: ricos burgueses angustiados, amantes abandonadas, ancianos olvidados en el viaje, los bombardeos sobre la población indefensa, las artimañas para conseguir agua, comida y gasolina. A medida que los alemanes van tomando posesión del país, se vislumbra un desmoronamiento del orden social imperante y el nacimiento de una nueva época. La presencia de los invasores despertará odios, pero también historias de amor clandestinas y públicas muestras de colaboracionismo. Concebida como una composición en cinco partes —de las cuales la autora sólo alcanzó a escribir dos— Suite francesa combina un retrato intimista de la burguesía ilustrada con una visión implacable de la sociedad francesa durante la ocupación. Con lucidez, pero también con un desasosiego notablemente exento de sentimentalismo, Némirovsky muestra el fiel reflejo de una sociedad que ha perdido su rumbo. El tono realista y distante de Némirovsky le permite componer una radiografía fiel del país que la ha abandonado a su suerte y la ha arrojado en manos de sus verdugos. Estamos pues ante un testimonio profundo y conmovedor de la condición humana, escrito sin la facilidad de la distancia ni la perspectiva del tiempo, por alguien que no llegó a conocer siquiera el final del cataclismo que le tocó vivir.
Life and death in occupied France during World War II. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)843.912 — Literature French French fiction Modern Period 20th Century 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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