Suite Francaise

Nemirovsky's has a wonderful, yet urgent flow to her storytelling; it was difficult to put the book down. I loved her sense of irony and the unexpected twists of fate that her characters take. The characters are wonderful and not stereotypical. She takes a risk by not characterizing all of the German soldiers as "evil". Similarly, not all of the French are "good". It helps to know the story of the autor and to know that this is two books cobbled together because it helps make sense of the storylines. A superb book.

This is a really lovely book. dipicting many souls during the nazi occupation of Paris. It a side of history we dont see. I think because it has not been polished or reflected on. The writer wrote all of this while it was happening. Very nice work and is sure to be as important to history as the diary of Anne Frank.

i didnt even finish this book even though despite my best efforts. to many characters to keep track of. and just not enough depth to keep it interesting. i was deeply disapointed.

I'll make this short. As far as fiction is concerned, this book is the equivalent of an historic photograph. It is in black and white rather than in color (Steven Spielburg wasn't the first to see WWII as dark...)and much of its beauty lies in the fact that it is a clear voice from another time and place. A treasure, maybe more crudely carved than finely crafted, but we are lucky to have had it survive. So real.

Recognizing beforehand that this wouldn't be a complete story arc (as the author died in one of the Holocaust camps), I had to try to approach the book without any prejudice toward it for having a weak ending (i.e., no ending). Unfinished books can be interesting to read to view the storytelling process in the midst of its evolution, but are rarely satisfying as stories in their own right. Némirovsky's work here is perhaps more polished than a simple draft, but even her notes suggest that the finished chapters and two volumes that were published are not necessarily how they would appear in her final product.

So then, what about what we are given?

It's, well, pretty good. It's not riveting by any means. There is no climax to her first act ("Storm in June") and her second act plays out pretty softly (appropriately enough for a section entitled "Dolce"). While each segment picks up interest in later chapters, both start off at such a slowburn that many readers won't make it past a hundred pages. Character-wise, Némirovsky doesn't provide the reader with many sympathetic characters either. Not only are almost all the inhabitants of her story arrogant hypocrites, but they are almost universally uninteresting as well.

The first book is a pile of vignettes describing the circumstances of several families and individuals as they flee Paris on the eve of its fall into German hands on 14 June 1940. The narrative is as disorganized and haphazard, perhaps, as was the exodus it chronicles. There are flourishes of course and moments of interest (notably a chapter written from the perspective of a cat in heat), but on the whole it functions better as documentary than as story. The second book is easily superior, but much slower paced. There are more sympathetic characters and much more time for introspection. In a way, book two ("Dolce") could function as some sort of Jane Austen work, only with Nazis and junk.

Back to characters. Reading, Suite Française, I first thought that Némirovsky was an out-and-out misanthrope, despising all humanity, no matter its form or station. Gradually, I came to see that there is a certain class of person whom Némirovsky bears little ill will and seems to believe at least capable of being both genuine and rational. Those people seem to fit in the lower middle class and be young enough to still see beauty in the world (the Michaud couple are only in their early forties or so, and are an exception to the youthfulness qualification). Her sympathetic characters are the Michauds, Jean-Marie Michaud, Lucile, the young engaged couple fleeing from Paris on their wedding day, Bruno (the German soldier staying with Lucille's family), Madeleine (to some extent), and Hubert (after he rejects the hypocrisy and privilege of his class).

I should note I really did appreciate Némirovsky's ability to describe the hypocrisies of her characters through the various perspectives of her other characters. This actually makes it a little more difficult to pin down the author's own feelings toward others.

I'd be curious to read Némirovsky's other works to see how she paints the classes as a general rule, but if they're not more interesting books than Suite Française, I think I'll skip.