Suite Francaise

Chegou bem embalado, novo em folha. Ótimo

... était en fait un cadeau destiné à une amie anglaise. Depuis longtemps, j'ai lu, en Français, ce beau roman d'Irène Nemirovsky. Au reste, j'ai lu tous les ouvrages réédités de ce grand écrivain. Connaissant son parcours, à la lecture de chacun de ses livres, j'ai eu le cœur serré. D'autant plus que c'est en Saône et Loire, à Issy-Lévèque, que les gendarmes d'Autun - j'y suis né - sont venus l'arrêter et nous connaissons la suite... J'écris et je réécris, honte au sous-préfet d'Autun, de l'époque, collabo notoire, honte à la gendarmerie. Je n'arrive pas à savoir ce qu'est devenu ce type à la fin de la guerre???...TOMMY

Irène Némirovsky was a talented writer with an amazing outlook that makes her wonderful book, "Suite Française," a captivating read. Although it's a complicated account of the arduous circumstances endured by the French people when the Germans occupied France early in 1940, the author kept it well-organized and easy to follow.Némirovsky was a writer with Jewish forebearers living in Paris during the occupation and witnessed the events she wrote about. After writing this book, although having converted to Catholicism, she was arrested in July, 1942 and sent to Auschwitz where she died. Her husband, Michel Epstein, was arrested three months later, and was sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz never knowing the whereabouts of his beloved wife.Nemirovsky must have written the book during the occupation and hidden it away because it didn't surface until sixty-four years later. The deprivations she surely endured while imprisoned were after the writing of this book and thus were not reflected within its pages. Instead we read about the fear, discomfort, and unpleasant upheaval suffered by most citizens during the occupation in clear and focused language that is strangely poetic and tranquil. Consequently, as a reader, I was able to feel the resolve and the courage of the French people as described by a writer with the ability to illustrate in a pastel style rather than garish prose. I was able to savor her stories rather than be bludgeoned with them.The stories were carefully rendered to present the many different mechanisms for coping. A man known for his frugality met an unusual end that denied him the enjoyment he longed for. A young couple who catered to an oppressive employer got retribution in an odd way. A young woman whose unfaithful husband is a held prisoner by enemy forces finds growing attraction for a young German officer who has commandeered a room in her farmhouse. An aristocratic woman scoffs at the locals for failing to appreciate her ability to get what she wants from the oppressors. A husband returns from the front and finds a German officer billeted in his home with obvious intentions towards the wife he left behind. I'll leave the conclusions to these circumstances for the reader to uncover.There is no single theme to the book other than presenting the many ways the conquered French were impacted by the occupation, and the various ways they chose to cope with it. There are both comical and tender moments. There is prosperity to be found amidst paucity. There is infidelity that is tempered by incredible loyalty. Every act of inhumanity is tempered through bravery and strength.Ordinarily I'm not fond of translated works but Sandra Smith deserves special praise for her efforts with this novel. It was obscure and a work-in-progress so Smith, as she explains in her book notation, had to correct some minor errors and clarify some confusion. Her respect and admiration for the author allowed her to take some "leaps of faith" and liberties with the story without essentially altering the tone and intention of Némirovsky's writing.There are also marvelous appendixes with a transcription of Némirovsky's handwritten notes, correspondences from 1936-1945, including information about the author's imprisonment and death, and the preface to the French edition published in 2004; great reading that provides valuable background information. The correspondences are poignant and painful to read considering the barbaric end to the lives of both Nemirovsky and her husband.I enthusiastically recommend this book as a motivating read absent the coarseness of so many current novels. If you love language and a writer who uses it beautifully, don't miss "Suite Française."Schuyler T WallaceAuthor of TIN LIZARD TALES

Many fine reviews have already been written about this extraordinary novel finally published after more than sixty years. Despite being incomplete, this is a great story not just about the fall of France but about human behaviour under foreign invasion and occupation.Storm in June is about hearing of the defeat in Paris and the subsequent evacuation to the south of several individuals and families. Dolce is set in an occupied French village and examines both the villagers and their German invaders. Three other parts were planned but the author died before she could complete her story.One thing I enjoyed about this novel was its quiet style, which is not seen much these days in show boat celebrity Oprah writting. Irene Nemirovsky is not only brilliant at creating characters of various types and classes, but of showing how they each react to the invasion. Some are brave, some are despicable, most know they will have to make a compromise to survive. This is a complex thing to attempt yet the author still has the will to write measured, beautiful passages describing a summer evening in a village square a few hours before the first German soldier arrives or the spendour of an hotel trying to keep up appearances for its paniced guests. The novel is full of intimate moments that stay with the reader and Irene Nemirovsky sees with prophetic clarity what is happening to France and what will occur after the war.The world is fortunate to have had this book saved. Maybe it will learn something from it.

It is tragic that Irene Nemirovski died in a concentration camp, and such a loss that she could never finish the monumental work she had planned. But the two parts she completed are compelling. Those reluctant to read the book because others have revealed the plot should not be put off. The reviews deal only the themes for the various interlocking stories, but it is the detail that makes the book outstanding, the depth of feeling, the despair, the realisation that the enemy soldier is an individual with his own family, his loves, his losses, who can be liked or even loved, but who, when crisis looms, is still the enemy, to be feared and despised and, where possible, tricked.The first part is fast-moving, frenetic almost, but in the second part the war is understated. This is not the WW2 equivalent of the trenches, portrayed so vividly in 'Birdsong' (Sebastian Faulks). This is about relationships, the interactions between the occupied French and the German soldiers billeted in their village, and between the French themselves. The reactions of the villagers to the enemy soldiers were fascinating, insightful, and at times amusing, in their realism, written, as they were, by a someone experiencing the occupation as it happened. The descriptions of natural beauty - a summer's evening, or a blackbird singing - provide delicious irony against a pervading background of war and strife.This is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking book, a book of contrasts, of characters so skilfully depicted that you feel you know them - even those who feature only fleetingly - of oppression, and of hope. I'd certainly recommend it - it's well worth the read.