Thursday, June 20, 2019

Back to the Classics Challenge: Suite Française

My choice for the category “Classic in Translation” for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate was Suite Française by Irene Némirovsky. This is one of those books that meets the Challenge’s bylaws in that it was first published in 2007 but actually written in 1942. The story of the author’s life and how the book came to be published is worthy of a novel itself. Némirovsky was originally from the Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) but had immigrated to France with her family as a teenager. She was a popular and well-known author in France. Her debut novel David Golder was a best seller and published when she was only 26 years old.

However, when France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, Némirovsky, as a woman of Jewish ancestry and denied French citizenship, began to feel the pressure put upon Jews by the French government under the occupation. Ultimately, she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered (she died actually of typhus but let’s call a spade a spade. There was never any intent that she should survive her deportation). Her daughters survived the war hidden by friends of the family. Némirovsky’s oldest daughter, Denise Epstein, had kept the manuscript but not read it thinking it was her mother's journal and fearing the experience would be too painful. When she later discovered it to be an unfinished manuscript she approached a publisher and the rest is history.

The novel Suite Française is the first two sections of what the author envisioned as a five-part chronicle of life during wartime under the occupation. Némirovsky was writing as the actual events were unfolding.  The first section is titled “Storm in June” and it depicts an ensemble of characters as they flee Paris at the onset of the invasion in 1939. It reminded me a bit of The Grapes of Wrath in how the best and the worst in people will come out in desperation as people traveled on foot or in vehicles with as much of their worldly possessions as they could carry with the situation becoming more and more dire the further they went. It was very vivid.

The second section titled “Dolce” is a little less tense and definitely more romantic. It takes place in a village located in Vichy France where German troops are sequestered and the characters are only tangentially related to those introduced in the first section. The story’s focus is an unrequited love affair between a French woman and a German officer with other characters showing some of the initial signs of underground resistance by the French and the burden of collaboration.

The edition I read had notes from the author at the back which give hints as to where the final volumes were headed plot wise.  I think the final version would have been epic and an instant classic had the author lived to write it.

19 comments:

  1. I keep meaning to read this, but haven't yet.

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    1. Thanks for the comment reese! That was me too. I've had this book for at least five years now. That's what I like about challenges. They help me get to those books that have been lingering...:D

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  2. Hi Ruthiella, thanks for this review and for including information about the author's life which is so necessary to know when one reads Suite Francaise. This is a book I have heard about for some time and I must read it. Tragically we will never see the follow up books Nemirovsky had planned about life during war time and I agree, they would have been epic but at least we have this book and definitely putting it on my list.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy! I agree that it is important to know background about this book, which is unfinished, before one reads it. It helps with the context.

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  3. Add me to the list of "been meaning to read this" and don't know why I haven't. I'm usually all over WWII fiction and nonfiction and have had Suite Francaise on my list for a long time. There such sadness about the author's fate and inability to complete her goal....

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair. What amazed me was that Nemirovsky was writing as this was actually happening. The first section in particular has a real sense of immediacy.

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  4. I didn't know this one was written back in 1942. I wish the author had been able to finish all the volumes. Congrats on finishing another classic category. I've stalled on my classic reading for some reason. Maybe it's the season. In summer I tend to want to read fluff. Maybe in the fall I'll get back on track. :D

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! I wish too that we could read all five volumes of the suite as the author planned.

      Good luck on getting back on track with the challenge. You can do it. :D

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  5. Great review, Ruthiella. I've never heard of her before although it is the type of book I've read quite a bit of in the past. Have you ever heard of The Bielski Brothers? I only discovered their amazing story a few years ago. There must be so many unwritten tales of people with those types of experiences in WW2.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Carol! I'd not heard of The Bielski Brothers, thanks for the tip. I agree, there are so many unwritten stories out there.

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  6. I thought this book was fab - I've read a couple of others that are also good and, of course, have several others on my shelves...

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    1. Thanks for the comment Simon! Good to know her other books are also good. I will check them out as I come across them.

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  7. What an incredible publication story, and such a sad, tragic end of life. Such promise cut short. I have been reading a far amount of WWII based history and novels lately, and will have to add this to the list.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Jane! This is definitely one to keep in mind if you are interested in WWII novels and history.

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  8. Loved the review, which made me immediately run upstairs to check out my Nemirovsky novels! I came a little late to the Nemirovsky bandwagon, only reading Suite Francaise several years after it was a sensation; I have to admit I was skeptical that it could be as good as all the reviewers claimed. What can I say? It totally blew me away -- I thought it was one of the best things I had read in years. I read a couple of her other books soon afterwards (The Wine of Solitude & All Our Worldly Goods); despite the fact they were almost as good I just drifted away and sort of forgot about Nemirovsky. Your review reminded me how much I admired her writing; now I want to get back to it (I did a quick check and discovered several novels I haven't yet read ....)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Janakay! I need to check out some of her other titles. Like you were, I am late to the party!

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