Book review # 7: Suite française

Categories: books

Date: 18 March 2008 21:27:44

Suite française is a remarkable account of the downfall of France to the Nazis. There are two distinct parts to the narrative. The first part follows the lives of different groups of Parisians as they flee to Vichy France and the second part tells the stories of villagers who have to live under the occupation. It is written in a beautifully flowing way, detailed and yet it doesn't get bogged down in detail, with themes and families making reappearances throughout. Némirovsky had apparently some Beethoven sonatas in mind when writing it - and it is like a piece of music in many ways.

I decided to read it in the original as I thought it was about time I rescued my French from the depths of my memory. I didn't trust my ability entirely so I borrowed a copy in English from the library to check up bits that I missed. (It would feel too much like a busman's holiday to lie in bed with a dictionary by my side to look up words I didn't know!) To my surprise, I didn't have to use the English version anything like as often as I thought I would. I don't know if reading it in French gave it the lyrical feel I detected but somehow it had quite a romantic feel to it. The narrative was not so much about war and brutality as about people and their reactions to the loss of their country.

The author's own story, however, is as fascinating as the novel she wrote (I think there was going to be at least another part to it but it was never written). Irène Némirovsky had emigrated to France from Russia as a young woman. She met a French Jew and they married (she was also Jewish). They converted to Catholicism (I thought as I was reading it that she seemed to have a deep understanding of the subject) and when France was occupied they fled to Vichy France. Their conversion counted for nothing under the regime and Irène was called up for deportation to the east. She seemed to know what this meant but her husband seems to have been less informed because he wrote a lot of letters to people in high places asking for her to be released. Eventually, he too was called up and he left their two daughters in the care of their French nanny. The nanny moved the two little girls around from place to place for the remainder of the war to avoid the same fate as their parents.

If one reflects on the fact that Irène Némirovsky had no way of knowing what the outcome of the war would be, it seems that she had great courage to write what she did and great hope that all would eventually be well. Very moving.