Suite Francaise

Irene Nemirovsky

Apr 2006 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control during World War II—a heartrending "portrait of a small French town under seige, and the people trying to survive, even to live, as Hitler’s horrors march closer and closer to their doors" (New York).

“Stunning.... A tour de force.” —The New York Times Book Review

Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940, as Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts.

When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.

Ratings and reviews

Suite Francais was written by Irene Nemirovsky while France was at war, and the story about the book is almost better than the book itself.... the novel was created while the author was sequestered by Nazis in the French countryside and the manuscript was only discovered decades after the author's death in Auschwitz. The prose is a bit heavy-handed in parts, "Christian charity, the compassion of centuries of civilization, fell from her like useless ornaments, revealing her bare, arid soul. She needed to feed and protect her children. Nothing else mattered any more." But there are also deft portrait sketches, "He had a unique way of thinking - he didn't consider himself that important; in his own eyes, he was not that rare and irreplaceable creature most people imagine when they think about themselves." Nemirovsky doesn't hesitate to show the dark side of personalities, but unfortunately any redeeming qualities are few and far between. Unlike Frankl or Wiesel she didn't have the luxury of time to process the experience and look back on events. As a result there is a real visceral quality to the writing but it sometimes seems a bit too self conscious. What I mean is, when you read the Appendices, you can see notes she made to herself about technique, "If I want to create something striking, it is not misery I will show but the prosperity that contrasts with it." This work would likely have been a real masterpiece if the author lived to finish it, if she had been able to complete her creative process of draft, rewrite, polish. Instead we are left with glittering fragments. If you don't read the book at least read the appendices, they show the true genius of this great writer.

Novel written about life in occupied France during WW2. The Author was a Jewess who wrote a very different story to the one she actually experienced which finished with her death in Auschwitz in 1942.

That rare occasion when the movie is better than the book.

About the author

IRÈNE NÉMIROVSKY was born in Kiev in 1903 into a wealthy banking family and emigrated to France during the Russian Revolution. After attending the Sorbonne, she began to write and swiftly achieved success with her first novel, David Golder, which was followed by The Ball, The Flies of Autumn, Dogs and Wolves and The Courilof Affair. She died in 1942.