Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky


Note - I'm going to try to write this book without making specific reference to the life and death of the author, because I think the knowledge of what happened to her can get in the way of the reading of this book.

Suite Francaise consists of two novellas, which follow - through the eyes of a handful of individuals - the fate of France from June 1940 to July 1941. Nemirovsky planned to write a work in five parts, but in the event this is all we have of the planned sequence. In the first part, 'Storm in June', Nemirovksy concentrates on a few individuals caught up in the exodus from Paris in 1940, when a German invasion of the capital was feared. By focusing on just a few individuals, Nemirovsky gives an evocative picture of a world breaking apart, the roads out of Paris clogged with refugees caught up in the collective panic. She is very good at showing how class and money still matter even in such circumstances - the upper classes desperately clinging to their social standing, even when it no longer matters.

The second, much shorter, novella ('Dolce'), is set in a French village, occupied by a German garrison. The tone of this novella is very different from 'Storm in June', the atmosphere calm, almost static. With the younger French man off fighting, the village consists only of the elderly, women, and children. Although they resent the Germans' presence, there is a degree of ambivalence - instead of being a composite faceless enemy, the Germans are individuals - young men away from home, who miss their parents and sweethearts.

Lucile Angellier lives with her mother-in-law, who loathes the Germans and has little regard for Lucile, assuming - quite rightly - that Lucile is not sorry for the absence of her unfaithful husband, Gaston. Bruno is a young German officer who comes to live in their house. Lucile attempts to mimic her mother-in-law's barely polite attitude, but she warms to the young man, who plays the piano beautifully and knows Balzac.

Nemirovsky's skill at detaching herself from the story she's telling - yet also maintaining an unsentimental sympathy and clear-sighted honesty - is remarkable considering that she was writing at the very time when these events were unfolding. Her plans for the rest of the sequence were of necessity incomplete, since neither she nor anyone else knew how the war would turn out. 'Dolce' ends when the occupying Germans leave France to join the assault on the Soviet Union.

This is a remarkable book, and if it has flaws (the complete absence of Jewish characters, for instance), reading the appendices will put Nemirovsky's achievement in historical context. But Nemirovsky's fate - though harrowing and unforgettable - shouldn't overshadow the valuable historical document that this finely-written novel represents.