Suite Francaise (French language edition) (French Edition) [Paperback]

Irene Nemirovsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2006

In June 1940 France fell to the Nazis. The effects of this momentous event on the lives of ordinary Parisians and the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation are brilliantly explored in Irene Nemirovsky's gripping and heartbreaking novel. Nemirovsky herself was a tragic victim of the Nazi regime but she left behind her this exceptional masterpiece. In Suite Francaise she conjures up a vivid cast of wonderful characters who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction, the Jewish Russian-born Némirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, months after this long-lost masterwork was composed. Némirovsky, a convert to Catholicism, began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces overran northern France in 1940. This gripping "suite," collecting the first two unpolished but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short, have surfaced more than six decades after her death. The first, "Storm in June," chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians, among them a snobbish author, a venal banker, a noble priest shepherding churlish orphans, a foppish aesthete and a loving lower-class couple, all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside, mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans. The second, "Dolce," set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation, tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers. In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest, Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides." This heroic work does just that, by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas. (Apr. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Némirovsky wrote Suite Française as the events that inspired them unfolded simultaneously; that alone makes the work remarkable. The first two novels came to light in 2004 (and were published to great acclaim in France) after Némirovsky's daughters revealed the existence of their mother's notebooks. With the author's notes about her next three novels (Captivity, Battles, and Peace?) included, it's clear that Némirovsky intended to write a sort of War and Peace. Even without Némirovsky's astonishing perspective, critics agree that the novels' witty characterizations, mesmerizing prose, cinematic scenes, and insightful observations make these novels short masterpieces. The New York Times expressed concern over characterization, and Newsday noted the absence of discussion about Jews. Still, Suite Française may be considered "the last great fiction of the war" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: French & European Pubns (March 1, 2006)
• Language: French
• ISBN-10: 0828853061
• ISBN-13: 978-0828853064
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,291,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personalities and human frailities, January 15, 2007

By 

Loren N. Stein - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suite Francaise (French language edition) (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a wonderful book of characters with a true flavor of France; it has a kalidescope of characters and human frailities. To read this book is a magical journey in time to the occupation of France during World Ward II and the very special journey through a good book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For those interested in WWII, January 4, 2007

By 

Hill Country Book Lover - See all my reviews

This review is from: Suite Francaise (French language edition) (French Edition) (Paperback)

The author brings home to those of us who have never experienced war, what it was like when the Nazis invaded Paris and the French countryside. A fictionalized account of the events that challenged both the French and the Germans.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Les Deux Novellas, October 15, 2006

By 

A .J. Casper (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Suite Francaise (French language edition) (French Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

The fact that this masterpiece was not finished does not take away its beauty, or the skill that went into bringing it to fruition. Suite Francaise ranks up there on par (or above) with those forever timeless classics. I felt like a bee in a sea of nectar when I was reading "Dolce" in particular. Nemirovsky captures the human spirit - it's flaws, tragedies, conflicts, and passions. The narrative is clear and lucid, but far from simplified. It reads with a mischievous (but clean) sensuality that is generous, but never gives away too much.

The book is multi-layered. It deals with war and class, the formation of allegiancies and the breaking of ties. It tackles individual strife versus collective strife. It demonstrates the conundrum of the occupied - forced to cohabitate with the conqueror. In the midst of the German invasion of France, classes meet and clash, but a very fine line divides them - something reminiscent of 9/11 and to a great extent, the more recent Katrina. Civil servants, bankers, artists, dancers, and writers collide in a mass exodus from Paris. Nemirovsky portrays the upper-class in a bitingly acerbic way, but does so skillfully and very subtly. She herself was from a wealthy banking family, and she knew the manners of the bourgeois only too well. The middle classes and the working classes are also cleverly portrayed, without the hint of pity that you might come to expect from the author.

Perhaps even more interesting is Nemirovsky's personal life, and the circumstances that surrounded her at the time this book was written. She had no illusions about the hand of fate, as revealed in a letter to her editor. She was deported to Auschwitz two days later. Her husband protested frequently to the authorities, and kept her place at dinner unoccupied, thinking she would return. He, too, was driven strait to the gas chambers shortly afterward. The manuscript of Suite Francaise was discovered by her daughter years later and published in French, and then translated.

The book is timeless, and one almost wishes for a biography of the author. If a translation is this good, I am tempted to wonder how it reads in the original French, and am left flabbergasted that this work is not more popular than it is today.