Suite Française in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Sep 14, 2008 Elizabeth rated it really liked it

Shelves: france, fiction, historicalnovels

I liked this book. I thought the writing was sweeping and vibrant. "Dolce" in particular was sad and moving for me. It was also interesting to view WWII through the eyes of the women left behind. However, when I read the appendixes, I was appalled.
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Aug 07, 2008 Otis Chandler rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

A great snapshot of history. It's about the experiences of ordinary French people as they flee Paris in 1940 when the Germans are invading. The second part is about after the Germans occupy France, how people in the towns get along with their hosts.

I loved the class breakdowns that occur. When the rules of society are no longer being enforced, having money or being a famous writer no longer make you more special than the next person. The descriptions of the characters prejudices, which were mos ...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: jewish-experience, classics, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 14, 2011 Arianna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

This was a beautifully tragic look at occupied France and the relationships that the invaders and citizenry had to form, the situations they all had to endure. It was especially poignant for me because our grandmother lived and worked in an occupied house in Normandy, and dealt with German soldiers every day. How terrifying it must have been for her, but this book indicates how people had to learn to live everyday life together, amid the daily war-related issues (shortages, deployments, etc.). I ...more

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May 22, 2008 M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2008, 1001-books, favorites, own

Suite française is a choral novel, meaning that the story is narrated through several points of view from totally different characters, though equally important to the plot, if such thing as a plot exists in this book. This novel deals with World War II, not as a historical event, but as something that shattered the lives of many people.

Némirovsky wrote this during WWII, and she died in 1942 in Auschwitz, so she never finished the novel that was going to be her masterpiece, or so she wanted. Ném Suite française is a choral novel, meaning that the story is narrated through several points of view from totally different characters, though equally important to the plot, if such thing as a plot exists in this book. This novel deals with World War II, not as a historical event, but as something that shattered the lives of many people.

Némirovsky wrote this during WWII, and she died in 1942 in Auschwitz, so she never finished the novel that was going to be her masterpiece, or so she wanted. Némirovsky links the various scenes with great subtlety, in a way that brings to my mind films like Crash or Magnolia. Indeed, the whole book gives me the impression that Némirovsky quite studied making a film out of it, and I found me frequently imagining angles and quick movements of camera alike to those of Álex De la Iglesia in The Oxford Murders. I think she would have achieved a masterpiece if she had finished writing it. There is a kind of rhythm inherent to the story that makes the title a perfect choice.

Tempête en Juin presents the first moments of anguish and chaos after the first Paris bombardment. Many people flood away from the capital with great rush, to avoid a danger that was fast spreading. Némirovsky lived her writing in first person, and as in many of her other works, she used Tempête as a revenge, as a way to soothe herself. She could not help feeling that everyone around her was selfish and vain in some way – she was not being helped by those who could and those who couldn’t believed she looked down on them. And so this novella is dry, fast and bitter. However, it is also a revealing piece of art with many nuances that make it complex and beautiful. Also, there are some scenes that mean humans are able of hope and faith/love even in the most desperate states of mind.

In Dolce, Némirovsky describes the collaboration policy adopted by France with regard to the Nazi invasion, through the thoughts of the inhabitants of a small French village. Here, she starts linking strongly the stories of some characters (or groups of characters) introduced in Tempête. I loved Lucile Angellier, and how Némirovsky chose to tell us her first approach to love and freedom in an indirect way. It did not seem forced, at all, it seemed fresh and necessary and marvellously accomplished, even though it has been used many times before Suite française. It is in Dolce where I feel the sense of rhythm more clear. I also like the parallelism Némirovsky depicted, between bourgeois and farmers.

I would say Suite française is full of literary merit by itself, without including the tragedy surrounding it. Anyways, although the death of the author was sad, she was not by any meaning a Jewish martyr, as I have heard. You only have to read her other work. However, the book is an important testimony as how the world exploded into such a horrible war, how the Nazis were not the only culprits. And she was not the only one to die in Auschwitz, anyway.
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May 29, 2008 Meera rated it really liked it

This was a really interesting book, totally unlike any other WWII or Holocaust-era literature. It's amazing that the author Irene Nemirovsky wrote the novel nearly at the same time that the tragedy was actually unfolding throughout Europe.

There are many different story lines going on in the two novellas, and between the two novellas I actually enjoyed the first one more - the exodus from Paris. The characters are really amusing in their selfishness and class-consciousness, but it made me wonder ...more

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Mar 22, 2007 Kecia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1001-books, judaism, france

My heart aches when I think of this novel! Oh, if only it were not unfinished! But even in its unfinished form it is a masterpiece. The story of how the novel was written and finally published is even more heartbreaking than novel.

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