Paperback, 431 pages
English language
Published May 7, 2007 by Vintage International.
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. 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. (back cover)
I thought the first novella, about the exodus from Paris during the invasion of the German army in 1940, the more interesting of the two. Overall, a good read, but I wanted to like it more.
Unfinished and unedited but there are moments where Nemirovsky's ability to describe humans - the pettiness, the narcissism, the justifications, the ability to go on like nothing is happening - and the way there can be so much normalcy in the middle of apocalypse. Reading it after experiencing humanity the last couple of years really answers that question, "but how?".
I haven't read any of her other books, but [author: Irene Nemirovsky] was a writer of extraordinary talent. Her characters, Her attention to detail and her ability to inhabit a future that she would never know are the reasons that this book is a great work of literature, despite the fact that she was never able to finish the book.
