Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not your average novel, 16 May 2006
I had read several reviews and deliberated before, finally, making my purchase. Simply to read this novel does not portray the entire experience. The characters in the book are convincingly real, but what I found surprising, was the way in which Irene depicted the occupying forces, not as brutes en masse, but as individuals, each capable of many acts of kindness and consideration.
Once read, it is vital to read the material in the appendices and to consider the times in which these people lived and their total helplessness, in a situation beyond their comprehension.
There are books which stay with you for a while, this one will stay with me forever!
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66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece, a must- read for the present about the past, 13 Mar 2006
I think this is a wonderful book, so moving and beautifully written that you realize after only a few pages, that you are reading a timeless classic, something that will endure for ever in the same way as the great works of Tolstoy or Flaubert. Actually the author has all the lyricism of Tolstoy - and the breadth of vision - but doesn't hammer on about her 'message' as he can do. Think of those passages in Anna Karenina where the great man begins to describe Levin and the ideal life in the country. There is none of this in Suite Francaise. And the wonder of it is that you don't realize the author was Jew living life on borrowed time , exiled to the French countryside and with the full knowledge of what this invasion meant for her personally and her family. There is no fear in the book. It is essentially and creatively feminine. That Irene N. was about to be taken and killed , that she was a Jew in the middle of a European abomination , that never intrudes. You don't read the book for what the author suffered, despite her knowledge of her own personal perilous position, she just lets her art take over so what we get is a timeless brilliant classic which is so much more of an amazing legacy to her and those who died than any personalized or angled account could ever have been. What real heroism to do this, what an achievement, to rise about the fear and humiliation and write this wonderful work. And the translation is fantastic just because we don't notice it specially. Sandra Smith ( translators like editors are surely born to live in the shadows ) has done a fabulous job in not making the book seem at all foreign. There are no jarring phrases and odd distracting foreignisms that often get in the way of really enjoying a great work like this . Of course we are reading Irene Nemirovsky but every word on the page is Smith's and they are all beautifully chosen to match the lyricism of the original.
This is one of the most important books to emerge for years and, it sounds rather plangent but a triumph of life and art over he forces of death and ignorance.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two Unfinished Facets of a Gorgeous Diamond in the Rough Set in World War II Tragedy, 11 May 2007
Suite Française contains two unfinished sections, Storm in June and Dolce, of a planned five-part work about the invasion and occupation of France in World War II. The appendices contain the author's notes for what the other three sections would contain, her correspondence and correspondence about her (especially after she was sent to Auschwitz where she died), and preface to the French edition that outlines her personal history.
This work only recently came to light after Ms. Nemirovsky's surviving daughter, Denise Epstein, began typing out her mother's long-ignored notebook for a memory project.
As you read this work, you'll be responding at two levels: To the monumental tale of a nation unexpectedly brought to its knees and beholden and exposed to its conquerors . . . and to the real human tragedy of a family that would lose both parents while the two daughters survived by being hidden by their governess and those who opposed the Nazis.
Ms. Nemirovsky was a keen observer of the French. All of their quirks from the 1940s are present here, often lampooned into very funny extremes.
Those quirks are first beautifully displayed as a large number of characters are followed while they flee Paris at the last minute before the Germans arrive to evade what they fear will happen to those who stay. With the roads clogged and resources running out, each must cope in her or his own way to find food, lodging, and a safe haven. Not everyone succeeds. In those moments where the realities of the uncivilized aspects of human nature are exposed, you'll feel a chilling presage of the author's ultimate fate.
New dimensions of the quirks are exposed by putting the characters into close contact with German soldiers who are billeted in their homes. Some can make a great show of having no contact, while someone must interact with the Germans to gain benefits that everyone needs. Can you treat an enemy soldier as a person without compromising your own morality, your relationship with your family, and your own integrity? Those are all nice questions that the book raises in Dolce, which covers the period after the invasion through to the beginning of the Russian campaign.
A great strength of these materials can be found in the intense character development. You'll feel like you've always known these people. Even the superficial ones will capture your interest: What selfish, ridiculous actions will they take next?
Even more significantly, the book challenges our notions that groups of people are an entity. Their differences under a label (such as "French" or "German") are much wider than the differences in the labels. You also get a strong message of how dangerous it is for humanity to accept labels rather than considering each person as an individual, as God does.
Rarely have I read any fiction that's so funny, profound, and so enlightening at the same time . . . in the context of great tragedy. You'll find the range of your emotional experiences to be stretched in helpful new ways by this remarkable work.
Writers will take special joy from the book as they gain insights into the working methods of a major novelist.
Bravo!
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