The Life of Irene Nemirovsky: 1903-1942 [Paperback]

After reading several of Irène Némirovsky's intense novels, I was eager to know more about her. There is no more comprehensive and authoritative source of information than this biography. The authors are clearly passionate about her work and fascinated by her remarkable life. "I never knew peaceful times," Nemirovsky said on a radio show. "I've always lived in anxiety and often in danger."

Because Némirovsky's characters and plots were inspired by her own life, it's especially rewarding to learn about her family, the circles she moved in and the political turmoil she saw first hand.

Irène Némirovsky lived through many incarnations: she was a pampered rich girl in the twilight of Tsarist Russia, a refugee fleeing the Bolsheviks with her family, a flapper in Paris in the roaring twenties, a devoted wife and mother, a boldly Jewish writer, a thoroughly French writer, a convert to Catholicism and a victim of the Holocaust. All of these facets of Némirovsky are richly described by the authors.

And we get a detailed picture of Némirovsky's heartless, vain, lascivious mother - the source of so many of the novelist's monstrous female villains.

Quite a few of Némirovsky's novels and stories are out of print or unavailable in English. The authors of this biography, however, describe them all, even the "potboilers" she turned out when desperate for money. Readers who want a complete look at her work will find it here. I was a bit bored by the plot summaries of stories I can't obtain. But in the case of books I've read, I enjoyed the detailed analyses given by the authors. No doubt different readers will react differently to this aspect of the biography.

The Life of Irène Némirovsky reads like history as well as biography. It paints a frightening picture of the persecution of the Jews in the twentieth century, from the pogroms in Russia to Hitler's Final Solution for France.

I consider this biography something of a reference book that I'll probably revisit as I continue to read Irène Némirovsky's fiction. I recommend it to readers who wish to read Némirovsky in the context of her times and her experience.

On July 13,1942,a pair of French gendarmes knocked on the door of the asthmatic writer Irene Nemirovsky.This act was the signaled the beginning of her journey -like many other thousands of Jews in France-to the accursed crematoria,where she had been gassed.
Irene Nemirovksy was a Russian Jew from Kiev,born in 1903,and for the Jews the times were horrible because of the many pogroms committed against them.Her mother,Fanny,was a lustful,spiteful woman who detested her own flesh and blood,who saw Irene as a rival and Irene got the motherly affection from her beloved French governess.Her father was a small gambler who finally succeeded in making a fortune;the rough times of the Russian people forced the family to flee to France via Finnland and Sweden.They had arrived in France in 1919.Ten years later,a "meteor had burst across the French literary sky",because in October of that year,a French publisher in Paris picked up from a pile of manuscripts her future best-seller "David Golder".He was shocked and remained awake all night after reading the whole manuscript. The book discusses in detail the life of a Jewish banker,Golder,who likes to make money for the sake of it. Because Nemirovsky sustained attacks from various critics claiming she was an anti-Semite,she denied those charges and the authors of this marvellous and riveting biography make it clear that she was far from being a Jew hater.If one remembers the many instances and historical facts about different Jewish businessmen,such as Stavisky and Madoff,one is inclined to agree with the view suggested by the authors of this book. After all, Nemirovsky was describing,as she said, "the Jews as she saw and knew" in France,where many nouveau-riches,including Jews,were also conmen and bigshots. The book sold 60000 copies and was a tremendous success. In a very short time,namely,in seven years(until her tragic murder) she published nine novels and many short stories. The authors point out the connection between the world of fiction and the biographical detail of Nemirovsky with great care and depth.
To write such a biography is not easy at all,and the writers had to check many unpublished sources in Russian archives,as well as many other primary sources.They emphasize,justly,the venomous anti-Semitic atmosphere of the French starting from the beginning of the twentieth century-a tradition which culminated in the century before. Nemirovsky became the mother of two daughters,while her husband,Leon,was a successful banker and as the one who typed her works.
Another pivotal part in this book is devoted to Nemirovsky's conversion to Catholicsim.Ironically,this fact did not save her and her husband from her terrible fate and has not awarded her with her so much sought-after French citizenship. While the writers of the book claim that this act was an act of faith,one is inclined to disbelieve this view. I would argue that she had done it because she wanted to hide and erase her Jewishness in order to save her career as a writer.
The third part of the book gives a broad picture of the times after June,1940,when the French surrendered to the brutal Nazi regime. Ten million French were streaming south and became,like Nemirovsky,homeless and rootless.It is at this point where the inception of her famous "Suite Francaise" took place.Why this title? Because she thought about the novel in terms of "a cyclical symphony,in which the main difficulty consisted of binding the parts with a common theme or leitmotif".In addition,"she compared her characters to the instrumental solo in a symphony and the crowd scenes to the choruses that give breath and contrast to the plot".Before her husband was apprehended and dispatched to the gas chambers,he had managed to put his wife's manuscript in a suitcase and asked his two daughters never to part from "this suitcase,for it contains your mother's manuscript".
Nemirovsky,whose name means "someone who does not have peace",wrote her masterpiece on tiny pieces of paper because paper was scarce and due to the fact that she wanted to conceal it from the Nazis. With the aid of a strong magnifying glass,Denise,her older daughter,managed to decipher and type her mother's novel,which was published to world-wide acclaim in 2004 and became a world bestseller.
This brilliant biography is also one which offers its readers a detailed picture of a world gone mad from the beginning of the previous century to 1945.It also gives the readers a wide scope of the French society during the years 1920-1942.The Nazi beasts denied Nemirovsky everything she had dreamt about:her Catholicism,her artistry and her personality.Unfortunately,her revenge and success came only after her death.
Finally,praise must also go to the translator of this book,Euan Cameron,who has managed to do a wonderful job.

If you are a student of modern European history or interested in the events surrounding the German/French relationship prior to--and during--World War II, this is an easy to read and intimate non-fiction glimpse into the life and premature death of a talented but conflicted woman who was murdered along with much of her family by the invading armies and their executioners.

Of paticular interest is Nemirovsky's authorship of a notorious novel that wss criticized, at the time, for mocking and impugning members of her own faith. In fact, she later converted to Catholicism, but was unable to escape the deadly fate ordained by forces beyond her contol. Recommended.