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audrey_e at Book 2: Suite Franaise2 SUITE FRANCAISE Irène Némirovsky (France, published in 2004 but written during WWII)
In 1940, as the Germans approach Paris, French people from a variety of economic background flee the capital in panic.
Suite Française is a well-written, accessible novel, with a gripping format. Chapters after chapters, with a chilling sense of humor, the author depicts all the levels of French society as they struggle with a new order. While solidarity isn't absent, pettiness and cruelty often prevail in the middle of memorably lyrical descriptions.
What impressed me the most about this novel, is that while Némirovsky was going through the occupation as she wrote about it, she manages to be as objective as possible about the events. I felt no strong resentment against the Germans, nor against anyone else. There was just the voice of an author who was trying to to depict what she knew in the most faithful manner.
As she was Jewish, Némirovsky died in Auschwitz before being able to complete what should have been a long series of novels about the war, which is why I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth at the thought of how great the series could have been.
4/5
In 1940, as the Germans approach Paris, French people from a variety of economic background flee the capital in panic.
Suite Française is a well-written, accessible novel, with a gripping format. Chapters after chapters, with a chilling sense of humor, the author depicts all the levels of French society as they struggle with a new order. While solidarity isn't absent, pettiness and cruelty often prevail in the middle of memorably lyrical descriptions.
What impressed me the most about this novel, is that while Némirovsky was going through the occupation as she wrote about it, she manages to be as objective as possible about the events. I felt no strong resentment against the Germans, nor against anyone else. There was just the voice of an author who was trying to to depict what she knew in the most faithful manner.
As she was Jewish, Némirovsky died in Auschwitz before being able to complete what should have been a long series of novels about the war, which is why I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth at the thought of how great the series could have been.
4/5