Suite francesa

Escrito por Irène Némirovsky

Narrado por Sheila Blanco

Novela excepcional escrita en condiciones excepcionales, Suite francesa retrata con maestría una época fundamental de la Europa del siglo XX.

En otoño de 2004 le fue concedido el premio Renaudot, otorgado por primera vez a un autor fallecido.

Imbuida de un claro componente autobiográfico, Suite francesa se inicia en París los días previos a la invasión alemana, en un clima de incertidumbre e incredulidad. Enseguida, tras las primeras bombas, miles de familias se lanzan a las carreteras en coche, en bicicleta o a pie. Némirovsky dibuja con precisión las escenas, unas conmovedoras y otras grotescas, que se suceden en el camino: ricos burgueses angustiados, amantes abandonadas, ancianos olvidados en el viaje, los bombardeos sobre la población indefensa, las artimañas para conseguir agua, comida y gasolina. A medida que los alemanes van tomando posesión del país, se vislumbra un desmoronamiento del orden social imperante y el nacimiento de una nueva época.

La presencia de los invasores despertará odios, pero también historias de amor clandestinas y públicas muestras de colaboracionismo. Concebida como una composición en cinco partes -de las cuales la autora sólo alcanzó a escribir dos- Suite francesa combina un retrato intimista de la burguesía ilustrada con una visión implacable de la sociedad francesa durante la ocupación. Con lucidez, pero también con un desasosiego notablemente exento de sentimentalismo, Némirovsky muestra el fiel reflejo de una sociedad que ha perdido su rumbo. El tono realista y distante de Némirovsky le permite componer una radiografía fiel del país que la ha abandonado a su suerte y la ha arrojado en manos de sus verdugos. Estamos pues ante un testimonio profundo y conmovedor de la condición humana, escrito sin la facilidad de la distancia ni la perspectiva del tiempo, por alguien que no llegó a conocer siquiera el final del cataclismo que le tocó vivir.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Una narración de un vigor extraordinario.»
Le Monde

«Una obra excelente.»
New York Times

«Es preciso leer este libro.»
Le Nouvel Observateur

«Una obra maestra.»
L'Express

«Un libro de una calidad literaria excepcional.»
TLS

«Sensacional recuperación [...] Némirovsky registra con portentosa serenidad, sin consentirse ninguna flaqueza sentimental, la perturbación de los hombres y mujeres zarandeados por la guerra. [...] Se trata de una escritora que crea adicción.»
Babelia

«La lectura de este libro significa mucho más que el simple acercamiento a un documento trágico de una época fundamental para la historia de Europa.»
ABC de las letras

«Literatura de la mejor cepa. [...] Suite francesa por lo tanto, además de ficción pura, es un documento personal y directo del mismo rango que el Diario de Ana Frank o Una mujer en Berlín de autora anónima.»
Culturas

«Hay novelas llenas de verdad capaces de conservar intacto entre sus páginas un trozo del mundo. Ésta es una de ellas.»
Territorios

«Suite francesa es una excelente novela que ha crecido con los años. [...] La obra de Némirovsky debe interpretarse como un acto de resistencia del espíritu contra el fanatismo y la intolerancia Sus palabras aún nos iluminan.»
El Cultural

«Un fresco extraordinario, de una hondura humana e inteligencia literaria prodigiosos.»
Caballo Verde

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Penguin Random House Audio
• Traductor: José Antonio Soriano Marco
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 23 sept 2021
• ISBN: 9788418363795

Irène Némirovsky

Irène Némirovsky nació en Kiev en 1903 en el seno de una familia acaudalada que huyó de la revolución bolchevique para establecerse en París en 1919. Hija única, Irène recibió una educación exquisita, aunque padeció una infancia infeliz y solitaria. Años antes de obtener la licenciatura en Letras por la Sorbona, su precoz carrera literaria se inicia en 1921 con la publicación del texto Nonoche chez l'extralucide en la revista bimensual Fantasio. Pero su salto a la fama se produce en 1929 con su segunda novela, David Golder, la primera que vio la luz en forma de libro. Fue el inicio de una deslumbrante trayectoria que consagraría a Némirovsky como una de las escritoras de mayor prestigio de Francia, elogiada por personajes de la talla de Jean Cocteau, Paul Morand, Robert Brasillach y Joseph Kessel. Sin embargo, la Segunda Guerra Mundial marcó trágicamente su destino. Denegada en varias ocasiones por el régimen de Vichy su solicitud de nacionalidad francesa, Némirovsky fue deportada y murió asesinada en Auschwitz en 1942, igual que su marido, Michel Epstein. Sesenta años más tarde, el azar quiso que Irène Némirovsky regresara al primer plano de la actualidad literaria con el enorme éxito de Suite francesa, su obra cumbre, descubierta casualmente por sus hijas, publicada en 2004 y galardonada a título póstumo con el premio Renaudot, entre otras muchas distinciones. Las novelas de Irène Némirovsky, publicadas en español por Salamandra, han sido traducidas a treinta y nueve idiomas.

Comentarios para Suite francesa

[thorold_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

During 1941-1942, Irène Némirovsky was living with her husband and daughters at Issy-l’Éveque, south-west of Dijon. Unable to publish because of the antisemitic laws in force in occupied France, she worked on a grand, unpublishable novel which would paint a comprehensive picture of France under the Germans. It would have stretched to at least four parts and 1000 pages, had she been able to complete her plan, and it might well have gone further than that as the war advanced. However, she was only able to complete the first two parts (already a good 500 pages) before being arrested by French gendarmes on 13 July 1942 and handed over to the Germans for deportation to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on arrival. Her daughters were able to go into hiding and survived the war, with the help of their governess. They preserved the manuscript, but, taking it for a private diary of her last days, they were reluctant to look at it. It only became clear sixty years later that it was actually an unfinished novel.

Tempête en juin opens the book with an episodic account of the panic of June 1940, as Parisians try to escape from the advancing invasion. Némirovsky follows several different groups of refugees through the chaos, and we get a good sense of where the book is going as she shows us the selfishness and cowardice of wealthy intellectuals, bourgeois families and business people as the panic develops and contrasts it with the much better behaviour of her lower-middle-class and peasant characters. Needless to say, most of the rich survive, despite their bad behaviour, whilst the self-sacrifice of the poor is unrewarded more often than not.

The second part, Dolce has a tighter, more narrative structure, looking at life in a French village where a German regiment has been stationed during the months leading up to July 1941. French villagers and German soldiers have to find a modus vivendi, but neither side can ever quite forget the real tensions underlying their relationships. Many of the French have husbands or sons who are prisoners of war or were killed during the invasion, and of course many of them still remember the previous war (or even the war of 1870). But most of the Germans, when you get to know them, are just normal people who in civil life love music and books, have wives and children at home, and so on. Némirovsky again makes fun of the selfishness of the bourgeois families and the total disconnection with real life of the local aristocracy — the Pétain-supporting countess may hate all Germans on principle, but she is also the only character in the book (so far) who really shares all their racist and authoritarian ideals. And she can’t understand why the local farmers hate her.

Having read about Némirovsky’s fate, I somehow expected this to be a “Holocaust novel”, but of course it’s nothing of the sort. In the two completed parts there aren’t even any Jewish characters (although some seem to have been planned for later parts). It’s a very French novel, about French society and the way it coped, or failed to cope, with one of its most difficult periods of history. In an odd way, it reminded me of Angela Thirkell’s “home front” novels from the same period, although of course Thirkell was writing about the same kind of wartime social collisions from a perspective in which all her sympathy was with the bourgeois and aristocratic characters forced to give up their privileged lifestyle. Némirovsky seems to find that it’s about time those privileged people had a dose of reality — even though she came from a pretty privileged background herself, and her most convincing and sympathetic characters are at least on the edge of those privileged families.

[jodiebc · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Very real characters. An unfinished novel... the story about the author is just as compelling as the story.

[stellarexplorer · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

When I opened this book, I had long forgotten how it had come into my library some years before. Fortunately, I have a semblance of a TBR shelf, so it didn’t get lost amid the many other volumes. I noted the publication date: 2004. Oh this looks like good historical fiction! Happy with my discovery and before reading a page, I traveled in my mind to June 1940, imagining myself glaring angrily at the Nazis, marching into Paris. I thought of Casablanca, as Rick made the plans that would tear him away from Ilsa until the moment she walked into that gin joint a world away.

But in Paris, the fear and chaos jumped off the page. Sounds and smells and human reactions felt almost too sharp, too acrid, details almost like someone had been there. It begins:

“Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away. The first to hear the hum of the siren were those who couldn't sleep—the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. To them it began as a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh. It wasn't long before its wailing filled the sky. It came from afar, from beyond the horizon, slowly, almost lazily. Those still asleep dreamed of waves breaking over pebbles, a March storm whipping the woods, a herd of cows trampling the ground with their hooves, until finally sleep was shaken off and they struggled to open their eyes, murmuring, "Is it an air raid?"

I felt confused. What a remarkable recreation of a moment, almost a century gone by now. The voice was almost of someone who had been there. The necessary research and grasp of the social subtleties staggered me. I reflected on great works of historical fiction I have read: Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series, Toni Morrison’ Beloved, and the delightful A Gentleman in Moscow from Amor Towles, for example. Surely there is historical fiction and great historical fiction!

Then I realized. The sights and sounds were fresh and believable not because of Némirovsky’s powers of reconstruction and creative authenticity. This was not historical fiction at all. She was there. A quick check revealed the truth: Némirovsky wrote the two novellas in this collection, probably not fully completed, nearly contemporaneously with the events they describe. The time frame is June 1940 to July 1941. The setting Paris and the French countryside. She was born a Ukrainian Jew in Kiev in 1903, fled to France in the face of the Russian Revolution, attended the Sorbonne, published a popular French novel in 1929, and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1939. She was arrested in July 1942 in front of her daughters - the Nazis evidently not impressed with her conversion - and died in Auschwitz a month later. Her daughter kept the manuscripts unread for fifty years thinking they were journals that would be too painful to read. Prior to donating the material to a French archive, she read it. Published to critical acclaim in 2004, Suite française became a best seller in France.

Némirovsky’s achievement is astonishing. There are many surviving accounts of historical moments. They tend to be observational in the form of diaries and witnessed reports. She not only described the events around her in miniature journalistic detail, but was able to craft her narrative with social commentary, psychological interpretation, perceptive analysis, and fully realized though fictional characters. She was inside the heads of her French compatriots even as she herself was enduring the hardships of danger and escape. And description fails to do justice to her efficient and reflective prose:

“The three young men stood up and clicked their heels. In the past, she had found this display of courtesy by the soldiers of the Reich old-fashioned and rather affected. Now, she thought how much she would miss this light jingling of spurs, the kiss on the hand, the admiration these soldiers showed her almost in spite of themselves, soldiers who were without family, without female companionship. There was in their respect for her a hint of tender melancholy: it was as if, thanks to her, they could recapture some remnant of their former lives where kindness, a good education, politeness towards women had far more value than getting drunk or taking an enemy position. There was gratitude and nostalgia in their attitude towards her; she could sense it and was touched by it.”

This is a fine work, a time capsule of a fraught and crucial period. Journalism has been described as the first rough draft of history. Némirovsky’s novel has the persuasive integrity of good journalism, but the draft feels anything but rough.

[castlelass · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This novel contains two separate parts related through setting and time period. The first is a story of the attempt to flee France in advance of the German invasion in 1940. The second is set in rural France during the German occupation and tells of how the families of the town interacted with the German soldiers.

I have read reviews that say some people are tired of books set in World War II. Here’s my attempt to convince them to at least consider this one:
- It was written contemporaneously (in 1940-1941).
- It is not just a modern story using the war as a backdrop.
- It is set in occupied France and provides a first-hand perspective.
- It is not a book about horrors of the concentration camps.
- It is beautifully written.
- It is historically significant. The author was a Jewish woman who was killed at Auschwitz in 1942, only a year after she finished the first two of what were supposed to be five segments of Suite Française. Her children brought out the manuscript and it was finally published in 2004.

I appreciated the many small and poignant scenes that provide a sense of the shock and denial experienced by people in the face of imminent war. For example, as a family begins to flee their home, the servants are packing the car: “If you listened closely, you could hear the sound of planes in the sky. French or enemy? No one knew… It was impossible to make the servants listen to reason. They were trembling with fear. Even though they wanted to leave too, their need to follow a routine was stronger than their terror, and they insisted on doing everything as they had always done when getting ready to go to the countryside for the summer holidays…They were living two different moments, half in the present and half deep in the past, as if what was happening could only seep into a small part of their consciousness, the most superficial part, leaving all the deeper regions peacefully asleep.”

The Notes at the end bumped the rating to 5 stars, as they are a moving testament to a real family’s tragedy. They include the author’s plans for the rest of the novel and letters written by her husband to the authorities after she was arrested, trying to find out where she was being held. His emotional pleas are heart-breaking. It is a real example of just one of many tragedies that occurred during the Holocaust.

[leslie398 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

3.5 stars; I rounded up based on the heartrending appendix containing the letters.

While I found this easy to read and the wide variety of reactions to the German occupation of France (in 1940-41) fascinating, the story itself lacked plot. I am a reader who likes plot-driven narrative over character studies so if you aren't, you will probably like this more than I did! I felt the book lacked cohesion and especially the first section "Storm in June" seemed to be mostly vignettes. Some of that lack stems from the fact that this is an unfinished novel (due to the fact that Némirovsky was arrested by the Nazis in July 1942, sent to Auschwitz and died on 17 August 1942) but I got the sense from her notes that it was intended to be more of a study of French character.

Having said that, her characters are extremely well drawn, even the ones we meet only fleetingly. It was difficult to remember that this was a contemporary account as she wrote it with such a clear and unsentimental style that it feels as though it had the emotional distance of years. There was only one incident that didn't seem to me to fit - the death of the priest Philippe Péricand at the hands of the orphan boys. Actually it isn't so much the boys killing Philippe that bothered me as their behavior throughout the trip with Philippe. It just didn't seem like the behavior of adolescent boys to me, even if they had been raised in a dysfunctional orphanage.

[baswood · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

There are 333 reviews listed on LibraryThing and so I need not add much to what has already been said. I am therefore just going to give my impressions of this excellent book. Némirovsky was born in Kiev, she was jewish, but by the time she was writing the Suite française she had lived in France for over 20 years and had become a french national and converted to christianity. The first book tells of the flight from Paris just before the nazi invasion in 1940 and the second depicts a small town under Nazi occupation in 1941. Two events of which Némirovsky had first hand knowledge.

The story of the flight from Paris: 'tempête en juin' tells the story of several peoples experiences as the sought to escape the Nazis. There is the wealthy family Pericaud in their charabanc of cars taking everything they can with them, including Arthur the cat. Gabriel Corte a famous and well connected author is fleeing with his mistress. Charles Longelat a wealthy collector of porcelain and finally the banker Corbin and two of his employees les Michauds are all on the road. A good mix of the layers of society of Paris, who meet other people along the way in the confusion of the flight. It is the confusion in the fog of war that is well depicted here. The Germans are faceless invaders, bombing, shelling and strafing the towns and the countryside, the only soldiers that are met are the rags and tags of the defeated french army. Nemirovsky skilfully changes her POV from one character to another, including a memorable sequence describing Arthur the cat adapting to his new territory.

The second book Dolce is the more involving of the two books. A small town adapting to life under German occupation. The shortage of men who have either been killed or are prisoners of the Germans; place intolerable pressures on the women folk left behind. At the time 1941 after the defeat of the french army and the signing of the armistice it would appear that the Germans would be in France for some time. To what extent should the French citizens collaborate with the occupiers? Némirovsky observes that collaboration was more likely to occur in the upper levels of society. The rich and well connected town folk were more interested in keeping hold of their wealth and their position in society than being patriotic french citizens. They had more in common with the higher ranking German officers than the working citizens in the town.

The book was written more or less contemporaneously by the author who was murdered in the gas chambers in 1942. At the time of writing she did not know the outcome of the war and so her viewpoint was not affected by subsequent history. Again in the second book she is able to change her POV from character to character, emphasising the enormous gaps between the high born, the nouveaux rich, the tradespeople and the agricultural workers.
A revealing document and some excellent writing make this a five star read.

[naggedman · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

How come I didn't know the author or this book, I asked myself? Turns out the text went missing when the author was sent from occupied France to Auschwitz in 1942, only rediscovered about 2004, with Sandra Smith's excellent translation published in 2006. Now regretting that I have neither the time nor the language skills to read the original French. What writing.

[niquetteb · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Irene Nemirovsky was a very talented writer. This unfinished book (due to the author's arrest and subsequent death at Auschwitz in the summer of 1942) is well written with rich descriptions. There is a large cast of characters that can be a little hard to follow at times.

[drfuriosa · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is an interesting and tragic story of German-occupied France, made more heartbreaking by the book's unfinished nature and the author's untimely death in a concentration camp.

[rab1953-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

What a wonderful range of people Nemirovsky created, with such depth that even minor figures don’t come across as caricatures or stereotypes. And it must have been a particular challenge to avoid stereotypes when she was writing during the German invasion of France and her own experience of evacuation to what she hoped would be a safe retreat with her children.
The first section of the book shows the chaos of the flight from Paris as the Germans appear ready to occupy the city. Everyone has different thoughts about what it means for them, from the wealthy bourgeois packing up to move to their country home, the effete artist worrying about his porcelain collection, but especially the Michauds, left behind by their boss but still expected to find their way to their work in Tour and thinking themselves lucky to at least be together. Although there are elements of satire poking at the venality and self-centredness of the more privileged classes, Nemirovsky still shows their humanity, worrying about a son or a parent. This section covers such a range of people and what they discover about themselves and their comrades under wartime assaults that it made me think of the characters in War and Peace as they contemplate war and its outcomes. Tolstoy, however, doesn’t manage to develop any characters below the nobility except as stereotypes, while Nemirovsky has a wide social range.
The second part of the book focuses mainly on the relationship between an affluent countrywoman and the German officer who boards in her home. Even in this section, though, Nemirovsky succeeds in showing a range of complex characters, French and German, drawn as individuals with families and futures at risk. This section, however, makes a contrast with the chaos and confusion of the first section. Here, village life is orderly, regular and commonplace, even with the German soldiers stationed in the village. The German soldiers who don’t speak French, for example, struggle to buy mementos in the local shops as if they were tourists. The French resent their presence, but can’t help treating them as friendly visitors and customers. It’s ironic that when the Germans arrange a grand celebration on the anniversary of the capture of Paris, they tactfully avoid mentioning the reason, although everyone knows it, and the French turn out to watch the dancing, music and fireworks. Everyone tries to act as normally as possible, even while resisting the situation where they can. This gives an interesting insight to life under enemy occupation, where attempting to live a decent human life can later appear as collaboration.
In the second part of the book, it almost seems as if the characters are all together in the upset of the war, until the killing of a German soldier forces everyone to see that they are on different sides, whether or not they choose to be. Nemirovsky touches on wartime collaboration, but in the book as it exists here, she doesn’t have room, or perhaps experience, to explore it as the post-war French writers did. She was killed before the issue of collaboration acquired its later dimensions.
It is tragic that such a humanist writer as Nemirovsky would become a victim of inhuman Naziism as she was working on the remaining parts of the book. The excerpts from her letters to her husband and her publisher are tragic. It’s particularly poignant when in her notes for the book she promises never to take out her bitterness on individuals – she shows the Germans, as well as French people of various classes, as complex real people. For a book written while under the threat of annihilation in war, it’s remarkable that Nemirovsky’s humanism is such a strong theme. Based on this book, I’d look forward to reading some of her earlier books.

[alisony-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Given that Wine of Solitude left me feeling hugely underwhelmed, I'm glad I took on board the recommendations to still give Suite Francaise a shot. What a hugely different book in terms of writing style. Fantastic characters - tick. Good pace to the narrative - pick. Page-turning - tick. Everything Wine of Solitude wasn't.

Set in occupied France during WWII, Suite Francaise consists of two separate parts. In the first we journey along with a number of different characters from Paris as they hastily exit the city upon hearing that the Germans had broken the Maginot Line. The wealthier have the resources to open up more options in their exodus than those who are forced to flee on foot, but war is indiscriminate and all are ultimately impacted one way or another.

The second part of the novel takes place in a small French village that is occupied by German soldiers and is a window into the complicated relationships between the occupiers and the occupied. Nemirovsky affords humanity in her depiction of the Germany soldiers as fathers, sons and husbands who treat their hosts with respect and politeness. Whether this is something Nemirovsky truly felt we will never know - she knew she was at high risk when writing the novel as a Jewish Russian exile living in France.

And there, after the second part, the novel ends. Nemirovsky intended the novel to be made up of 5 parts, with each part connecting the characters, but sadly she was sent to Auschwitz and never got to write the remaining 3 parts.

It's an incredibly affecting book, so much more so given the poignancy that the author was writing about the very enemy which would shortly send her to her death. I've not read any other WWII fiction which tells the story of what it was like to live in occupied France, and I doubt any could hold a candle to the authenticity of Nemirovsky's real-life experience.

Often during the year I read books which are enjoyable but not necessarily great page-turners. It was a joy to pick up a book that was simply a great read whilst also being hugely thought-provoking. It's incredibly sad that both Nemirovsky and her husband both died in concentration camps. Who knows what other remarkable work she would have written, and how she would developed this book and tied all the different parts together.

4 stars - simply a great read that brings this side of the war to vivid life.

[tmph_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Half way thru, uniquely powerful book. Story of the evacuation of Paris in 1940 on the invasion by the Germans told thru very different groups of people: parents of soldiers, the wealthy, the workers, the servants, the children, a cat!, etc. Némirovsky herself, already an accomplished novelist in Paris before the war began started this "suite" after the invasion, finishing two of five parts before being shipped off to Auschwitz where she was killed.

Finally finished the book. Hugely powerful. The second "suite" takes place in one small country village with the relatively peaceful German occupation of which, and the boarding of German officers in private homes; this section ends with the 1941 invasion of Russia with the Germans being called away.

An astoundingly powerful book. Nemirovsky's depictions of the Germans, and the differing views and opinions and actions of the French
regarding the Germans is delicate and moving and exceptionally thought-provoking. And then, to know her fate! Whew. Hugely recommended.

[adonisguilfoyle · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The mass exodus from Paris in 1940, a woman falling in love with a German soldier, then agreeing to hide a man wanted by the German army - hmm, sounds almost like The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah! Unfortunately, Irene Nemirovsky never got to finish her magnum opus, based on her own experiences of occupied France, and the two movements that were published, posthumously, are renowned in part for the author's own tragic story. Nemirovsky was arrested for being a Ukrainian Jew, despite living and working in France for most of her life and converting to Catholicism, and was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942, aged 39.

Told in two parts, although five 'movements' were planned, Suite Francaise describes the Paris exodus of 1940 through the experiences of various families, some more sympathetic than others. Humdrum, often humorous, events are contrasted sharply with heartbreaking realities and occasionally gruesome deaths - a priest looking after a group of boys is murdered and a man is run over in the street. The second part, Dolce, is more plot driven and introduces a small town occupied by the German army, including Madame Angellier and her daughter in law Lucile, who falls in love with the German officer billeted to stay in their house. Lucile and Bruno are the focus of the screen adaptation of the novel, which I am keen to watch next!

Beautifully written, and from life not Wikipedia - how I wish that the author had been able to finish her work and enjoy the success she deserved.

[addunn3 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is a fascinating collection of stories about the coming occupation of Paris and the interaction of the "common" people of France to German soldiers in their midst.

[steller0707 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Beautifully lyrical. This volume contains two of the planned five stories. Be sure to read the very moving appendices at the end.

[cindywho-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I still want to read the notes and letters in the appendixes, but I'm finished with the main duet of novels.

Tempete en Juin follows different families as they flee Paris ahead of the German invasion. Most will be driven back and they experience kindness and cruelty on the way.

Dolce takes place in a village, about a year later when the inhabitants have to billet German soldiers for three months. The most tension forms around the fact that these are young men and the young women of the village have not seen any for a while. The way that the relationships develop differs for each family.

I could be biased by the history of the author, who was there for the invasion and did not survive the war, but I felt like a had a real window into history and how people were at that moment and place in time. It's beautifully written. What an amazing treasure that her daughters were able to save.

[danielstj · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A literary powerhouse. By far, one of the most moving and mesmerizing novels that I have ever had the pleasure to come across. The story takes you along the path as if you were there and all the little moments come across as whispers across the void that World War II has set into place. There are tragedies and sorrows, loving and friendship and victories and defeats. This is an AMAZING book that should be read by anyone who has any interest in the author or the subject matter. In-fact, it is such a illuminating tale that I believe it should be read by ANYONE who is studying the era. Nemirovsky met a tragic end, but her angelic wings still shine through in this piece-- and that is something that no one can ever take away from her. I would give this more than five stars if I was able.

[librarycin · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

This is an unfinished novel in two parts (originally meant to be in 5 parts), written by a Russian woman of Jewish background, who had been living in France as a Catholic for a number of years. Nemirovsky was killed in Auschwitz in 1942 before she could finish the book.

The novel focuses on regular people in France during WWII. In the first part of the book, people are being evacuated from Paris. They later return, only to have to share their homes with German soldiers.

The book was o.k., but I really only found one small storyline particularly interesting... really one character. There were a lot of characters, but because the book wasn't holding my attention, I couldn't really keep them straight. The only reason it is getting 3 stars is for that one storyline. There was a note at the end of the book about Nemirovsky's own life, which to be honest, I found more interesting than most of the rest of the book.

[dreesie-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Wow.

I read half of this when it was first published in English, and lost it to a library queue. I started over, needless to say.

This story is incredible. That she was writing it essentially as it was occurring is more amazing. The story of the manuscript's survival is amazing (her elder daughter carried it with her in hiding in France, thinking it was a diary, not a manuscript). The notes she wrote about the rest of her planned 5-book work are so enticing. But of course she did not get to finish, being arrested just a day after her previous notes on the next book. And obviously she was not able to help refine the manuscript for publication. Yet it flows and is fascinating--though she clearly set out her goals in her many notes.
———
The first book, Storm in June, captures the many classes of people fleeing 1942 Paris for the countryside as the Germans are coming. We meet members of several different families--rich and poor, upper middle and working classes. Each have their own concerns: their stuff, their children, food.

The second book, Dolce, examines the people in a small occupied French town. Most families have German soldiers living with them, many of husbands and sons who are POWs in Germany. The balance everyone tries to strike between French/German is tenuous. The balance between upper class rich landowners, landowner/farmers, farmers, and tradesmen adds an additional layer of loyalties (or not) to the book. Some of the characters from book 1 are mentioned.

If Nemirovsky had been able to finish her 5 books, we would have seen the same characters loop back into the story. Her notes are interesting, as she did not yet know where the story would go--it depended on what was happening in the actual war. Book 3 was beginning to take shape in her mind, but does not appear to have been begun.
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Nemirovsky was a well-known and well-regarded French writer before the war. Those earlier books may be worth looking for.

[sianpr · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A beautiful book - so observant and so poignant, particularly given Irène Némirovsky's fate

[gail.c.bull · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This book is a masterclass in novel writing by one of the great authors of the 20th century. It should be taught in every creative writing degree program.

This was my method of studying her work. The book has 2 parts (A Storm in June and Dolce) and includes 2 appendices. Appendix A is Nemirovsky's notes on how she was planning to develop the novel further. I would recommend reading the book first then her notes. I copied the notes and keep them close at hand while re-reading the text. I took note of what she thinks are the manuscript's strengths and weaknesses, and what changes she wanted to make to the content. She planned on the final novel being about 1000 pages long and to have 5 sections. She also mentions how long she wanted each section to be. I looked at each section's current length and tried to figure out how the section might be shortened while preserving the mood and theme of the section.

It helped me to understand the function of a first draft and how to approach edits of my own work.

[lesliehurd · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Suite Francaise is written by a Jewish woman whose family abandoned its fortune when it fled fled to France from the Bolsheviks. The story centers on the impact of the German invasion of France on people from different backgrounds. The story was intended to consist of five parts, of which this book comprises the first two. I most enjoyed the first half, which focuses on the mass exodus from Paris of families and individuals both generous and self-centered, and their reactions to privations, fear and feelings of hopelessness. The second half of the book centers on a village occupied by the Germans and how conqueror and the conquered co-exist. At the end of the book I found myself wanting to know more about the people in the first half of the book. While the author had set out plans for the continuation of the story, she didn't survive the war and we only have her notes setting forth her proposals for the possible outcomes of those characters. I was left wanting more...definitely the hallmark of a good book.

[siok-76276 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This would have been a classic if the author could finish it, the potential is there. Nevertheless, Irene does offer a different perspective of the Second World War, humanizing the German soldiers.

[paradiseporch · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

(Fiction, WWII, French)

This is the first two parts of what the author evidently intended to be a five part opus. Némirovsky was arrested in 1942 and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. This manuscript, then, was written in the early years of the war in Occupied France, in which she set the novel.

In Storm in June, wealthy Parisians flee the city before it falls. The second “movement”, Dolce, concerns the complicated relationships between the inhabitants of a French country village and the German soldiers who are occupying that village.

This is lyrical writing, sustained in the translation from the French by Sandra Smith. How I wish the author could have completed this work!

Read this if: you enjoy beautiful writing. 4½ stars

[kcshankd · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A treasure, when combined with the author's story this may be the most unforgettable book I've ever read.

[lkernagh · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I have tried to write this review five times now. Each attempt seems like a poor offering to explain how much this was a compelling read for me. This is a story that will stay with me, for a number of reasons. Némirovsky’s portrayal of life in France during those early war years (June 4, 1940 through to July 1, 1941) is amazing, especially when I think about how Némirovsky wrote this pretty much contemporaneously as the events of the war unfolded, making the serenely reflective manner of the story to be something one would only expect from an author conveying an ex post facto experience. I love how, In “Storm in June”, Némirovsky makes use of a select number of individuals to communicate the emotions and widespread chaos of the burgeoning sea of humanity attempting to flee the German invasion of Paris. Even with the shifting narrative, Némirovsky manages to bring clarity and focus on her individual characters at an almost microscopic level. "Dolce", the second novella in the story, has a bucolic feel to it, tucked away in the tiny French village of Bussy, under German administration. This made for fascinating reading as a narrative of day-to-day village life under German occupation.

In writing this story, Némirovsky plays no favorites. She assumes the role of an outside sociologist watching events unfold, another amazing aspect of this story considering she writes about the good and bad, heroism and cowardice, crossing class lines to exemplify acts of venality, cowardice and hypocrisy as well as of extreme heroism.

.... still not happy with this review so I am just going to say that if you haven't read this one... READ IT!

[karenduff · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I found this book very moving although I'm not sure if that is due entirely to the story or to the reasons for it being unfinished.
I liked the fact that one of the more likeable characters is a german, that she didn't go down the road of french good german bad.

[ellohull · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Fascinating. I found the story very involving, but reading about the author's story of the time made this even more extraordinary. The writing is extremely well thought out, and I really enjoyed the short chapters where each character's narrative was resumed and then paused. Reading about WWII is always interesting, but I've never taken the opportunity to hear it from the side of another ally.

And all written so intelligently and precisely given what was going on at the time. Marvellous and thought provoking.

[crazy4reading · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

I love books based on history and especially WWII. I enjoyed this book but also found it confusing. There are a lot of characters and I started to get confused. Otherwise I enjoyed the story. I haven't read many books that are based on Occupied France.

[brangwinn · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This uncompleted “suite” about WWII France shows a variety of French citizens in Paris and small villages as the Germans invade and then occupy France. The French weren’t all heroes. Some were selfish, some were generous. Nemirosvsky portrays the French as individuals. As I read it I felt that this was really what life was like. When you read the story of the author’s life during World War II the story has even more meaning.