Brightest Young Things

We ran this review of "Suite Francaise" in January, today, there is a lecture at Alliance Francaise which makes it perfect for rerunning it. - Svetlana

War and Pieces
an essay on "Suite Française" by Irène Némirovsky

Last year, Knopf published the English translation of Suite Française, by Irène Némirovsky. The French version, published by Denoel, was a literary sensation across Europe, published in 2004, sixty-four years after the author died; a labor of love by her daughter Denise from her mother's notebooks (she thought it a journal). The U.S. publication in 2006 (more so than the British publication by Chatto and Windus, also in 2004) resulted in the most extraordinary outpouring of literary praise seen in the past decade. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in all the English-language reviews of this novel, there's maybe one or two that are relatively equivocal, two or three that are reservedly enthusiastic, and then about 200 that call it one of the greatest literary achievements of the 20th Century.

At least some of the praise comes because of the back-story. And what a back-story it is. More about that later. But what of the novel? I can honestly say that Irène Némirovsky has created an extraordinary work of art, creating a finely sketched introduction into a cycle of novellas as rich as those of Tolstoy, all about the most horrific events of all time, contemporaneously with their occurrence. This might not sound as much of a stunning achievement as it is. Normally, it takes years, perhaps decades, to digest the events happening around one and turn it into a great work of art. When "the events happening around one" are the German conquest of France in a matter of weeks, the French abandonment of Paris, the subsequent horror of refugees turned into victims – of each other, of the townsfolk who take them in, of their conquerors, and, finally, of their collaborationist government – one gets a sense that turning these days into great fiction is quite nearly impossible. To do it while one is actually fleeing the Nazi advance is nothing short of a unique literary achievement.

Imagine, for a moment, if Anne Frank's diary had been the first 2/5 of a planned great novel about a whole palette of characters, of high station and low, artists and farm hands, city and country folk, Germans and French. Yet her diary gives us painful, stunning insight into one girl's life under the worst circumstances. Némirovsky's effortless sketches give us insight into an entire country – one and a half countries – view of the horrors. This is her sad achivement.

I say "sad," because she never had the chance to finish it. As I mentioned, this novel contains two volumes, two novellas, which, with three subsequent volumes, was to form a Tolstoy-esque cycle on par with Anna Karinina – Karinina crossed with the Sebastapol Sketches (the first journalistic war correspondence – go buy a used copy for a dollar and thank me later). Sad because she could never complete this cycle – she sketched the details for part three, titled, poignantly, Captivity, but, as she notes, she, and the rest of the cycle, was left in "the lap of the gods...". Like Frank, she was captured by the Nazis, transported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, and died within days of her arrival. Her capture and death, imprisoned for being Jewish, stands as yet another example of the disgusting evil brought into the world by the Nazis.

The last third of the book, after the two novellas, comprises of Némirovsky's own notes on the rest of the novel, followed, heartbreakingly, by the letters from her husband, Michel Epstein, to the authorities, his friends, family, politicians, military men, – anyone ; first to persuade them to give her back, then to find out her fate. The dates bear horrible witness to the futility of his efforts, months, years after it was too late. In a horrible echo of "The Ministry of Unusual Cases," the French-German bureaucracy keeps hope alive far longer than it should. With the historical context, then, this is a landmark in world literature – cousin to the absurd horror and deeper existential truth of the "missing" chapters of Kafka's "The Trial" in similar form – both fiction and non-fiction at the same time, with reality bleeding horribly into the pages of the book. This eloquent voice, so cruelly stuck down in the midst of an oratory on the impracticality of existence during a time of pure evil, is a dead loss to the world.

Again, though, I return to the literary merit of the two novellas before us. As I hope I've made clear, this is nothing short of a new Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy, Némirovsky is comfortable voicing the inner lives of the rich and poor, powerful and powerless, conquered and conquerors, man and woman. The deftness with which she paints us the portraits of the varying strata of French society at this moment in time catapults the reader head-long into the chaos of a prosperous city turned inside out by fear. This first volume, "A Storm in June," builds a growing sense of dread around the otherwise perfectly-realized lives of urban Parisians on an immediate and immediately-recognizable level. The pettiness, meanness, generosity, kindness and otherwise full range of behaviors on view is extraordinary for its utter truthfulness.

In the second volume, Dolce, the life in a small village under occupation comes under her watchful eyes and ever-recording pen. The subtleties of daily life in a farming village with its wealthy landlord, now, suddenly cheek-to-jowl with their conquerors, billeted in their homes, is as instructive and illustrative as it is entertaining. The feeling of love and need that builds between the protagonist, Lucile, and her billeted occupier, Bruno, while her adulterous husband is at the front and her insane mother-in-law waits to pounce on the slightest, imagined fault in her behavior, is, well, heartbreaking in its controlled delicacy and fine detail.

So, yes, this book, on its own, back-story aside, is simply wonderful and powerfully sad to read. And, we must mourn for what has been lost – the three further volumes she planned in the endnotes to the book – the furtherance of one of the great stories; storytelling from the voice of one of the great voices, snuffed out, mid-sentence; like the voices of so many millions of others in the holocaust; all of immeasurable worth.

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Let Me Tell You About A Small Town Girl
a review of "Fire in the Blood" by Irène Némirovsky

"Fire in the Blood" is a gorgeous, near-perfect novella, written between 1938 and 1942 by Irène Némirovsky, published for the first time in 2007. Though a minor work, it is nonetheless extraordinary and absorbing, a beautiful and evocative portrait of the French pre-war countryside and the seemingly petty and meaningless jealousies and stupidity that surrounds small-town life. The circumstances of the novella's writing and its companion piece, "Suite Française," (which I commented on in an earlier review), elevate what are already extraordinary works of fiction into the realm of legend. Even more so than its companion piece, "Fire" stands on its own as a masterwork of observation and authorial power.

In 2004, Les Éditions Denoël created an international literary sensation when they published "Suite Française," two parts of a projected five-part novel, written by Irène Némirovsky, a Ukrainian Jewish émigré to France. The resulting book exists only because her daughters, Denise Epstein and Elisabeth Gille (née Epstein), carried their mother's notebooks with them on an epic flight from the Nazis after the capture and death of both her parents at Auschwitz. Last year, two researchers, searching the French national archives, found a treasure trove of additional papers, including a never-before-seen finished novella, called, "Chaleur du sang," or "Fire in the Blood."

The story is a simple one, narrated by an old man, Sylvestre (or "Silvio," as he is known for reasons which come into view near the end of the book), who, in his old age, is ready to die:

It's as if I no longer exist. I don't desire anything, don't desire anything. There are no newspapers, no books in my house. I fall asleep beside the fire, I smoke my pipe. I stroke my dog. I talk to the housekeeper. That's all, nothing more.

He watches the local families, the Erards, the Chapelains, the Benoits and the Mantrifauts and their lives, their loves, their hypocrisies and their deaths, during a very eventful but brief period in between the wars. His taciturn silence and near indifference to everyone else belies an extraordinary inner dialog, and it is this inner dialog that gains in its extraordinary power as the story unfolds.

The novella begins with a lunch to introduce Silvio to his young cousin, Colette Erard's fiancée, Jean Dorin. The discussion turns to how Colette's parents met. The story we hear about Hélène and Françoise turns out to be filled with half-truths. Their tale of idyllic love masks the inequities and lies of a small, provincial French town – where "the two Montrifaut sisters, who haven't spoken to each other in fourteen years, even though they live in the same street, because one of them once refused to lend the other her special jam-making pan."

All the marriages in Issy l'Évêque are arranged, generally between young women and old landowner farmers; and it's only when these old farmers die that these women's lives can actually begin. The young men, in the meantime, travel to the cities, or the colonies, to make their fortune, and few come back; unless to rekindle the loves they had in their youths, before their beloveds were given to old men.

This arrangement isn't scandalous – it was the rule in much of the world, and still is in some areas. And Silvio went away too long, too far – the love of his youth, as we find out, was beyond his reach upon his return. Now, all he has left is his memories of the fire that once burned in his blood, and one last story to tell us, the readers, about his life.

The death of Jean at the hands of Colette's lover shakes the town, but a miasma of silence and failed memory covers the death from view. That unwritten code of silence is shattered at a town fete by a young indiscreet boy who witnessed the fateful event and, drunk on the new wine, hints at what he knows. The boy's threat to reveal the painful truth of the night of Jean's death is the device that turns this tale from a charming, if ultimately unflattering portrait of small town life into a glowing work of art. Silvio has suppressed his own story, and how it interacts with all the tales we've heard him and others tell about their lives. His narration provides the key that ultimately forces us, as readers, to re-read, reconsider and re-construct the deceit, the lies, and the sorrow that has built up in this tiny piece of provincial France.

"Fire" is not a haughty dismissal of small town life and the lies required to maintain the façade of happiness, however. It instead beautifully captures the sensual beauty of small town life while illuminating its inherent contradictions. Némirovsky easily conjures the changing seasons, the experience of feasts and parties, the atmosphere of the local bar, the taste of a stolen kiss. The language, though in translation, is stunning, like Tolstoy and one can't help but think she spent hours listening to the locals in this same town as she waited for the Nazis who eventually came for her, deported her, and murdered her at Auschwitz. She proved a master of how people talk, how they think and how they interact.

Ultimately, as a reader, I was shaken by how much the novella transformed in the final third. The power of Silvio's story, his former love of life, is heartbreaking and perfect. I came to the last pages in awe of an artist at the height of her power, writing about passion from a position of hopelessness in her own life. Némirovsky knew the world was closing in on her when she last revised the novel. She knew what it was to live only in the past. And she had a front row, center seat to observe the hypocrisy at the center of French hearts. The novella calls out to youth and to love, but ultimately to the hopelessness of that pursuit. It can't help but remind readers that wherever they are, whatever their circumstances, the search for happiness and love and passion is the most important of pursuits, but it is an end in itself, not a means to some other end. Death takes us all, and for Némirovsky, it came just weeks after revising this masterwork.

Previously in Misc/Awesome:

• 12/28: Terrible Boyfriend/ Girlfriend Generator.
• 12/1: The John Waters Advent Calendar-it starts today
• 11/28: It Chooses You: All I Want for Christmas is Everything from Miranda July's Pop-Up Shop
• 11/3: Things I'd Move to Minnesota For
• 9/6: PHOTOS: Maloof $$ Money Cup
• 9/2: PHOTOS: Chantilly Model Train Show
• 9/1: Libby's List: 5 Things I Want Right Now...
• 8/22: PHOTOS: Best Friends Day
• 8/10: PHOTOS: Lawn Mover Racing, Eastern Seaboard Regionals @ Bowles Farm
• 7/26: Special List: Things the BYGays Want Now That We Can Marry In DC (and NY!)