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. ( )

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

Review to follow. ( )

Llibre anunciat al Rac1 i casualidad hi ha una película. ( )

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: COPYRIGHT: April 11, 2006; PUBLISHER: Knopf; Translation edition; ISBN 978-1400044733; PAGES 416; Unabridged (Amazon Hardcover info)
-Digital: COPYRIGHT: April 11, 2006; PUBLISHER: Vintage; Translation edition; ISBN 1400044731; PAGES: 448; Unabridged (info from: Amazon: Kindle edition)
*Audio: COPYRIGHT: July 16, 2013; PUBLISHER: Random House Audio; DURATION: 13 hrs., 13 mins.; Unabridged (INFO FROM Amazon/Audible)
Feature Film or tv: Not that I’m aware of.

SERIES: No

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-How I picked it: I can’t recall where I saw this that prompted me to get it with one of our credits from Audible. I tend to like books about France and WWII. 😊
-What’s it about? There are two stories. The first begins with a description of France and its citizens, before then zeroing in on a few of them who are reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that they must flee, as the Germans are invading. In fact, at this point, are right on their heels. It tells of the desperation of flight-of suddenly having nothing, and no means to remedy that; of classes of people crashing together in distrust and prejudice. The second story seems to be a continuation, after some passage of time, but only includes one family from the previous story, which had been much more incidental in that previous story. This family’s village is occupied and the family is forced to accommodate a German soldier resident, as have many other villagers—most of the citizens are farmers, but our primary family is a landowner (although with all of the unfamiliar French names, I got a little confused as to who was who at times.).
-Liked: I thought the stories were well plotted, and liked a couple of characters. I don’t think I was expected to like most of them.
-Disliked: I don’t care for tragic stories where nearly everyone is at one another’s throats.
-Overall: I understand that the author was actually Jewish. Irène Némirovsky was apparently a Ukrainian-born Russian living in France when she began working on these novellas, which apparently were parts 1 and 2, of what was intended to be 5 parts. She was, however captured by the Nazis with her husband (daughters, I believe were living elsewhere and thus, with the manuscript, survived) to Auschwitz, where she died. I read a review that complained that the author had not mentioned Jews in the stories. Given her situation, I personally wouldn’t fault her for that, and am less certain than the complainer that she’d excluded Jews from the tale. Perhaps they were there and just not identified as such.
So, I can imagine that these stories were born from her experience, and I can’t fault her for having so few honorable or truly good characters. One would like to think that people would come together in such dire times, to help one-another, but it’s probably more “normal” to fear for one’s own chances at survival, and be stingy, or greedy, on that premise. Still, personally, I don’t read books to find “normal” stingy greedy examples of the human race, so I just can’t say I liked these stories. I suspect the author may have intended to bring us around to happier conditions, and somehow rectify the dearth of likable characters, but as it stands, there’s just not enough of a sense of honor here for me.

AUTHOR: (From Wikipedia) “Irène Némirovsky (French: [iʁɛn nemiʁɔfski]; 11 February 1903 – 17 August 1942) was a novelist of Ukrainian Jewish origin who was born in Kiev, then in the Russian Empire. She lived more than half her life in France, and wrote in French, but was denied French citizenship. Arrested as a Jew under the racial laws – which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism[1][2] – she was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of 39. Némirovsky is best known for the posthumously published Suite française.."
(From Goodreads/Penguin Random House) “Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 into a successful banking family. Trapped in Moscow by the Russian Revolution, she and her family fled first to a village in Finland, and eventually to France, where she attended the Sorbonne.
Irène Némirovsky achieved early success as a writer: her first novel, David Golder, published when she was twenty-six, was a sensation. By 1937 she had published nine further books and David Golder had been made into a film; she and her husband Michel Epstein, a bank executive, moved in fashionable social circles.
When the Germans occupied France in 1940, she moved with her husband and two small daughters, aged 5 and 13, from Paris to the comparative safety of Issy-L’Evêque. It was there that she secretly began writing Suite Française. Though her family had converted to Catholicism, she was arrested on 13 July, 1942, and interned in the concentration camp at Pithiviers. She died in Auschwitz in August of that year. --Penguin Random House”

TRANSLATOR: (From the Author’s Guild) “Sandra Smith was born and raised in New York City. As an undergraduate, she spent one year studying at the Sorbonne and fell in love with Paris. Immediately after finishing her B.A., she was accepted to do a Master’s Degree at New York University, in conjunction with the Sorbonne, and so lived in Paris for another year. She then moved to England, where she began teaching 20th Century French Literature, Modern French Drama and Translation at Cambridge University. She currently lives in the New York area and teaches at NYU and has given Master Classes at Sarah Lawrence and Columbia.
Sandra Smith is the translator of all 12 novels by Irène Némirovsky available in English, as well as a new translation of Camus’ "L’Etranger" ("The Outsider", Penguin UK, 2012). Her translation of Némirovsky’s "Suite Française" (2006) won the French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize for fiction, as well as the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize, the first time that the same book has ever won both prizes in the same year. Suite Française also won the Independent British Booksellers Book of the Year prize and was voted Book of the Year by The Times of London.
Smith’s translation of "The Necklace and Other Stories" by Guy de Maupassant was inspired by her belief that Maupassant was a master of the short story genre who should be discovered by English speaking readers.
Her translation of Marceline Loridan-Ivens' "But You Did Not Come Back: A Memoir" won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017.
Six of Smith's translations have been adapted as radio plays on the BBC.
Her translation of a biography of Jacques Schiffrin was published by Columbia University Press early in 2019.
Her most recent translation are "The Prodigal Child" by Irène Némirovsky (Kales Press 2021), "Inseparable" by Simone de Beauvoir (Ecco Press/Harper Collins 2021), Finalist for the French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize for fiction, "In the Shadows of Paris" by Anne Sinclair (Kales Press 2021), Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and "Master of Souls" by Irène Némirovsky (Kales Press 2021).
She is currently working on the translation of Correspondence between Albert Camus and Maria Casarès (Knopf).”

NARRATOR: (from Wikipedia) “Daniel Oreskes is an American actor known for his roles in Law & Order, and Law & Order: Organized Crime. Oreskes has also appeared in numerous Broadway productions and narrates audiobooks.[1][2][3]
Oreskes graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.[4] He is the brother of academic Naomi Oreskes and former journalist Michael Oreskes.[5][6]”

NARRATOR: (from Wikipedia) “Barbara Rosenblat is a British actress. She is best known as a prolific narrator of audiobooks, for which AudioFile named her a Golden Voice.[1] She has also appeared on screen such as in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black as the character Miss Rosa.”

GENRE:
Historical Fiction

SUBJECTS: (Not comprehensive)
France; World War II; War; Occupation: Refugees

LOCATIONS:
France

TIME FRAME:
1940’s

DEDICATION:
“I dedicate this novel to the memory of my mother and father, to my sister, Elisabeth Gille, to my children and grandchildren, and to everyone who has felt and continues to feel the tragedy of intolerance.” __Denise Epstein [daughter of Irene]

EXCERPT: (From Chapter One)
“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 firs 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 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?”

RATING:
3 stars

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
8-30-2023 to 9-11-2023 ( )

Emily St John Mandel likes it. I didn't finish it because I hated all the characters too much. ( )

Bonjour Tristesse

This unfinished work contain two of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin who converted to Catholicism before WWII.

Unfinished because of Némirovsky was murdered by then Nazis in Auschwitz in 1942. Her daughter typed up the two novels from handwritten manuscripts and notes. It has since been translated into English and other languages.Obviously unfinished, Némirovsky’s light stil shines through.

This is a gem of a book. The first novel, “Storm in June” describes the flight of Parisians when Germany invaded in 1940. Scenes are reminiscent of the refugees in Prophet Song in that the refugees are white Europeans. However the imagery here is lighter, understated, concentrating on groups of people, and highlighting to class differences in the fleeing Parisians.

Some were wealthy, with family connections outside Paris. These had planned ahead, or felt comfortable enough to just show up at the châteaus of wealthy family or friends. Others had few possessions and had no destination, no means of transport as trains had stopped running and petrol/gas supplies , if they were lucky enough to have a car, were limited. The most terrifying part is not from the invaders, but from out-of-control poor French adolescents who murder a humble priest who has been caring for them. Here is an example Némirovsky showing her consciousness of class in French society. The humble priest is from a wealthy family, the boys who kill him are under-nourished san culottes

The second novel,”Dolce” has only tenuous connection with “Storm”. It’s obvious from writings in notebooks that these ties would be worked on and continued in the next three novels. Some of the notes were written in English. Possibly sixty years later by the daughter?

However I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the two novellas that survive. The style is consistent throughout.

“Storm” describes the German occupation of the French village of Bussy, a farming community in an idyllic setting. Here the Germans and French have ambiguous relationships with one another. Some French residents will not speak to the German soldiers they are forced to billet. Others have flings or affaires. Mostly the German troops are tolerated.

The two main characters are the German commander Bruno, and Lucile, a young French woman whose husband is a POW in Germany. The two have an almost affaire. Here the novel explores the deep and unbridgeable differences between the military Germans and the invaded French. For a fleeting time, four months, the two groups live in a fragile harmony with human decency ensuring a peaceful coexistence for most of the story.

Again Némirovsky shows the class differences that permeate French society. The rich exploit and despise the poor farmers who are the livelihood of the village. Two upper middle-class women joke about how they could eat crow soup but would despise the poor who would stoop so low as to devour it. The village mayor and his wife are without conscience when they fraternize with the Germans, whitest the poor do so of necessity or love.

With Bruno and Lucile, the would-be lovers, and an “‘incident” involving a local and the Germans, we move into page-turner territory. And it is here an alliance of sorts is made between the French rich and poor. Being French can after all, when push comes to shove, trump wealth.

I didn’t want this book to finish, and in the closing passages I was in tears when, knowing of the author’s fate, I read her parting words of hope for the future of the people she had created in these short works.

Highly recommended. ( )

It’s quite good. A study of social classes under pressure as well as the randomness and ultimate futility of war. The stupid waste of it all. That said, the approach is not intimate, there are multiple people and family stories loosely woven together. I never fully engaged in the people but I did engage in the meta criticism (tl:dr people suck except for the people that don’t, but man oh man being rich or very poor don’t make for excellent humans)

Suite Francaise includes two novels, "Storm in June" and "Sweet," written in 1941-42. The author was murdered in Auschwitz in July 1942, at the age of 39.

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Lovely, tender, poignant, and haunting. Jewess Nemirosvky's novel lay undiscovered for 60 years following her death at the hands of the Nazi's in WWII (she was sent to Auschwicz and died there). What a treasure trove they found, and now we are blessed to be able to read it. Most memorable, Frenchwoman's evolving love with the German officer occupying her home; in other times they could have loved fully and greatly. She told us about WWII and German occupation, while it was occuring around her." ( )

This is an excellent moving, thought-provoking book that is well written about a Russian Jew who became exiled from Russia when she was young and lived in France prior to the outbreak of the World War 2. ( )

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. ( )

Suite Francaise takes place in Nazi occupied France in the 1940's. It focuses on the lives of various different people - - wealthy, poor, and middle class - - as they react to the prospect of Paris being bombed. It then moves on to a single town and paints a detailed portrait of what it was like to live in a village with the Nazi soldiers right there beside the French.

If I were merely evaluating this book on the writing alone - - well it would be five star PLUS. Goodness, this woman can craft a sentence. Her details are specific, important, and immediately give you a perfect sense of place, person, or time. Incredible. And she sustains the level of prose throughout. To me, had she been able to continue to write, she probably would have been a writer of some great classics. She's just that type of writer -- truly gifted.

Unfortunately, for me, sheer enjoyment plays a factor in my ratings, and I think I didn't quite get to know the characters well enough to feel emotionally attached to them. This book has a lot of sad, and what should have been touching, events in it. And somehow, I just wasn't really feeling them like I did in say - - The Road or The Book Thief. If this book was a movie, it would be described as an "ensemble" cast. You meet many characters, and you do get a picture of who they are, but you don't get to know many of them well.

However, it really is a terrific book - - made more astounding by the background story of the author (which is included in an extensive end note). I was definitely GLAD I read it - - so thanks to the many PBTers who picked it for me this month!!!
( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

9788478889822

Tragedy of love and war-very moving story. ( )

the book was quite in depth with many characters and situations during French invasion of WW11 , it's undertone was the serious upheaval of people/s lives and how that translated in terms of personal losses and changes in relationships. very detailed ( )

Well written. Really thought the book was two stories: people fleeing Paris, and then the story of how the French lived with the Germans during occupation. ( )

This book was such a surprise. I bought it a few years ago, when the hype about it was everywhere. I tried reading it a couple of times and never got past the first few pages. Until now, that is…

While reading I was of course aware that the author had died at Auschwitz, a victim of the same war she had so carefully portrayed the previous months. This meta-literature (Can I create a word?) experience, where author and story seem to confuse themselves, both attracted and deterred me. It felt it was too intimate of an experience, and maybe an even bigger desecration to the author’s life and death.

So, the book sat in my bookcase for the past few years. But I am so glad that I finally gave it another try. I was mesmerized by Irene Nemirovsky's scope in telling this story. The German soldiers are as scared and homesick as the French soldiers. The immensity of war does not diminish the anguish of a bad marriage or, for that matter, does not make the smallness of some of the characters less pronounced.

This book is actually only about one third of the projected book idea Irene Nemirovsky intended to write. What a tragedy in so many levels that she never had the chance to do it.
( )

I totally get that this book is important historically (the author wrote it concurrently while living in France during World War II, before being taken away to her eventual death at Auschwitz), but unfortunately that doesn’t help the fact that this book was at moments quite frustrating to read. It has good moments and its depictions of Parisians fleeing the city after the German invasion and of the changes brought upon a small country town by the German occupation are undoubtedly a useful chronicle of how the common people of France endured the War, but I couldn’t help feeling like the book could have been so much more. Obviously reading this book in its current iteration (as a single novel, rather than as two completely separate books in the same loosely bound series) led my perception in a specific way, since each half has a very different tone. The first (chronicling the exodus of refugees from Paris and the chaos that consumed the countryside at the outset of occupation) book felt rather frantic and disjointed to me, and was not altogether an enjoyable or memorable read due to the plethora of characters with no proper lead. The second half was much more concrete, as the central characters quickly emerged even among the cast of an entire village/regiment, and their story was incredibly engaging. The film that is based on this novel was clearly drawn from only the second section, as the relationship between the French girl and her German officer is one for the ages; I only wish that the novel had been presented as such. ( )

Avete visto il film Suite Francese? Beh, dimenticatelo, è una storiella d'amore insulsa in confronto a questo resoconto romanzato degli sfollamenti della Parigi bombardata durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale.

Un ritratto senza sconti di vite in guerra che con le bassezze della guerra devono fare i conti. Il risultato è un' avvincente storia incompiuta tratta dagli appunti di una grande scrittrice deportata ed "eliminata" in un campo di sterminio. E troviamo vigliacchi ed eroi, approfittatori e ingenui, temute divise di invasori indossate da uomini normali, spaccati di vita di quotidiana sopravvivenza.
Un bel, bellissimo libro, ma di certo non una storia d'amore. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )