A Worthwhile Beauty

I suppose I should start a new category just for book recommendations, but I don't really want to become one of those kinds of writers: forever telling you what must be read and why. So, I've held back on preaching my literary favorites, new and old, but I wanted to let everyone know of an entirely worthwhile read that I've just finished: Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française. I'm a book-back reader. You know, you read the back of a book, or the dust cover copy just to see if it appeals to you. It's the adult version of judging a book by it's cover - at least here you do a little bit of research. When I first read the dust cover of Suite Française I knew I wanted to read it, but was hesitant to spend the full $25.00 demanded for a hard-cover book these days. So, I waited, and was fortunate enough to buy a much-reduced copy at Green Apple a few weeks ago.

The story of Suite Française is that of France during the German invasion in 1940, and the year afterward, as seen by the most common of characters. Here is Némirovsky’s gift: capturing a complete portrait, right down to it's tenderest pecadilloes. There are a lot of characters thrown out at you, but they are all so distinct, so vivid, that regardless of the interconnected web between them you know exact who is who and what is what. It takes a certain talent to build these "types", and an even greater one to pull them apart, make them suffer, force them to endure. For a writer it must be like pulling the wings off of a perfectly composed, evenly glued and decaled model airplane. How will it fly next? Némirovsky proves her mastery of this type of Svengali treatment; in her own quiet, dignified exploration of the human condition, she tests them and redeems them over and over. It is that undefined space of war: when will it end? how will we survive? how will we endure? will our love survive? will the flowers bloom again next spring? - it is in this space that Némirovsky gently tugs at strings and artfully embroidered her quilt.

I was even more captivated by Némirovsky’s own story which is provided in the Preface to the 2004 French Edition at the back of the book. I rather enjoyed reading this after I'd finished the book, as is usually the case with prefaces, as it would have clouded my initial reading, but I'll share just a bit because it's incredible. Irène Némirovsky’s life reads like a mix between Yuri Zhivago's and Daisy Buchanan's - prominent, rich Russian family with an eccentric mother moves to France during the revolution and their daughter becomes a party girl of the social set. The young Irène wrote many notebooks and letters which would then shape her prolific output of novels. Yet, with all of this industry, it sounds as though she had some time to break a few hearts:

"On 2 January 1924 she wrote to a friend, "I have had the wildest week: one ball after another, and I'm still a bit heady and finding it difficult to get back into the routine of work..." Another time she wrote from Nice, "I'm behaving like a madwoman, it's shameful. I dance all night long. Every evening there are very chic entertainments in different hotels, and as my lucky star has blessed me with a few handsome young men, I'm enjoying myself very much indeed." A further letter, written just after a return from Nice reads... "I haven't behaved very well...for a change...The evening before I left, there was a grand ball at our hotel, the Negresco. I danced like a mad thing until 2 a.m. and went outside in the freezing cold to drink champagne and flirt."

It warms me to know that Irène Némirovsky was allowed these happy times, as well as a loving husband, two daughters, and a vibrant literary career - as her life was cut short by the war, it is only fair that she had these memories.

Apart from this glimpse into the very fun and very likeable Mlle Irène, the publication provides her original notebooks on the Suite Française, how she planned the characters and her plans for additional segments to continue after Storm in June and Dolce (the current and only segments of the novel.) As a writer, I love reading how writers create their craft, so this inclusion was a real treat for me. It seems that Némirovsky was ahead of her time, thinking of her writing in a cinematic way, wanting the work to "unravel like a film," which it does, leaving the reader begging for the additional three volumes that were planned, but never written.

Irène Némirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942, leaving behind her family who kept the manuscript for Suite Française as a hidden secret treasure during their years of hiding and struggle. Finally, her remaining daughter Denise Epstein brought it to publication in France in 2004, and in the United States in 2006. The work is beautiful, sad, humorous, transporting, and replete with imagination. It inspires.