Suite Française

By Irène Némirovsky, 1942/2004 

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.