Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

It is impossible to read Suite Française without being strongly influenced by the context in which it was written and by the subsequent fate of its author.

Irène Némirovsky was from a wealthy Russian Jewish family who fled Russia to escape the Bolshevik revolution. (Interesting that Kirsty’s piece yesterday dealt with the other side of this revolution.) The family arrived in France in 1919 when Irène was 16 although she had had a French education until then and spoke French perfectly. The Némirovskys quickly integrated into the wealthy upper-class society of Paris. Irène’s first novella was published in 1927 and was followed by several novels which built her reputation as a well-known, feted author.

With the outbreak of the war and the defeat of France her situation changed dramatically. She, her husband, and two daughters evacuated to Issy-l’Evêque, a small town in occupied France where most of Suite Française was written. A year later, Irène was arrested and sent to the French concentration camp of Pithiviers from which she was transferred to Auschwitz. She died within ten days of arriving there. Some months later her husband (also a Russian Jew) was arrested and send directly to the gas chamber in Auschwitz. Their two girls managed to escape under the care of their nanny and spent the war in hiding. Over 60 years later, Denise, the elder girl, examined in detail the leather-bound notebooks filled with her mother’s tiny handwriting that she had taken with her when they left Issy-l’Evêque. She discovered the first two parts of an unfinished novel along with notes her mother had made for the rest. These two parts were published in 2004 in French and in 2006 in English to tremendous acclaim.

Irène intended this to be a 1000 page epic composed of five parts, drawing inspiration from the great symphonies and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Although this is an unfinished novel and would surely have evolved as she progressed, the prose is surprisingly smooth and the fictional situation she depicts feels startlingly immediate and real. This is a study of a society in the midst of war. The main concerns of the novel are the daily trials and tribulations of individuals coping with occupation and war and the larger context which imposed them is outside of its scope.

The first part of the novel, ‘Storm in June’ describes a large number of unrelated characters from a variety of walks of life rushing to escape Paris in June 1940 as it falls to the Germans. Némirovsky captures the foibles of human nature with an accurate, merciless eye. Most of the characters, particularly the wealthy, are selfish, materialistic and thoughtless, totally lacking in concern for others around them. Her sharp wit as she lampoons the escaping French is often very funny.

‘He and his wife had had a painful row: in the chaos of the hurried departure, or perhaps out of malice, the chambermaid had put a small framed picture belonging to Monsieur Corbin in Madame Corbin’s bag; it contained a photograph of Arlette, [his mistress] stark naked. The nudity itself might not have offended his wife — she was a person with a great deal of common sense — but the dancer was wearing a magnificent necklace.’

The elderly member of another household, the Péricards, “only truly returned to his right mind when discussing his fortune, which was considerable”.

Irène Némirovsky’s portrayal is full of understanding and accuracy which brings an immediacy to the flight but somehow there is a distinct lack of compassion. The only people who show any sign of honour and courage are the Michauds, a simple, not very well-off couple whose only son is missing in action. In her notes which are included as an appendix, Némirovsky writes: ‘Stress the Michauds. People who always pay the price and the only ones who are truly noble. Odd that the majority of the masses, the detestable masses, are made up of these courageous types. The majority doesn’t get better because of them nor do they [the courageous types] get worse.’

In the second novella, Dolce, the setting is a small town south of Paris in the occupied zone. Lucile Angellier lives with her mother-in-law (her husband, whom she doesn’t love, is a prisoner of war) and when a handsome, civilised and romantic German officer moves in with them, an attraction develops between the two young people. Some characters from the first novella appear in minor roles but it seems from Némirovsky’s notes that she had planned to develop the connections between the two in the following parts.

She depicts well the strained relationships between the French and Germans in this small town. The French have little principles, mingling easily with the Germans when it suits them or when they have something to sell. But among themselves there is little solidarity. Even the mayor and his wife, the Vicount and Vicountess of Montmort, will not sell their food to the people of the town.

‘People had come to the château to ask for feed, but the Montmorts were hoarding it, mainly for themselves but also for all their friends and acquaintances in the area. The farmers were angry…They could tell they were up against a kind of brotherhood, like the Freemasons, a closing of the ranks that meant that they and their money were insignificant compared with the satisfaction the Montmorts got from doing a favour for the Baron de Montrefaut or the Countess de Pignepoule.’

On the other hand, the Germans soldiers are shown as being polite (almost incredibly so), civilised, calm and respectful, always paying well for everything they need and this is when my niggling doubts about Irène Némirovsky’s world became even stronger. Given what Irène and her family had already endured as a result of German decrees, I was surprised that she could be so tolerant and positive about them as individuals. Another surprising element is that there is no reference in the novel to the Jews and their suffering although they were already excluded from public office, forced to wear the Star of David and concentration camps were already in place.

Irène Némirovsky is most scathing of the upper class, the class she knew best and was a part of, while holding more positive opinions of the poorer classes (of which she writes with much less authority). So too is she much harsher with the French whom she knew very well, France having been her adopted country for over twenty years at that time, than with the Germans. It seems to me that her default position was that she didn’t like people and the better she knew them the less she liked them. But even if this is the case, is this a flaw in an otherwise good novel which might have become a great novel if the author had been allowed to mould it into what she wanted it to be?

Finally, in the second appendix, it is heartbreaking to read copies of the correspondence by Irène’s husband, Michel, to anyone in a position to help him to have his wife released after her deportation to Pithiviers. His desperation to save her culminates in his magnificent but ultimately pathetic offer to take her place in the camp or even to join her in order to make her life there more bearable.

Vintage (1 Feb 2007), 416 pages, ISBN-10: 0099488787