- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Canada; 1 edition (April 11 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676977707
- ISBN-13: 978-0676977707
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 658 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #112,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Celebrated in pre-WWII France for her bestselling fiction, the Jewish Russian-born Némirovsky was shipped to Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, months after this long-lost masterwork was composed. Némirovsky, a convert to Catholicism, began a planned five-novel cycle as Nazi forces overran northern France in 1940. This gripping "suite," collecting the first two unpolished but wondrously literary sections of a work cut short, have surfaced more than six decades after her death. The first, "Storm in June," chronicles the connecting lives of a disparate clutch of Parisians, among them a snobbish author, a venal banker, a noble priest shepherding churlish orphans, a foppish aesthete and a loving lower-class couple, all fleeing city comforts for the chaotic countryside, mere hours ahead of the advancing Germans. The second, "Dolce," set in 1941 in a farming village under German occupation, tells how peasant farmers, their pretty daughters and petit bourgeois collaborationists coexisted with their Nazi rulers. In a workbook entry penned just weeks before her arrest, Némirovsky noted that her goal was to describe "daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides." This heroic work does just that, by focusing—with compassion and clarity—on individual human dramas. (Apr. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Nemirovsky, a young Russian Jewish emigre, became a celebrated novelist in Paris at age 26 in 1929. She wrote eight more novels; then, even though she was certain that she wouldn't survive Germany's occupation of France, she embarked on a grandly symphonic, courageous, and scathing work about France's collaboration with the Nazis. She completed two of five planned movements before she was sent to Auschwitz, a heart-wrenching story meticulously documented in a supplemental section. As for Nemirovsky's masterpiece, it begins with the tumultuous "Storm in June," in which diverse Parisians frantically evacuate Paris during the June 1940 German invasion. Nemirovsky's gift for combining the panoramic with the intimate, high emotion with stinging wit, is reminiscent of Turgenev, Babel, and Berberova. Acutely sensitive to class differences, and mordantly scornful of hypocrisy, she orchestrates a veritable carnival of cowardice, lies, larceny, and murder as a panicked populace drops all pretense of civilization. The second movement, "Dolce," evokes the eye of the storm in the village of Bussy, where German officers are billeted in French homes, and life and love resume. Suite Francaise is a magnificent novel of the insidious devastation of occupation, and Nemirovsky is brilliant and heroic, summoning up profound empathy for all, including regretful German soldiers. Everything about this transcendent novel is miraculous. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Suite Francaise...a war time masterpiece!,
By
This review is from: Suite Francaise (Hardcover)
A wonderful novel!This is a war time story by Irene Nemirovsky; Irene Nemirovsky, a Jew, died in a concentration camp in Auschwitz on Aug 17, 1942. This magnificent manuscript remained virtually forgotten for more than 60 years after the authors death. It tells of the early war years (1940-1941) with the Germans having just defeated the French army and occupying northern France. The novel is broken into 2 sections. The first section, "Storm in June", deals with the story of about half a dozen persons and their immediate family or associates. Initially, it's an account of these soon-to-be refugees trying to endure the collective humiliation of a nation devastated by their recent defeat in the war; but it is more than this, it is really about the individual changes and personal hardships that are thrust upon hordes of unprepared poor, middle and upper middle class people. Charity, compassion and fair play are thrown out the window and replaced with greed, hoarding and personal survival (at any cost). A striking change in life's values when " the chips are down". The second part of the novel, "Dolce", was my favorite and I felt, the most beautiful part. It is, in essence, two different love stories. One between a German officer, billeted in a small French home, and a middle class French women and the other, a more generalized affair between the occupiers and the conquered. Over the course of their 3 month occupation the Germans soldiers, despite their attempts to act civilly and integrate with the villagers, have difficulty understanding why the people of the village don't accept them, and in turn, the villagers, who initially will have nothing to do with the invaders, begin to actually like and even admire some of these "foreigners" by the time they depart to the new Russian front. This second section was well written and beautifully told; something to be appreciated and savored, like good wine. Two appendices contain some hand written notes by the author made while conceiving this novel and also some correspondence between the author and associates dated in 1942. Another section at the back of this book gives a brief resume of the authors life. All in all a magnificent novel. Highly recommended! 5 stars. P.S. If you enjoyed this book as much as I did then I'd humbly suggest reading "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. Another novel of the same time era; beautifully written, movingly sad, but yet a pleasure to read. R.A.N.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Suite Francaise,
By
This review is from: Suite Francaise (Paperback)
"Suite Francaise" is a novel where the history of the author writing the book is more riveting then the book itself.I did like "Suite Francaise" and it has changed the way I think people react during war. Irene Nemirovsky's book starts off with part one called "Storm in June". "Storm in June" takes place in Paris in 1940 as the Germans are marching in and the French are running away. It follows a number of different classes of families and people and how they react to their situation. The second part of the book called "Dolce" is about a village in France that is occupied by the Germans and how it affects the people. It was difficult to get strongly attached to any of the characters; I believe I was more attached to the author's own personal story. I loved looking at the small writing on the inside of the book and trying to imagine Irene Nemirovsky writing this book in a concentration camp. Her daughters escaped taking the book with them not knowing that what they carried was not a diary, but a novel. It took many years for one of the daughters to realize that what she had was a treasure. Irene Nemirovsky never survived the war, but her writing did. The book is not deeply moving or riveting, but it is a "goodread".
4.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling gripping book that had me hungry to read more,
This review is from: Suite Francaise (Paperback)
I was transported back to war torn France and walked the dusty roads to the concentration camps with other prisoners or so it seemed. How lucky was I to be able to imagine and not recount from personal experience. The author has a story to tell and elegantly she succeeds allowing generations after her to know what it was like for people caught up in such madness. I took this book along with two others on holiday and settled down on the hot sands to read, I was unprepared for such a brilliant read. I must also recommend THE FATES by Tino Georgiou his book captured my attention as diligently as Suite Francaise.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
