Imagine you are living your life almost as you have always lived
it, affected only by the reality that some of your country's young
men have been called to serve in a war that is happening not all
that far from your borders. Imagine then that the unthinkable
happens and you learn that in a few short hours the enemy will be
on your door step, fully intent on occupying your beloved city. You
must evacuate - flee into the countryside with the few things you
can carry in a desperate attempt to save your life and the lives of
your loved ones. This isn't a story about Iraq - this is a story
which begins in 1940 when Paris falls to the Germans.
Suite Francaise is an extraordinary novel, with an equally
extraordinary provenance. It was written by Irene Nemirovsky, a
Russian émigré who achieved early acclaim as a young novelist in
her adopted country. Having fled Russia with her parents to avoid
the Russian Revolution, she is once again forced to flee when the
Germans reach the outskirts of Paris. Along with so many Parisians,
Nemirovsky, her husband and two daughters sought safety in the
countryside. She began writing Suite Francaise during this period
and continued to write until she was arrested and deported to
Auschwitz where she died. The manuscript, which is Suite Francaise,
was saved by her young daughter Denise who barely escaped arrest
and carted her only link to her mother - a suitcase filled with
writing - through the endless series of moves she was forced to
make to evade capture and certain death. It took almost six decades
for Denise to have the courage to open the suitcase and read her
mother's words. In 2004, Editions Denoel finally published this
exquisite novel where it was acclaimed to have "the kind of
intimacy found in the diary of Anne Frank."
Suite Francaise is filled with characters so memorable, so real,
and so human, you can at once feel what it was like to live through
this soul-destroying period. Haughty aristocrats beg for food and
petrol from those who, a few weeks earlier, they wouldn't stoop to
have as house servants; true patriots find themselves somehow
attracted to, and having affairs with, German soldiers; Jews are
hunted out for no reason other than that they are Jewish; and more
than a few incredible souls demonstrate the kind of bravery and
moral righteousness which allows us to have hope for the future of
humankind.