October 1, 2007

  • Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

    Ok, finally catching up with all the books ...

    This one was a bit touch and go for me.  I started it, then put it down, then resumed again ... got a bit more engrossed but then she kind of lost me at the end.  I did like that this was a WWII novel from the French perspective which is a new angle for me.  This novel is divided into two parts: part one despicts the French fleeing Paris and the part two is German occupation of the French countryside.  The structure of the novel made it difficult for me to gain much momentum.  She spends a few pages developing the story of a particular set of characters and then switches to other people in the next chapter.  I then have to reorient myself to the new group of people.  As soon as I do that, the chapter is practically over.  It is interesting to see the wide range of characters that she depicts from different socio-economic levels.  Even though the common enemy is the Germans, the French still stick to their own social classes and the upper classes continue to look down upon the lower ones.  I would have thought that there would be a bit more unity in a time of war but I suppose this mentality would be hard to change.  There is also a nice depiction of French and German co-existence.  It was a very long war and the two sides couldn't have spent all of it avoiding socialising with each other.  Some lines were crossed and even romance bloomed.  Life goes on inspite of war. 

    Two out of five  

    (Not able to find the link to the book using Xanga for some reason.  Suite Francaise. )