Suite Francaise

Miniature furniture at Galeries Lafayette, Paris.

These haiku are inspired by Irene Nemirovsky's powerful book Suite Francaise:

Child's play at dinner
news that Germans are coming
upset apple cart

Feast is abandoned
guests race home to pack their cars
danger draws closer

I started reading the Third Day Book Club selection Suite Francaise on the train from London to Paris. I'd read about half of it when two Frenchmen nearby started talking to me about the book. They were interested in my views as an American, particularly as an American who lives in France.

The French haven't forgotten the horrors - or the lessons - of World War II. And I have to say, for me, much of the book was familiar - the characters are exactly spot-on and true-to-life - not unlike modern French society. The French still cling to their traditions; still have valuable family heirlooms that they can't imagine giving up; still struggle with social and immigration issues.

One Frenchman I know had a friend whose grandmother lived in a large chateau near Nantes. During the war, the Germans occupied her house and used her family's precious porcelain for target practice. Fifty years later, her granddaughter brought a bag full of broken pieces of porcelain to a restorer - asking if there was anything he could do to salvage the piece. Over a period of two years, he worked to restore the bowl. In the process he found a remnant of a German bullet embedded in the porcelain!

Despite their revolutionary past, the French resist change to this day. So for them, WWII was hard to take. Nemirovsky's book beautifully captures the French citizens' bewilderment and varying means of coping with poverty and uncertainty, both in fleeing their homes from the Nazis and later under German occupation.

"All in all, it's only the initial shock that counts. People get used to everything, everything that happens in the occupied zone: massacres, persecution, organised pillaging, are like arrows shot into mire!...the mire of our hearts.

They're trying to make us believe we live in the age of the 'community,' when the individual must perish so that society may live and we don't want to see that it is society that is dying so the tyrants can live."

Nemirovsky knew something about fleeing war. In 1918 she came with her family to France, after the Russian Revolution. She began writing this book in 1941, intending it as a multi-part novel. After her death in 1942 in Auschwitz, her daughters rescued the manuscript, but couldn't bring themselves to read it until nearly 50 years later.

Comments

[giggles]

Thank you for this amazing post...it gave me goosebumps. So full of substance, and insight. War is a very ugly creature.... It evoked so much thought.

Peace Sherrie

[tarakuanyin]

I loved reading how the French still remember the war. The broken bowl is an amazing anecdote.

[Tammy]

You described it so well that now I need to READ it. Thanks! Smooches

[my backyard]

This is fascinating about the persistence of history in France. So different from most of the U.S.

[Colette]

"During the war, the Germans occupied her house and used her family's precious porcelain for target practice."

This is the kind of thing that baffles me about human beings to no end.

Great review. I must read it.

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

Excellent commentary and haiku about a powerful book, brave author and horrific time in history. JP

[Novel Nymph]

I am so glad that you are reading this book and gave your perspective. I feel just like the men that were on the train with you--I am interested to know what you think.

Thank you--it remains on my to read list...

[Jordan]

Tara, a lovely, lovely reflection from "inside" rather than over here in the US.

P.S. I really want to start calling myself Jordana based on your daughter's name! Jordan seems so drab in comparison.

:)

[holli]

I am so taken with all things tiny - that the first thing that captivated me was the picture.. but I loved your post.. the story of the attempt to restore the dishes. I would love to know how much of that bowl was restored!! Or what it looked like!

You have the most fascinating pictures. There have to be more interesting things to take pictures of here in Oklahoma. But nothing like what I see on your blog. sigh.

[Regina Clare Jane]

This book is on the TOP of my list to read this year. Thank you for your review, Tara, and the picture- it just about ripped me apart. The accompanying haiku was frightening in its reality.

[patry]

Your doll furniture and the delicate haiku are perfect symbols for the human vulnerability that lies at the heart of this novel. I, too, took special interest in your conversation with the soldiers and your meditation on the French character--how it was effected by the war, and perhaps how the war changed it. Thank you, Tara.

[maureen]

a fascinating review -- makes me want to read the book, Tara. thank you... and i have to tell you i love that photo of the miniature furniture all in disarray. like one of those stories with a question for an ending.

[sarala]

Tara,
Great review. I bought Suite before I realized (duh) it was translated from the French. I might have tried to read it in French but I probably would not have finished it.
You questioned my use of "inconsequential" about the characters. I meant by the word the people who too often are ignored in novels and in real life, not the unimportant. I was struck by the absence of the usual novelistic heroes, warriors, resistance fighters, martyrs, and their outstanding acts of courage. Nemirovsky chose to focus on small people and small acts which made her book all the more poignant.
I loved the book and cannot help but wonder what became of the Michauds, Lucille and her German soldier, Benoit and all the rest. Nemirovsky death was a great loss, individually and artistically.

[Laura]

'Suite Française' was one of the best books I read in 2006. Reading the efforts her husband went to to save her was heartbreaking, too.

[amishlaw]

The haiku are a great way of introducing your review. I wondered what someone living in France would think of the book, although I think I read that the book has been a sensation in Europe. Is your French good enough that you could read the book in french? I wonder what someone who really knows thinks of the translation.

[Karen DeGroot Carter]

Tara, I just wrote on Patry's blog that I'm pulling fascinating pieces from each review I read; I'll never forget the image of you reading this book and discussing it with the two Frenchmen on that train. Your insights into the French psyche also add much to your review. The story of the broken porcelain piece (the woman holding on to it for so long; the restorer working on a single bowl for two years) is truly memorable. Thanks so much. K.

[AscenderRisesAbove]

fascinating image. your words make you go back, look again and linger longer