Suite Française—Stephanie Freas

Némirovsky, Irène. New York: Random House, 2007. 448 pp.

Irene Némirovsky’s Suite Française is about the unwritten aspects of war—the everyday moments, the romance, the struggle between survival and image, the dehumanization of even the most respected of classes, and the violence between civilians—rather than the expected military and political history that one may usually attribute to historical fiction. Although World War II’s events have sprung an entire genre of war and Holocaust fiction, this novel, or rather, collection of two novellas, is far from the expected reading of a Holocaust traumatic experience. Instead, Némirovsky surprises readers with a diverse cast of characters who fight to survive and hold on to any shred of humanity left in the most difficult experiences. By depicting how different humans may seem from one another, then throwing them in the torrents of war, Némirovsky illustrates the core qualities that tie humans together no matter how diverse their lives may seem. War causes a good man to murder, a married woman to fall in love with her captor, and a family to value one another more than any material luxury. Ironically enough, Némirovsky refrains from the subject of the Holocaust and refrains from including any Jewish characters when this very novel is interrupted and left unfinished by her capture and eventual death in the German concentration camp, Auschwitz. The manuscript ends in the midst of the German occupation and a romance between the second novella’s protagonist, Lucile, and her German captor. Here, we must ask how Némirovsky would end the story had she lived. One can only speculate from the struggle between the grotesque and the beautiful that the story would have ended with a saddening finale that would mirror the ways in which war truly ends in an occupied nation. Suite Française is set in the early 1940’s in France during the beginning of German occupation. After the French learn that the Germans are coming to each of their towns, they grab their most valuable items and flee for safety. In the first novella, “Storm in July,” each family searches for safe haven and its members must deal with their dramatically changing lives within only a few short weeks. After the initial invasion, many return home to find comfort, while others must create new identities for themselves. The second book, “Dolce,” concentrates on two families, one of which is introduced in “Storm in July.” In this complex novella, Némirovsky writes about the relations between the German and the French captives in one small village and hones in on the bond between Bruno, the German soldier, and Lucille, the French wife of an adulterous prisoner of war. “Dolce” ends with Bruno’s departure to another station in the war. Throughout Suite Française, the constant changing of the characters’ fates inflicts both horror and empathy. The text brings light to the small things in these characters’ lives that are so integral to their everyday survival, though many of their loved ones are missing

or dead, money has no value, and the luxuries of certain foods, weapons, and even privacy no longer exist. One of the most striking moments focuses on the cat of one of the families that has escaped his basket: “The cat gnawed on a sprig of grass, then slipped back into Jacqueline’s room…He was purring like a kettle on the boil. A few seconds later the arsenal exploded” (98). In this instance, Némirovsky incorporates great detail about the cat’s actions and then suddenly ends it with the explosion of a bomb. Moments like these remind us how even the most trivial events, like watching one’s pet cat, still occur during war and are overlooked as the violence begins. Némirovsky introduces predictable characters, such as those that value their wealth and high social class, and forces them to cope with the many violent and dehumanizing experiences in surprising ways. Sadly enough, the roles of good and evil are extremely altered in these situations. When Father Pèricand leads a group of orphan children through the wilderness to shelter, they rebel and murder the priest in a muddy lake. Némirovsky creates a scene so violent that readers must rethink their original beliefs about the effects of war, even on children. When the civilians expect the German invaders to be inhumane, they find them to be mere humans that struggle in ways similar to the French. In fact, the Germans must deal with many issues that are left unseen: leaving their families with the fear of death, treating other humans as one’s superiors order, and leaving their youth behind to fight for a cause they may not understand. Némirovsky’s Suite Française grapples with the unseen violence between civilians and the inner thoughts of the seemingly cruel German soldiers. Because of the raw approach to trauma that Némirovsky addresses, readers of a mature intellect should at one point in their lives read Suite Française. She speaks honestly about war and humanity, while not invoking the stereotypical horrors that we may expect. The ways in which we are forced to change our minds about war and humanity is unsettling and difficult. It is compelling but uncomfortable to see how war, or more specifically, violence, changes even the tiniest elements of our existence. Additionally, war inflicts distrust and fear within those of any role. For instance, the romance between Lucile and Bruno is enticing enough because of the differences that they overcome in order to appreciate one another. Even though they are passionate friends, that level of trust is never achieved because at heart, they are still enemies. When a soldier is murdered by a civilian farmer, other German soldiers fear “these peaceful country folk…they were nothing but a group of enemies…were they now and forever to be enemies?” (307). The reputedly evil, heartless soldiers are in truth torn between fighting for their country and their own survival. Irene Némirovsky’s Suite Française is a worthwhile and compelling text, even as an unfinished manuscript. She is uncomfortably honest; she writes candidly and beautifully. Suite Française surprises us with the struggling balance between the beautiful and the grotesque of humanity amongst the toils of war and violence. Moreover, the author addresses the theme of survival in the most pathetic and triumphant ways while introducing the traumas of violence in the relationships between the characters and their inner turmoil. Although Suite Française is published as an interrupted manuscript forty years after its creation, the text is a must-read. It transcends historical fiction into a genre that complicates humanity and the battle of survival during the most horrendous events in world history.