MAY Group Read: Suite Française (General Discussion)

I thought I'd start the group reading thread.

I'll be starting this tonight. Here's the first paragraph from SF's wikipedia page.

Suite française is the title of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian Jewish origin. In July 1942, having just completed the first two of the series, Némirovsky was arrested as a Jew and detained at Pithiviers and then Auschwitz, where she allegedly died of typhus, but was actually sent to the gas chambers by the Nazi regime. The notebook containing the two novels was preserved by her daughters but not examined until 1998. They were published in a single volume entitled Suite française in 2004.

I thought I had this one in my living room, but I can't find it! I put it on hold at the library, but I may not get to it until the month is up. I'll still jump in with comments later though.

I finished the book a wee while ago, but I have been umming and ahing about my review. Here it is:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/9839077/

I am most of the way through this book.I am finding it to be a lovely read. I will admit that aside from watching a few episodes of Allo Allo my knowledge of occupied France is/was very sparse!

I found the imagery of everybody fleeing Paris by foot very moving. Just imagine if that was necessary today? The sheer number of people invovled, and the chaos.

I also found interesting the introduction where the elite are trying to pack up their cars with all their possesions/furniture, not taking other passengers (and then running out of petrol of course) interesting.

So far this book focuses mainly on the elite. It has shown me that during the mass exodus the conditions were almost an 'equalizer' in that the elite were not better off than the 'masses'. In occupied France however money still talks and some people have it significantly easier than others.

I would be interested in hearing from anybody in France about what is taught in schools about this period of time!

A very interesting book so far, and not one that you need to avoid if you are squeemish or don't like really sad books. It is not what I would call a difficult read.

How is everyone else enjoying it so far?

There are many people running from war and famine in the world today.

Of course. I meant the clearing out of Paris on short notice, given that it has likely increased in size/population :P

I can't imagine it being done, the sheer logistics of it. But you would have to hope that the authorities would help, here it seems like they just abandoned the masses.