Recent Reviews
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Irène Némirovsky’s powerful novel Suite Française is an insightful and frightening first-hand account of the German occupation of France beginning in 1940. Though many compelling novels have been written retrospectively about the German occupation (The Lost Girls of Paris, The Flight Portfolio, The Paris Library, Sarah’s Key, While Paris Slept, The Paris Architect, All The Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, Those Who Save Us, The Book Thief,) Némirovsky’s wrote the draft of this novel as the terrifying events of WWII unfolded. on scraps of paper. Vivid descriptions of her characters and their plight makes the story feels like a journalist posting dispatches from a war zone. However, Némirovsky was not a reporter; she was an acclaimed writer with several novels to her credit before the Nazis prohibited her publisher from printing her work. Though she and her husband converted to Catholicism and baptized their two girls, Némirovsky and her husband were born Jewish and were subject to the cruel Nazi edits that constrained the economic, social, and religious activities of all Jewish citizens including the wearing of yellow stars.
Némirovsky intended the book to contain five parts, like five symphonic movements, but she only lived to complete the first two parts: “Storm in June,” which describes the chaos and fear that erupted when the Germans marched into Paris, and “Dolce,” which describes life in a French province where she lived after the Germans took over their region. She states in her notes about the book, “My God what is this country doing to me? Since it is rejecting me, let us consider it coldly let us watch as it loses its honour and its life.” Némirovsky provides astute observations about the dynamics between the occupying German soldiers and the French villagers. Her characters capture the complex and wide range of responses to the seizure of their homes and businesses by the Germans. Some resisted. Some collaborated. Some sought economic gain. Some hated the Germans. A few learned to love them.
The origins of this book give the novel another rich dimension. Némirovsky was arrested and taken to Auschwitz, where she died of typhoid in August of 1942. Her husband, Michael, was taken to the Auschwitz gas chambers two months later. Before the Nazis arrested him, Michael gave his two daughters and their nanny a suitcase filled with Némirovsky diaries and draft of this book. For 64 years, her daughters feared opening the suitcase. They eventually did and found the draft of Suite Français which was published in France in 2004 and translated into English by Sandra Smith two years later.
Through her characters, Némirovsky’s provides political, historical, religious and sociological theories on the behavior of the French people during these horrific events. This novel reminds us how war creates chaos as laws evaporate and every person is affected. The Nazis murdered 6 million innocent Jews of which 75,000 were French citizens. And now, eighty years after the needless death and destruction, Hitler’s effort to control the world seems silly and absurd. As Némirovsky states in the last sentence of her novel, “All that remained of the German regiment was a little cloud of dust.” Suite Française shows us the fullness of humanity amid unfathomable tragedy. 4/5
James by Percival Everett
Percival Everett’s most recent novel, James, is brilliant. The premise is provocative and perfect. Everett has reimagined Jim, the enslaved character from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and renamed him James. James’ intelligence and compassion burst from the pages. He has secretly read many of the books from his owner’s library. His reading and writing has made him more insightful than the white people with whom he must interact.
James speaks with perfect grammar and erudition as do many of his fellow slaves. His knowledge of writers and philosophers is extensive. Yet to protect themselves, he and his friends revert to “slave talk” when white people approach. James says,“My change in diction alerted the rest to the white boy’s presence.”
As in Twain’s novel, Huck is running away from his violent father while James is fleeing because he fears he will be sold. He hopes to escape to a “free state” and earn enough money to buy his wife and daughter’s freedom. And thus, Huck and James embark on a dangerous and revealing raft ride on the Mississippi River.
The story illuminates the revolting behavior and attitudes of white people who often project their own inferiority onto the slaves they own. James should be read in conjunction with Huckleberry Finn or maybe instead of Huckleberry Finn. Highly recommend 5/5.
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Women are heroes is the theme of Kristin Hannah’s newest novel, The Women. Since the experience of men dominate history , women are often absent from the depictions of war. In this novel, Hannah seeks to acknowledge and highlight the courageous and competent women who served in the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. With a few exceptions, these women who nursed and saved US soldiers have been relegated to the fringes of history.
This story focuses on 21-year-old Frankie McGrath, who enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in 1965. Frankie is from San Diego, California, and decides somewhat impetuously to follow her brother’s example and serve her country in Vietnam. Had she stayed in her hometown, her conservative parents expected her to find a husband and have children. What Frankie experiences in Vietnam is gruesome and terrifying. But with the support of numerous nurses and doctors, she adapts to the barrage of injured and dead soldiers helicoptered into her evacuation hospital in the jungle.
As harrowing as being a nurse in Vietnam was, her return to the United States was even more treacherous. Many Americans criticized enlisted soldiers for participating in a morally unconscionable war. Even fellow Army vets would not acknowledge that women served in Vietnam. Frankie was traumatized by what she saw in Vietnam, but the dismissive way she was treated when she returned was its own kind of trauma. Her family didn’t want to hear about her experience and even other Veterans refused to recognize her service. Months after her return, she descends into a dark place.
This novel is a quick and informative read. Hannah’s research brings the details of Frankie’s Vietnam experience to life. Unfortunately, many characters are not fully developed and the romantic ending is a bit unrealistic. But those facts don’t diminish the importance of chronicling and celebrating the contributions of the brave women who served in Vietnam and Hannah has done just that. 4/5
