Suite Francaise ~ how far did you get in it?

Jennifer said, "I am currently enjoying Suite Française but I am only done with the first book so far. I like it cause I don't know much about WWII in France and I like puzzling over people's actions and reactions."

Shirley said, "I am now reading Appendix II of Suite Francaise. I enjoyed the book and it is eerie reading it knowing that it was being written as she was living (and later dying) through this historical time. The Appendices have been enlightening both about the author and the book. It was interesting that one of her notes was that the people like reading about the rich. Maybe that was why she included so many, but she sure doesn't give much respect to them."

You both got further than I did ... the book was overdue at the library and had to be returned. But August was a nice break for me because Marylyn did the work for us this month. Thanks, Marylyn! Is everybuddy ready to move on to the next book?

Voting for MOST and LEAST enjoyable books

During September 2007, we began to gather ourselves as Book Buddies on this blog. In October 2007, we started reading and discussing books. If you are a current or former Book Buddy, you are invited to vote on the ones you liked MOST and LEAST. If you are a regular ... or even occasional ... reader of our blog, you are also welcome to vote on ones you've read, pro or con.

Please leave a comment on this post about the books, too. Tell us what you did or didn't like about a particular book. Let's see what's been good and bad about this year of plowing through books together.

Oct 2007 ~ The Other Side of the Bridge (OSB) ~ by Mary Lawson
Nov 2007 ~ The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (BSP) ~ by John Boyne
Dec 2007 ~ Cold Comfort Farm (CCF) ~ by Stella Gibbons
Jan 2008 ~ Pictures of Hollis Woods (PHW) ~ by Patricia Reilly Giff
Feb 2008 ~ In Lucia's Eyes (ILE) ~ by Arthur Japin
Mar 2008 ~ People of the Book (POB) ~ by Geraldine Brooks
Apr 2008 ~ The Camel Bookmobile (CB) ~ by Masha Hamilton
May 2008 ~ Windfalls (WF) ~ by Jean Hegland
Jun 2008 ~ The Devil in the White City (DWC) ~ by Erik Larson
Jul 2008 ~ Jim the Boy (JTB) ~ by Tony Earley
Aug 2008 ~ Suite Française (SF) ~ by Irène Némirovsky
Sep 2008 ~ The Freedom Writers Diary (FWD) ~ by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell, 1999

SF-DQ ~ Appendix

10. Consider Irène Némirovsky’s plan for the next part of Suite Française (in the appendix). What else do you think could happen to the characters?

SF-DQ ~ Dolce (Occupation), Ch 1-22

6. Suite Française is a unique pair of novels. Which of the two parts of Suite Française do you prefer? Which structural organization did you find more effective: the short chapters and multiple focus of "Storm in June" or the more restricted approach of "Dolce"?

7. The aristocratic Mme de Montmort believed: “What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, but the way they hold their knife and fork.” How do the rich, poor, and the middle classes view one another? How do they help or hinder one another? Do the characters identify themselves by class or nationality?

8. Coexisting uneasily with the soldiers billeted among them, the villagers — from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants — cope as best they can. Some choose resistance, others collaboration. Each relationship is distorted by the allegiances of war. What happens during a war when someone who might have been your friend is now declared your enemy?

9. The lovers in "Dolce" (the occupation) question whether the needs of the individual or the community should take priority. Lucille imagines that “in five, or ten, or twenty years” this problem will have been replaced by others. To what extent, if at all, has this proved the case?

The Freedom Writers Diary ~ our September book

Okay, we're one week away from the end of August, so I'm going to make a decision. Shirley is the only one (so far) who has spoken up about my suggestion that we read The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell (1999). Shirley's all for it, and I know Alison has read the book and is troubled by the situation of the teacher suspended for a year and a half for distributing the book to her students. Therefore, it's official. This is the book we'll discuss in September.

If you want to know more about Erin Gruwell, the teacher who had her students write diaries, read about her at these places online:

Freedom Writers Foundation

Wikipedia's "Erin Gruwell"

And here are a couple of YouTube videos about the Freedom Writers from the movie:





Getting started
Read an excerpt online
What we said about the book
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Freshman Year
Sophomore Year
Junior Year
Senior Year

My suggestion for September

I'm really enjoying the book I'm reading now: The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell. Over on my Banned Books blog, we picked up on a controversy swirling around this book ... a teacher in Indiana was suspended from her school for choosing this book for her class to read. Check out these posts from my other blogs by clicking on the links:

Saturday the 16th ~ Let's Talk About It (see sidebar)

Sunday the 17th ~ Alison's review of the book

Tuesday the 19th ~ Book chosen for my Bella Novella book club

Thursday the 21st ~ Teacher suspended for teaching it

The book has been made into a movie starring Hilary Swank, and the husband of the suspended teacher has commented on the first blog post listed above.

Read Ch. 25....Run!!!!!

Okay, what was the reason to show children that are detached because they were never held & bonded to another human & became sociopaths. That's my analysis. Why kill? What did the author want us to take away with what happened during the war? why would the author include this. It's chilling. The Father's instincts kept telling him to get away from these children/devils. They did not act normal. I read Ch. 25 last night before bed & was so afraid to go to sleep. I kept listening for footsteps. I can't handle this stuff. It's too violent, gory & scary for me. As soon as those boys killed the salamander, lizard, what have you., I knew they got a thrill killing. They wanted to destroy anything that was beautiful. I don't get it. It's just like seeing kids ripping up pretty flowers on private property & throwing them down on the ground. You would think that the kids would be happy to see pretty things. I don't get it. Please help me out here. What did you think of this chapter?

SF~Week 1~ DQ

1. It takes a long time for historians and writers to come objectively to terms with a catastrophic historical event, yet Némirovsky presents just that – an on-the-spot description and interpretation of how the French behaved in the years between 1940 and 1942.
Has Némirovsky presented a fair picture? Has she written a journalistic account of the time or a story of fiction? How have her own personal experiences biased her writing? Is this novel a contribution to the library of wartime literature?I think this story is unquestionably a contribution to wartime literature.

I don’t like the word fair because this is her story and if some think it is to harsh on one certain type of people or the other it is still her story to tell the way she saw it and biased or no when something becomes personal it is just that a personal account. In the preface of my copy there is a letter from her daughter regarding the book and why she waited to have it published. She states that when she read the manuscripts she remember these events and these people her sister on the other hand had a different recollection base both on her age at the time and her reaction to the situation. The younger sister wrote he own book which is why the older daughter waited to publish this one, because it shows something very different. She didn’t even let the younger sister read this book for fear it would upset her because it was different than what she remembered.

2. Suite Française is an unfinished work, and as such it may be criticized as unpolished, especially when held up to the measure of other classic novels written in the past and present century accounting for the same time and events.Consider in your reading so far whether or not you consider what Irène Némirovsky has written to be a tragically classic story or if she is merely a tragic figure in her own story.

I think it is both. Most authors use personal experiences for most of their work and this is no different. And because we know the out come we know for a fact that she was a tragic figure in her own story.

3. In, Storm in June, Némirovsky explores the nature of families who escape Paris at the start of the invasion – the Péricand family, the writer Corte and his mistress, the Michauds, and some other individuals. These smaller groups, in turn, represent the thousands of people who found themselves in a state of upheaval that June of 1940. Once she sets her characters on the road, she steps back and allows them to act on their own – for better, in just a few instances, or for worse, in many cases.a.
Do you find yourself identifying with any of the actions or behaviors of these main payers in the beginning of the first raid and initial invasion of Paris? b. If so who?c. If not how do you think you would have reacted?

I don’t know that I identify with any one of the actors; I can see pieces of certain behaviors that I identify with. I know that when we are at maximum stress level our true nature is exposed. This is a tool used in leadership training to create poise (grace under fire). At all levels of training you put some one under extreme pressure and then put them in charge. That is the only way to find out someone’s true leading ability. There were some real go getters here and some definite failures in this story. The thing that most disappointed me was the statement Madame Péricand made that “she needed a male to tell her what was going on”. I know it was the time but in the light of knowing during this same time Julia child was acting as a spy for the allied forces. I don’t know I just take it personal for women to act helpless.

Week 2~Storm in June~DQ

“ The Resistance”

• To discuss the issue of the French Resistance appropriately, we need to look at how the French themselves perceived it. They would have to consider whether their memories of past events are intact or have been filtered to repress or retain selected facts and behaviors. Part of what is now seen as the “myth of French resistance” became a psychological strategy that the people used to balance conscience with self-perspective.

• As a way of dealing with the humiliation of defeat, the French appeared to take the surrender in stride and went about the business of trying to survive. To maintain a degree of honor, they began the serious business of “forgetting” and adopted en masse the “national myth” – that the majority of French citizens resisted the enemy in a variety of ways. They looked to outside influences as a place to lay blame for the tragic Vichy years. Political figures like Charles de Gaulle, head of the post-war provisional French government, did nothing to change this misconception.

• One impact of such thinking led the French to come down hard on suspected collaborators. The women were paraded through town with their heads shaved and in some cases with swastikas painted on their breasts. The men were simply executed.

• It usually takes writers and historians a long time to gain a proper perspective of momentous historical events. It is an arduous process to digest and interpret the actions, feelings, and responses of all the documented witness accounts. But Némirovsky was not to be intimidated into waiting. She knew she had no time. She wrote her story as it happened; she wrote as she experienced it, and she interpreted and made judgments even as she observed them.

4. Since the war, the French have lived with the myth of a valiant French Resistance movement in the face of a devastating German attack and occupation. This myth exploded in the late twentieth century and was shown to be false. Yet, Némirovsky wrote, “And to think that no one will know, that there will be such a conspiracy of lies that all this will be transformed into yet another glorious page in the history of France.” (p.143) How was Némirovsky able to predict that the world would come to this conclusion? What other predictions does she make in her novel?

5. The Resistance movement grew better organized after 1941, and there were many positive actions performed by the French. Némirovsky has been criticized for being too hard on the French and too easy on the Germans. Considering the timing of this novel and Némirovsky’s experiences, what is your reaction to this comment?

Interesting things to think about

Mood and Irony
• Némirovsky installs the entire novel into the times by setting up the mood and feelings of her characters to match the environment. The novel begins poignantly on the night of the air raid. We feel the heat and hear the siren, which sounds like a “a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh.” (p.3) She successfully conveys the feeling of anxiety that first hovers in the air and then explodes into panic as the sirens wail and the first bombs begin to fall. Each of her characters reacts to this anxiety in a different way.

• At this point, Némirovsky switches to detailed comparative description as she explores their bizarre behaviors. She contrasts and juxtaposes rich with poor, urban with rural, character with character, French with German, patriot with soldier. She measures courage, patriotism, and humanity by using irony and satire, pointing out clearly that human behavior is predictable only because no one, least of all the characters themselves, can truly guess what he or she will do in any given situation. Especially in a serious situation, a person’s response can be quite unusual and strange.

• She never runs out of ways to satirize her characters in order to expose their deepest fears and how they project these fears in this time of war.

• The suite is the oldest form of cyclical music ever written and is still used today. “Suite” in old French meant “order.” Later in seventeenth and eighteenth-century English, it came to mean “lesson.” Therefore, a suite is a musical piece with an intention to educate.

• As the term became integrated into the lexicon of music, it came to represent a set of two or more contrasting elements that fit nicely together. (Oxford Music) These elements, linked by the same themes, could also be set into major and minor musical keys, which help to interpret those themes with more emotion.

• As we examine Suite Française, we see that its main focus is war – how war affects people and how war changes their interactions. Némirovsky begins by stringing together single interconnected short stories, as if each one is a melody line in a symphony. Hence the musical title, Suite Française.

• Némirovsky had first conceived of the book as having four sections to parallel the four movements in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But she quickly realized that the story needed to include a fifth section. “Yes, to do it well, should have 5 parts of 200 pages each. A 1000 page book. Ah, God!” (p.352) It would be interesting to know if her thousand-page goal was also meant to poke fun at Hitler’s claim that the Third Reich would last a thousand years.

• While Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, it was his fifth that came to be used by the Allies as a symbol of victory. The first four sharp and pointed notes are very strong, especially in their repetition, and because they were so familiar, they became very motivating for the soldiers. The notes became the stimulus to jump into battle. There is a paradox in the fact that this music, written by a German composer, would be used to help defeat the German army. Némirovsky would have deeply appreciated this irony.

DWC-DQ ~ Part IV ~ Cruelty Revealed

10. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that "Exactly what motivated Holmes may never be known" [p. 395]. What possible motives are exposed in The Devil in the White City? Why is it important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes?

11. After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted: "What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World's Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next" [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

12. What narrative techniques does Larson use to create suspense in the book? How does he end sections and chapters of the book in a manner that makes' the reader anxious to find out what happens next?

13. What does The Devil in the White City add to our knowledge about Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham? What are the most admirable traits of these two men? What are their most important aesthetic principles?

14. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn't he caught earlier? In what ways does his story "illustrate the end of the century" [p. 370] as the Chicago Times-Herald wrote?

15. The White City is repeatedly referred to as a dream. The young poet Edgar Lee Masters called the Court of Honor "an inexhaustible dream of beauty" [p. 252]; Dora Root wrote, "I think I should never willingly cease drifting in that dreamland" [p. 253]; Theodore Dreiser said he had been swept "into a dream from which I did not recover for months" [p. 306]; and columnist Teresa Dean found it "cruel . . . to let us dream and drift through heaven for six months, and then to take it out of our lives" [p. 335]. What accounts for the dreamlike quality of the White City? What are the positive and negative aspects of this dream?

16. What is the total picture of late nineteenth-century America that emerges from The Devil in the White City? How is that time both like and unlike contemporary America? What are the most significant differences?

17. In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? What important figures were critically influenced by the Fair?

JTB-DQ ~ Book VI ~ The View from Up Here

Thanks, Jennifer, for coming up with questions for the last section:

21. What do you think of the last section?

22. What do you think of the book as a whole?

And these are from questions I found online:

23. What is the significance of the final scene with Jim's grandfather and his two cousins? What realizations does Jim have during this scene?

24. Think about the stories that are told about Jim's father. What is his vision of the kind of man his father was?

25. Both the setting and Jim's life have a simple quality, yet through each flows a more complicated undercurrent. How do the setting and era reflect Jim's character?

26. In just one year, both Jim and the United States experienced tremendous change. How does Earley incorporate the evolving society into Jim's story? Think about education, the economy, electricity, transportation, race relations, and polio. What will Jim experience as society evolves that his uncles and mother never did? How will his adult world differ from theirs?

Jim the Boy -- Book VI: The View from Up Here

Our Boy

This last section had a lot of description of the scenery and the trip up the mountain along with Jim's thoughts and feelings during it. Mama doesn't want to go with Jim and the uncles but she worries that Jim won't come back. I still don't understand why. I doubt she thought Jim would decide to stay and live with his granddaddy over the uncles and her. The story of the panther and the haint only made Jim more uneasy about the trip than he already was. I also don't understand why the uncles and/or Mama decided Jim needed to go see Penn (and his granddaddy) if he didn't want to. I don't think the uncles should have left Jim alone to see Penn nor should Penn's mama. Jim thinks differently of Penn after seeing his large house and knowing that he has traveled to big cites. I think Jim gave Penn the glove and ball because he simply didn't know what else to do, not wanting to wake Penn, and he felt guilty over the events that happened last time they were together and that he was fine and Penn was not. The visit with Penn didn't go very well. More history of Jim's granddaddy and daddy is given but why exactly his daddy left the mountain isn't told, I don't think. Ada and Rehobeth seem to like Uncles Coran and Al. Jim's granddaddy doesn't respond to him as he is very sick. Jim and the uncles watch the sun set and the lights come on in Aliceville. Mama turns on the porch light at Uncle Zeno's. Jim realizes that Aliceville is a small place in the world, but the center of his life as is his family.

There was no discussion or discussion questions from the sixth and final section of Jim the Boy. Bonnie and Shirley, what did ya'll think of the last section and the book as a whole?

How to use LABELS

Shelley said, "Hopefully I've navigated well enough to have read all of the previous discussion and comments!"

Everybuddy listen up!

If you want to read ALL of the discussion about this book, click on the sidebar link under Suite Francaise that says, What we said about the book. That will bring up EVERY post that has been labeled "SF," which stands for "Suite Francaise."

I have been a stickler about the labels, so "SF" (or the initials for one of the other books) is put on every post that concerns that book.

"SF-DQ" is NOT interchangeable with "SF" because adding the DQ means it's a post that contains the DQs or discussion questions. Whenever DQ is added to the initials of the book, it means "here are some questions to get the discussion started."

If you are looking for the discussion questions for this book (those that we have so far), click on "Week 1 ~ Storm in June, Ch 1-20" in the sidebar. That takes you to those questions Marylyn has come up with. If you look at the bottom of that post, you'll see it is labeled both "SF" (because it's about this particular book) and "SF-DQ" (because it has some questions about this particular book).

Look at the "labels" below any post on this blog and you will see these things:

(1) the name of the person who posted it; and
(2) initials of the book under discussion ... OR ... the letters "OT" to indicate the post is "Off Topic.

You will ONLY see SF-DQ if one of us is posting QUESTIONS about a book. (Yes, I've done extensive revisions of the labels you have used. Otherwise, this blog would be useless.)

One other thing:

If you are looking at any post and want to know more about that book, click on the label to get there:

(1) Click "SF" to see all posts about "Suite Francaise."
(2) Click "SF-DQ" (if somebuddy has posted questions for everybuddy to answer) to see all posts that have questions to be answered for "Suite Francaise."

Along the same lines, if you click on a name among the labels, everything posted by that person will come up for you to read. (You can do the same thing by going to the list of PARTICIPANTS in the sidebar. If you click on a name under "Our Profiles," you will be directed to the person's profile ... and blog, if she has one.)

Suite Francaise Discussion Week 1

Well, I've dedicated this morning to Suite Francaise. Hopefully I've navigated well enough to have read all of the previous discussion and comments! Thank you to those of you who make the time to come up with questions and related links and materials. I know I barely have time to get to the DQ, and your lives are busy too.
I've been listening to the audio book, so my knowledge of detail can be a little fuzzy. I am a much better reader than listener, but sometimes the audio version helps me to feel the tone of a novel better (and also allows me to do laundry, dishes, etc. If I miss a part of the book, it's usually from when I was running the garbage disposal!)


Has Némirovsky presented a fair picture? Has she written a journalistic account of the time or a story of fiction? How have her own personal experiences biased her writing? Is this novel a contribution to the library of wartime literature?

She seems fairly objective for being a contemporary observer, but definitely shows the characters in a harsh light. I wondered if her intent was to show the dark side of Parisians, or human nature in general, and how we respond in a crisis or war. The fact that she is not a native of France (this is true isn't it? How old was she when she came to France?) keeps her from sympathizing the French perspective.

Consider in your reading so far whether or not you consider what Irène Némirovsky has written to be a tragically classic story or if she is merely a tragic figure in her own story.

I am enjoying the writing. I feel kind of like I am watching a documentary and getting detailed glimpses of peoples lives and their reactions to the invasion. I think much more time needs to pass to determine if it is a classic. I think her portrayal of the author Corte is interesting, because he is so distraught that the invasion is not living up to his romantic ideal of war that you would find in a novel. Instead he sees the cold truth of it (also lacking in his luxuries). I wondered if she felt the same way, or if she knew the reality of war, and was criticizing authors who idealized it.


a. Do you find yourself identifying with any of the actions or behaviors of these main payers in the beginning of the first raid and initial invasion of Paris?

The part where some mothers were just throwing their babies down and running away as they were being bombed just made me reflect that you sometimes don't know how you will react to certain situations. What happens when that survival instinct kicks into gear? Like when starving people turn to cannibalism? Can we predict what we ourselves would do? Of course the thought of abandoning my baby to a bomb is mortifying. But I remember one time my 2 year old had gotten onto the kitchen counter, and I could see that she was going to do a head dive down to the kitchen floor. I completely froze. I could not move a muscle to stop her, and there would have been time. She had a big goose egg for a while, but all I could think of was how useless I was and what if it was something more life-threatening--like one of my children getting hit by a car. Would I be able to run out and save them, or would I freeze?

I related to Phillipe a little bit, the way he kept trying to feel love for the boys, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. He underestimates their evil natures, and cynical as I may be at times, it is still hard for me to grasp the amount and level of cruelty in the world.

Map of Vichy France

This map may be clearer than the map (on page xi) in the book. Click to enlarge it.

Jim the Boy -- Book V: Quiet Days

Like the previous section, I thought this section didn't mesh with the beginning of the book either. I don't know if the author just didn't make the transition well when he started going in other directions or what. It just seem discordant. I'm also wondering when Jim's grandpa is going to come into play.

A Game of Catch

There was a lot of rain and everybody was getting on everybody else's nerves. Penn and the mountain boys weren't in school and Jim missed them. On the first sunny day, Jim hears the Carolina Moon stopping and goes to get the uncles. The Moon ran over a cow so it's stopped for awhile. Penn and his father have come down from the mountain. Penn's face is red and shining and his eyes are bright. The conductor tells the boys that Ty Cobb, a baseball player, is on the train but he won't let them on or get them an autograph. I don't think Ty would have minded as much as the conductor thought he would. Uncle Zeno has the idea to have the boys play catch in front of the train, perhaps hoping Ty would see them and come out. Penn wants to use Jim's glove but Jim says no so the catch gets competitive. The boys are angry. Suddenly, Penn falls down and can't move. Something is wrong.

An Afternoon in the Sun

Penn had polio and his father took him back to the mountain, not to the hospital. Aliceville was quarentined. So Jim sat in his room and waited. He felt bad for not sharing with Penn and being angry. He wanted his friend to get better. Abraham came by and brought Jim an apple pie. Pete came by and brought Jim a fossil from his desk saying he was cleaning out and would just throw it away. I think Pete might like Mama. I'd like to see them get together. Whitey came by and gave Jim a Civil War bullet on his way out of town for the last time. He was laid off from his job and going elsewhere to look for work. Jim and Whitey talk about Whitey wanting to marry Mama.

Discussion Questions

18. Why did Jim feel such a strong sense of rivalry toward Penn? What about their pasts and their families' pasts gave them a special bond?

I think Jim had grown up thinking the town boys were superior to the mountain boys. So when he met Penn, they were competitive from the start. After awhile, Jim realized that he actually liked Penn and they became friends. Penn and his father also knew or knew of Jim's grandfather, which bonded them more.

19. Jim has moments of selfishness. How does he begin to take responsibility for his actions as he grows older?

Jim still seems selfish. He wouldn't let Penn use his glove because he only wanted to look good to Ty himself at the expense of his friend.

20. "Penn had polio. The sheriff ... nailed up quarantine notices" (p. 172). Having polio felt like a death penalty to people in the 1930s and 1940s, and I remember not being allowed to swim in a public pool for several summers of my childhood. Polio ruined lives ... and sometimes took lives. If you don't have any stories about polio, see what you can find out about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's polio. News photographers were careful to take pictures when FDR was sitting or already propped up at a microphone.

I have to say it's great that polio is basically eradicated. I remember learning about it when we visited the CDC in Atlanta as a trip for the Biochem department.

Vichy France

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/627433/Vichy-France

The Authors Purpose

How important is it for the reader to know the author's purpose in writing a book?

How important is knowing something about the author's background and philosophy?

Do we need to know more about Irene N.'s life in order to understand her point of view?

Discussion Book 1

I am not sure whether we decided to post our comments and answers as 'comments' or as 'posts'. Anyway, I want to say that the characters are certainly a self absorbed bunch of wealthy to upper middle class snobs. Has there been any true kindness shown by any of them? Is this the 'survival' mode of just these few, or were the French people as a whole this selfish. Usually we hear of the little kindnesses that folks do for one another in a disaster. We aren't seeing much of this here.
Now for this to be a discussion, I need a response to my questions. It seems that usually at Book Buddies we post independently of one another without responding and discussion.

Were there any kindnesses shown to each other and I missed them?

8/4/08 6:33 AM
Blogger Ellen D. said...

The only kindness that comes to mind is the Pericands when they start passing out chocolate, etc...then Mrs. Pericand realizes that despite having plenty of money there is nothing to buy! Her charity dries up at that point.

There was the transport driver that went out of his way to drop the soldier at a house to die more comfortably than in a truck.

8/4/08 7:17 AM
Blogger Zorro said...

Yes, Ellen, I forgot about the chocolates...Ms. P was a 'formulaic' Catholic, wasn't she. She went through all the correct motions, but 'had not love' so she was a 'clanging cymbal' or symbol! (Ephesians)

8/4/08 7:57 AM
Blogger Bonnie Jacobs said...

MaryZorro, I love that you see her as a mere symbol/cymbal. What fun with the words!

Thanks for picking up on that vivid image of "clanging cymbal" for us. It's from the "love chapter" of First Corinthians:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ... If I give away all I have ... but have not love, I gain nothing." (I Cor. 13: 1, 3)

Mrs. Péricand certainly wasn't willing to give away "all that she had," was she?

BTW, I think we could have a better conversation if everybuddy would POST answers, using COMMENTS if it's a short responses. Therefore, I'll POST this, too.

8/4/08 2:16 PM

Ellen - Chapters 1-20

I think it is a fair picture of what was happening. Some of the descriptions were so unexpected, but so absolutely true that they could only have been recorded by an eye witness. Details even a highly informed/researched writer would not be able to assimilate. One that sticks in my mind is the sound of shops closing in the middle of the day. I remember thinking that Alan Furst, who writes very realistic feeling novels about WW2 Europe, must have found this novel a treasure trove. I wonder how many aha moments he had reading this. Her own experiences must have colored her writing, but whose doesn't? She was writing this as a novel, right?

Maybe it is the translator, but so far the book does not feel unfinished as in polished. There may be loose ends/unfinished story lines by the end.

Which figure do you think is most reflective of her experience?
Weird, but since you asked, I identify with Mme. Pericand if anyone...having children I can relate to her circumstances. And **spoiler follows** I could not meaning to forget the Elder Monsieur Pericand if an opportunity came to save my children!!!

Suite Francaise DQs

She does this with a heightened understanding of human behavior and an instinctively literary mind that utilizes some techniques and methods that will be used only years after she is gone.

I wonder what these techniques and methods are...would it be the telling of the same story from so many different points of view? We read stories that are written this way so often now. Perhaps this technique was not used at the time this novel was written.

Has Némirovsky presented a fair picture? The story does portray the Parisians as selfish and only concerned with their own well being and wealth. Is this fair? Perhaps this is the way they were!

Has she written a journalistic account of the time or a story of fiction? It reads to me as a story of fiction written in a journalistic style. We recently read The Devil in White City which was a non-fiction story written in a fictional style.

How have her own personal experiences biased her writing? Is this novel a contribution to the library of wartime literature? It certainly is a strong condemnation of the self absorbed attitudes of the wealthy people of Paris.

Consider in your reading so far whether or not you consider what Irène Némirovsky has written to be a tragically classic story or if she is merely a tragic figure in her own story. I would say that this is a tragically classic historical fiction glimpse of the lives of a few self absorbed wealthy people of Paris.

Week 1~Storm in June~DQ

Main Characters
The Péricands
Charlotte Péricand
The Elder Monsieur Péricand
Philippe Péricand
Hubert Péricand
Corte
Gabriel Corte
The Michauds
Jean-Marie Michaud
The Villagers
Lucile Angellier
Madame Angellier
Madeleine Sabarie
Benoît Sabarie
The Viscountess
The Germans
Lieutenant Bruno von Falk
Kurt Bonnet

Némirovsky wrote this book in the years between 1940 and 1942. She recorded for posterity what she saw around her – the events and people’s reactions to them. This novel is a close-range, eyewitness account of war. Némirovsky explores the kinds of decisions people make in a time of war that demonstrate their character. She does this with a heightened understanding of human behavior and an instinctively literary mind that utilizes some techniques and methods that will be used only years after she is gone.

It is 1940 and the Germans are poised to enter Paris but have not yet arrived. In anticipation of the Germans’ arrival, the people of Paris pack up to leave. There is no thought of staying, no thought of setting up a defense. Panic and chaos is the order of the day. Némirovsky paints a satiric and sad portrait of the Parisians, as they step all over themselves and others in their attempt to escape the unimaginable – the destruction of their beloved Paris: an event that never happened.

1. It takes a long time for historians and writers to come objectively to terms with a catastrophic historical event, yet Némirovsky presents just that – an on-the-spot description and interpretation of how the French behaved in the years between 1940 and 1942.

Has Némirovsky presented a fair picture? Has she written a journalistic account of the time or a story of fiction? How have her own personal experiences biased her writing? Is this novel a contribution to the library of wartime literature?

2. Suite Française is an unfinished work, and as such it may be criticized as unpolished, especially when held up to the measure of other classic novels written in the past and present century accounting for the same time and events.

Consider in your reading so far whether or not you consider what Irène Némirovsky has written to be a tragically classic story or if she is merely a tragic figure in her own story.

3. In, Storm in June, Némirovsky explores the nature of families who escape Paris at the start of the invasion – the Péricand family, the writer Corte and his mistress, the Michauds, and some other individuals. These smaller groups, in turn, represent the thousands of people who found themselves in a state of upheaval that June of 1940. Once she sets her characters on the road, she steps back and allows them to act on their own – for better, in just a few instances, or for worse, in many cases.

a. Do you find yourself identifying with any of the actions or behaviors of these main payers in the beginning of the first raid and initial invasion of Paris?

b. If so who?

c. If not how do you think you would have reacted?

The French/German Relationship and Vichy

• France and Germany have long been political and military rivals. At the conclusion of World War I, although Britain and other countries were at war with Germany alongside France, it was France who dictated the terms of Germany’s surrender at the Paris Peace Conference in January, 1919. Germany never forgot this.

• From the outset of World War II, the events which took place were devastating for France. She fought the enemy for a total of six weeks and then capitulated. Approximately two million men were taken prisoner by Germany and about ninety thousand soldiers were killed. France fell, and the surrender took place on June 25, 1940.

• When the time came to sign the armistice, Pétain, a World War I hero, freely handed France over to the Germans, and the country was divided into an occupied and a free zone. Because of Germany’s long memory, France was humiliated into signing her surrender agreement in the very same railcar where the Germans had signed their capitulation papers years before. The French had kept the car as a memento of the event.

• After the armistice, there were no longer so many military casualties, but the Germans continued to take prisoners of war back to Germany to work as slave laborers in their war machine. The number of French army prisoners numbered nearly two million. (Lucile Angellier’s husband and Benoît Sabarie are two such prisoners.)

• Part of the French defeat can be blamed on the thousands of French who clogged the roads and prevented the army from traveling to the northern front. Némirovsky describes this in excruciatingly moving detail.