SUITE FRANCAISE-- THOUGHTS

The scariest thing about war, or perhaps even love*, is that people face the fatalistic position of becoming interchangeable. Propelled by a series of vignette-like chapters of several amazing (or amazingly terrifying) families and individuals, Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise allows us to more carefully examine the humanity needed to survive war, especially when faced with the prospect of sharing a space not only geographically but emotionally with the supposed enemy. War is not the greatest terror imaginable, but the culmination of human inability to understand one another and the inherent trappings of social hierarchies-- physical bloodshed is the manifestation of what has been already established in our minds and hearts, a priori. We forget (purposefully? for the necessity of survival?) that we were once victors and unnecessary aggressors when we are the 'victims'. War perverts human relationships and disrupts what is natural:

[The Germans] too had the impression it was horrible, unreal. For three months they had
lived alongside these Frenchmen; they had mixed with them; they had done them no harm;
they had even managed, thanks to their consideration and good behavior to establish a
humane relationship with them. Now, the act of one madman made them doubt everything.
Yet it wasn't so much the crime that affected them as the solidarity, the complicity they
could sense all around them... (332)

War acts as the impetus for previously burgeoning friendships. The suspicion and subsequent tension of crimes done upon people sets the mood for the novel; out of it, of course, is the possibility of personal redemption and the questioning of self, and the self's role within a larger hegemonic structure (Nazi regime). How does or can love strive within these conditions? This is how Nemirovsky's close third narrative is especially critical and necessary in its scope: it allows us to dip into and out of the minds to see that they are not so different.

What unites us is the hope for improvement-- particularly shown throughout Suite Francaise via the working class and lower middle class and their connections with each other. Nemirovsky, bravely, asserts the spirit of these people as opposed to the discomforting obliviousness of the wealthy and their perceptions of the war. Driving the point home even further, Nemirovsky makes a point of pointing out the deaths of the wealthy as complicated events not directly relating to war, but their lack of potential to love beyond certain limits. While these wealthier characters don't come off too much as stock characters, I wish that Nemirovsky had put in a few wealthy characters that were redeeming, just to make it slightly less heavy-handed. There is so much about the dynamics of human relationships, of the tenuous love that exists in theory and then in reality, so intricately explored and which goes beyond geographical and social boundaries that I cannot properly explain or explicate here. So go read it! It's beautifully written by an author who experienced much of Vichy France and died in Auschwitz. I'll get into the specific context that makes Suite Francaise even more urgent and heartbreaking to read in another entry.

xoxo Tiffany

currently listening to:
The Graduate soundtrack
Simon & Garfunkel
(I'm watching the movie right now)

* read Shakes' A Midsummer's Night's Dream to see what I mean
** think Virginia Woolf; where the narrative voice floats easily in and out of various characters' consciousnesses