October 24, 2007
Tell the full story of Irène Némirovsky
The story behind Irène Némirovsky’s new novel is almost as intriguing as the novel itself. And yet, several of the reviews and articles I’ve read fail to mention a few important facts about this Holocaust victim’s legacy.
Némirovsky had been an accomplished writer in pre-World War II Europe. She died in Auschwitz in 1942 but left behind several unpublished works that were not discovered until recently when her daughter came across them in an old suitcase. The author’s first posthumously published work, “Suite Française,” came out in 2004 and described life in Nazi-occupied Paris. The book became a surprise bestseller in France. Another recently discovered book, “Fire in the Blood,” was published last month by Knopf.
Some articles about the book, like this one by Carol Memmott in USA Today, refer to the novelist as “the Jewish, Russian-born Némirovsky.” Similarly, a review I found on the Charlotte Observer’s Web site summed up Némirovsky’s life this way: “The French Jewish writer, a native of Russia, died at age 39 in 1942 after she was arrested by French police and taken to Auschwitz, where she died of typhus.”
What you would never know from reading either of those reviews is that Némirovsky converted to Catholicism in 1939 and wrote for Candide and Gringoire, two anti-Semitic magazines.
Even this review of “Fire in the Blood,” in the (London) Jewish Chronicle left out those important facts.
Paul La Farge noted in this excellent 2006 essay on Nextbook.org that, “Némirovsky’s death overshadows the life that preceded it, making it hard to think of her as anything but a tragic figure, a martyr, perhaps even a kind of Jewish saint.”
La Farge goes on to say that Jonathan Weiss’ recent biography of Némirovsky demonstrates that she was not any of these things for most of her life.
I think it’s a foregone conclusion that Némirovsky was a self-hating Jew. But, there’s a lot of speculation about her motivations. Did she truly hate her fellow Jews and find comfort among anti-Semites? Or, was it just something she did as part of her effort to assimilate as thoroughly as possible?
Either way, I think her loathing of Judaism adds significant nuance to her life story and its omission leaves readers of reviews such as the one in USA Today with less than what’s needed to understand the full irony of her death.
Fortunately, the Sunday New York Times’s review by Christopher Benfey included the relevant facts:
Despite the excruciating letters her husband wrote to German officials, arguing that his Jewish-born wife was a refugee from Communist Russia, a Roman Catholic convert, a contributor to right-wing journals and no friend to the Jews, Némirovsky was seized by the French police in July 1942 and deported to Auschwitz, where she died a month later.
So, what was so hard about including those same facts in the other reviews? If you’re going to bother to tell the story behind the novel, tell the full story.
Indeed, Nemirovsky was a Catholic convert, and she was a person who died a woman without a country, stateless, as she was denied French citizenship. Her death at Auschwitz is ironic.
There are also articles inferring that documents state she didn’t die of Typhus at Auschwitz, but that she was gassed, and that the Germans listed the cause as Typhus, due to an epidemic raging through Auschwitz. Who knows for certain how she died, and it would definitely be interesting to know the truth.
Much of her writing is centered around Jewish men, money hungry men, and she often demeans Jews in her books. I think she wrote from her own familial experiences, growing up in Russia to a wealthy Jewish family, and having a father who was powerful, and considered to be at the top of his banking profession. Her sterotypical, Jewish character David Golder could include direct dimensions of her own father, and probably does.
As a writer, she masterful, in my opinion, and her stories are depressing, yet resounding testaments of the time, including sterotypes, cultural and societal mores. I have read all of her works that have been translated into English by Sandra Smith.
I enjoyed Suite Francais far more than I expected. I thought it would be dark, sombre and harrowing. The wonderful characters came alive and their strength and weaknesses of character demonstrate Nemirovsky’s deep understanding of humankind even in the turmoil of occupation.
The comic and pathos of situations that the characters found themsleves brought variety and interest throughout the book. I have pondered how the remaining three unwritten chapters would have unfolded. WE will never know.
The appendices are explicit and demonstrate the rigour in her writing and also provide a sense that the need to write was providing her with the strength to do what she knew best.
The interview with Denise Epstein onAmerican University radio complemented my understanding of the author and the times through the eyes of her child. So very poignant.