July 10, 2008
Wondering about Irène Némirovsky’s regrets
Two weekends ago, I walked into my local library and saw a copy of Irène Némirovsky’s Fire in the Blood on the new fiction shelf.
I initially went looking for something else to read but I came back to Némirovsky’s book because I felt compelled to discover more about this writer whom many critics have branded as a self-hating Jew who died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz despite her conversion to Roman Catholicism.
As I’ve discussed on this blog before, 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 She died in Auschwitz in 1942 but left behind several unpublished works that were not discovered until recently when her daughter came across them in an old suitcase.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. The other recently discovered book, Fire in the Blood, was published in September by Knopf. Last January, Everyman’s Library published four of her early novellas in a single volume: David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, and The Courilof Affair.
Some articles about Fire In The Blood refer to the novelist as “the Jewish, Russian-born Némirovsky.” Another one I read summed 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 learn from reading those reviews is that Némirovsky converted to Roman Catholicism in 1939 and wrote for Candide and Gringoire, two anti-Semitic magazines.
Indeed, it appears that to a certain extent Némirovsky fostered a reputation as someone who readily embraces anti-Semitic thoughts and ideas. Last January, Ruth Franklin wrote a scathing piece for The New Republic in which she discussed Némirovsky and the spin surrounding her fate as a Holocaust victim. Franklin drew heavily on Jonathan Weiss’ 2006 biography, Irene Nemirovsky: Her Life And Works, and put forth the facts surrounding the career of “a writer who made her name by trafficking in the most sordid anti-Semitic stereotypes,” and came to the conclusion that Némirovsky was “the very definition of a self-hating Jew.”
As I read Fire in the Blood, I couldn’t help thinking about what type of reception the book would have gotten had it not been for the Holocaust back story. The novel is well-written but it did not live up to the hype I heard last year upon its publication. The story revolves around the lives of French villagers and, according to her Wikipedia entry, it is based on the Burgundy village where Némirovsky and her family hid from the Nazis during the war years. The narrator, Silvio, tells us about three scandalous love affairs that cause discord and conflict in the otherwise serene French countryside. Némirovsky displays a certain skill for peeling away the layers of a story as she lets us in on the secret love lives of her characters. But, at a certain point, you begin to wonder how many times she can pull the rug out from under the plot. You end up viewing the villagers’ revelations as a plot device rather than the natural progression of the story. I can’t help but think that Némirovsky would have wanted more time to work on the book before it was published.
But, of course, that’s not what happened. I wonder whether Némirovsky had any other regrets as she was sent to Auschwitz.
Fire in the Blood is published by Knopf (160 pages).
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I recently read your post about Irène Némirovsky and wanted to let you know about an exciting new exhibition about her life, work, and legacy that will open on September 24, 2008 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage —A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. Woman of Letters: Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française, which will run through the middle of March, will include powerful rare artifacts — the actual handwritten manuscript for Suite Française, the valise in which it was found, and many personal papers and family photos. The majority of these documents and artifacts have never been outside of France. For fans of her work, this exhibition is an opportunity to really “get to know” Irene. And for those who can’t visit, there will be a special website that will live on the Museum’s site http://www.mjhnyc.org.
The Museum will host several public programs over the course of the exhibition’s run that will put Némirovsky’s work and life into historical and literary context. Book clubs and groups are invited to the Museum for tours and discussions in the exhibition’s adjacent Salon (by appointment). It is the Museum’s hope that the exhibit will engage visitors and promote dialogue about this extraordinary writer and the complex time in which she lived and died. Please visit our website at http://www.mjhnyc.org for up-to-date information about upcoming public programs or to join our e-bulletin list.
Thanks for sharing this info with your readers. Let me know if you need any more.
-Liz Sinnreich (executiveintern@mjhnyc.org)
Yes, Steve, as Elizabeth Seinnrich writes, above, the exhibit promises to fulfill many of our questions regarding Irene Nemirovsky, of whom I am an avid reader of.
I wrote about this exhibit, myself, after Ms. Seinnrich responded to a post of mine. http://jewwishes.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/jew-wishes-on-woman-of-letters-irene-nemirovsky-exhibition/
I don’t live in NY, as you know, but will definitely travel to see this upcoming exhibit.
thanks for your comment, liz. and, thank you, jewwishes.
i’m curious to see how the museum presents Nemirovsky’s work and life.
Yes I am really wondering too… I have just read The “Suite française” Here is my comment:
Amnesty…
Unfinished Symphony , the beautiful cathedral has a nave and choir , it all seems beautiful. Echoes resound as the murmuring voices sad human condition , so fragile in its vanities , its meanness, its cowardice , so harsh in its selfishness and violence. In contrast,through the whole exodus, we also encounter some compassion , as beautiful as the wild field flowers , this un forgettable summer at the zenith of its glory, spellbinding scents , love sometimes …
This fresco of every man for himself and of the violence lurking within each of us covers every member of society: the banker,the selling author ,the lonely collector, the gentry and the poor , the ‘despicable’ workers ,the hypocritical farmers and traders . Greed , envy , the deadly sins are rampant. The symbolic murder is this: orchestrated by a band of orphans, the scapegoat is a priest, young, handsome , idealistic and in love with both Reason and God’s grace . Musical introduction: the assassination of two beautiful blue and gray lizards killed for nothing and the blazing speed of stones. Unspeakable violence.
A beautiful cat chapter is devoted to Albert, and its perverse pleasures …. . Neither complacent nor really aggressive, this classical writing is beautiful , above the fray , aristocratic. In her brilliant squetches , the author has the precision of an entomologist , the delight of botanical drawings , and the musical beauty of a flowery language. Some sentences are pure Alexandrines. Through the author’s linguistic wealth … there might be an attempt to confuse the absolute evil and reveal the humanity that lies within each of us.
Alas the book is left unfinished , as the symphony, and the third part remains unspoken. Thus Fate has willed .
However , the second part carries a funny title, Dolce, Dolce Vita, Dolce … ? It is true that France ‘ free zone’ climate was very mild … and some still ate desserts. But appalling living conditions , hunger , the perpetual threat of death, carnage , the raids, all this ignored ? For fear of Bolshevism ? Too much for me. What is this rage to present the invader under such an idealised light? And I dare ask the question : does the author not hide behind a very mild and subdued approach of the German invaders to avoid the worst ? The question is open. How can she pretend to ignore what had been happening since 1933? Had I not read the introduction of the book, never had I guessed the writer was a Jew… Never!
“Les loups sont entrés dans Paris, soit par Issy, soit par Ivry … ” as sung by Serge Reggiani years later because ‘He’ remembered. The city of Issy , precisely where Irene had been staying . Manichaeism in reverse, looking around and saying that all French were Petainists … and anyway the only ‘ good boys ‘ seems to me a profound insult to all those in the shade or in their sometimes mad heroic Patriotism have given their lives for freedom. This is absolutely not consistent with the stories of my family. I shudder every time someone said to me: they have occupied the house, but if they were so polite and correct! War is not correct. The attack and invasion are appalling, and the specter of fascism provided by the German Nazis and French collaborators is evil personified, the negation of life that we must keep uncovering …till the end of times, probably.
Irene Némirowsky has not escaped the crematory ovens … and it’s a terrible shame and tragedy , but the tone of the second part of her book project still amazes me and leaves me perplexed … Especially when we know that she was Jewish quickly conveniently converted to Catholicism as the war became unavoidable and for years a dedicated contributor to literary journals of the extreme right to ensure her ascent !
This book would have been rejected, had it been published, just after the war, but 60 years later… things seem to have changed or people do forget!