Following the defeat of the French army in 1940, the Germans occupied France until 1944—directly in the North and via the collaborationist Vichy regime in the South. Despite dire circumstances (Némirovsky and her husband being Jewish), the author embarked upon a grand fresco of a defeated France, not so much to discern its causes or analyze its events, but to address a single question: did the war, the defeat, the flight, and the coexistence with the invader change the French people? The answer is that

nothing was changing, everything remained the same, that they were not witnessing an extraordinary cataclysm, the end of the world as they had believed, but rather a series of human relationships, bounded in time and space.

The author was only able to complete the first two parts of Suite Française before being deported to an extermination camp. The first part, "Storm in June," recounts the frantic and terrified exodus of Parisians in June 1940, doing so through microcosms that mirror the social structure of the French bourgeoisie: the wealthy Péricand family, steadfast in their wealth and adherence to authority; Gabriel Corte, a renowned man of letters, self-assured yet disgusted by such fleeing rabble; the Michaud couple, loyal bank clerks betrayed by the cynical banker Corbin; and finally Charlie Langelet, a vain and miserly collector, willing to do anything to save his porcelain. They are clearly archetypes, treated with affectionate irony in their struggle for survival, to save themselves, their family, and their worldly goods. They are patriots, but sensible ones; charitable within reason; pragmatic in their moral principles, always ready to adapt them to circumstances. Whoever naively believes that war is an opportunity for redemption will meet the fate of Philippe Péricand, brutally murdered by the young orphans entrusted to his care. It is better not to lift the lid on the human soul, lest we discover that we are "between Satan and God, plunged in deep darkness." The second part of Suite Française, "Dolce," is set in a village in central France, a small town occupied by the Germans. The author recounts the relationships between the locals and the invader by taking small-scale incidents as her starting point. Shades of gray prevail over black and white. The troops are composed of young soldiers, disoriented and eager for acceptance; the population professes hostility yet seeks coexistence, at times pursuing personal gain, if not actively collaborating. Némirovsky abandons irony and sweeping strokes, immersing herself instead in detailed descriptions of the settings, in a realistic yet severe portrayal of an obtuse rural bourgeoisie. There is a faint undercurrent of disdain, softened only in the figure of Lucile. Married to a narrow-minded and unfaithful man, currently a prisoner of war, the young woman lives a bleak existence with her grim mother-in-law. She falls in love with a young German officer; in him, Lucile sees not merely a gentle, cultured, and refined man, so unlike her husband, but glimpses the possibility of change:

to be free, inwardly, to choose my own path, to follow it, not to follow the swarm. (...) I am a poor, useless woman, I know nothing, but I want to be free!

. And romantically, the young officer, himself a prisoner of conventions, of Ideas, and of the State, dreamed for Lucile of a

white dress with wide muslin flounces, flared like a corolla, so that dancing with her (...) every now and then he would feel around his legs the frothing rustle of her lace

. These are dreams, futile hopes. The killing of a German by a partisan, who is then hidden by Lucile herself, brings both back to harsh reality:

those quiet peasants with impenetrable faces, those women who only yesterday were smiling, (...) were nothing more than a mass of enemies!

Lucile cries:

Never, no! No! Never! Never would she be his. (...) What made them enemies was neither reason nor the heart, but those dark impulses of the blood on which they had relied to unite them, and over which they had no power whatsoever

The novel was published posthumously in 2004 to great critical and commercial acclaim. The tragic human ordeal of the author perhaps fostered an overly flattering critical reception. The first part has a lively and engaging pace, but the narrative leads nowhere; it remains as if suspended, with even grotesque conclusions that recall the paradoxical, unsettling stories of Dino Buzzati (think of "Fear at the Scala" in Dino Buzzati's The Sixty Stories, reviewed on this site). The second part, undoubtedly more robust from a psychological standpoint, is reminiscent of Émile Zola's The Earth (La Terre), offering an all-too-predictable depiction of the narrow-mindedness and cowardice of the rural bourgeoisie. The figures of Lucile and the handsome officer are too steeped in romanticism—at times cloying—to be truly compelling.

Why read it? Enjoyable: the prose is elegant and fluid.