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Would recommend it partly as a lesson in World War II history and partly as interesting fiction. Eztremely well written book, but sometimes became repetitive in story line.
Many others have already written of the amazing nature of this book: two insightful novellas written about the second World War.not in retrospect, but as it was unfolding. The surprising thing about Dolce is the near normality of the situation. Several disparate characters are used to represent various social classes and how their reactions to the tragedy differed. This first part of the book is solid and interesting, providing a window into the frequently petty motivations of the well-heeled city dwellers who often saw the war as an inconvenience, but the second novella, "Dolce," proved to be the more fascinating of the two."Dolce" explores daily life in a French country village under the rule of an occupying Nazi garrison.
Indeed, a few local women find themselves attracted to their new caretakers. While no one's happy to live under German occupiers, few feel that there's anything to be done about it. Equally surprising is the "civilized" nature of the occupation. The horrors of Nazism are not explored here, but rather how difficult it is to hate individuals as opposed to concepts or faceless groups. The German officers are courteous and respectful to the townsfolk, some locals even decide that they're not so bad after all. As if the achievement of a well written reflection on contemporaneous events were not enough, the circumstances surrounding author Nemrovsky's presumed death in a Nazi concentration camp and the "discovery" of her manuscript by her daughter nearly sixty years later make Suite Francaise all the more poignant.The first novella, "Storm in June," describes the flight of Parisians from their city in the wake of the Nazi invasion.
It's more often seen as something to be endured until it effectively runs its course, which most expect is simply a matter of time. This is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the story - that the twisted philosophy for which the Nazis fought could be subdued beneath a cloak of Prussian civility. It's interesting to read about the impending invasion in light of what we all know today from the historical record, but what could not have been knowable to the French at the time of the Nemrovsky's writing. While you might be expecting tales of fierce resistance fighting and underground machinations designed to thwart the occupiers, you won't find it here.
Awful. I found myself frantically searching through the discussion questions to see if I had somehow missed the ending. It just stopped. This book was recommended to me by a friend who read it for her book club. It made me feel as though I had wasted my time reading it. But the ending was horrible. The book was interesting and held my attention the entire way through. No epilogue.
But it is not at all. Why I had this on the shelf for a year I don't know. Others have said so much -- if you have read this far, take a chance -- you won't be disappointed. It is a wonderful narrative and description of France in wartime -- in real time. Well, not true -- I do know. I was afraid as some other reviewers have said, that it would be heavy and depressing.
A very interesting read. This book gives a unique insight into the French having to house the German soldiers, showing the humane side - both good and bad -of both nationalities.
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