[lbo-talk] What are you reading now?

[Robert Wrubel]

Thanks for the reminder, Jordan.  I bought Nemirovsky
too, awhile ago, but got distracted with an arcane
work called Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. I bought
Nemirovsky for the same reason you did -- to learn
about ordinary peoples' experience with encroaching
fascism.  I had tried Sartre's trilogy on the theme a
few years ago, but couldnt identify with the
intellectual types he seemed to write about.

BobW

--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:


> I just finished Suite Francaise, a novel by Irene
> Nemirovsky.
> 
> At the beginning, we find this:
> 
>   Irene Nemirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903 into a
> welathy banking
>   family and emmigrated to France during the Russian
> Revolution.
>   After attending the Sorbonne, she began to write
> and swiftly
>   achieved success with an early novel, <i>David
> Golder</i>, which
>   was followed by <i>The Ball</i>, <i>Snow in
> Autumn</i>, <i>Dogs
>   and Wolves</i>, and <i>The Courilof Affair</i>,
> among others.
>   She died in 1942 at Auschwitz.
> 
> It's a wonderful set of vignettes about people whose
> circumstances are 
> upset by the invasion of France by the Nazis in
> 1940.  There's a bunch 
> of correspondence at the end between her and her
> publisher, growing 
> ever weary about the laws being passed against Jews
> and eventually a 
> few messages from her distraught husband as he tries
> to find her after 
> her arrest.  Usually you don't find such a strong
> connection between 
> the characters in a book and a personal (and tragic)
> story of the 
> author.  I've been reading a lot of early WWII stuff
> these days, and 
> this fits in nicely.  Apparently this book was
> "lost" for many years 
> until someone translated it in 2006.
> 
> /jordan
> 
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