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A review by thistleheather
All Our Worldly Goods by Irène Némirovsky
5.0
This is a sweet, sad, nostalgic, and unexpectedly uplifting tale of love in the turmoil of the two world wars. It put me a lot in the mind of William Trevor’s Fools of Fortune – although this book was, I think, significantly less tragic, it shares a lot of the same themes of families that seemingly can’t help but be entangled by births, marriages, and deaths, and of people – particularly young people – whose lives are swept up by forces they cannot control.
Reading this book, you feel the horrible and wonderful sweep of history and fate. Wonderful in that love, however embattled, seems to find its home over and over again in this book (lovers find each other, children are born, people are forgiven) – horrible in that the modern reader knows the devastation of each world war looming around the corner.
Knowing, too, that Nemirovsky herself was a victim of the holocaust – she died in a concentration camp in 1942 – I felt her own death looming as the events of the book marched steadily towards the second world war. The reader feels the weight of the war and its impact not just on the main characters, but on the world – or at least on France. But even as such huge, sweeping events set the tone – and much of the course – of the book, Nemirovsky’s writing is still tenderly evocative of the individual experience.
The author has a substantial gift for understanding people and writing convincingly and compassionately about their emotions and experiences. Even with characters that are selfish, or cruel, or dishonest, Nemirovsky writes with an understanding eye. It’s easy to present the big brute of the family who rules the roost; it’s not easy to show the reader why they are the way they are, and even make you sympathize with them a little.
Nemirovsky uses simple language to capture the strange core of life and love – one favorite passage, though short and simple, is Charles Hardelot’s titular line:
“I place the happiness of these children in the hands of Providence, but I know how fate defines happiness, in its divine wisdom: worry, anxiety, endurance, our worldly goods…”
I’m not sure in this passage if Charles means that worry, anxiety, endurance, etc become a necessary part of love, because they are a necessary part of life, as love weaves itself through hardship – or if happiness and love cost “all our worldly goods.” Or, as T.S. Eliot would say, “costing not less than everything.”
I haven’t read Suite Francaise, but I feel that All Our Worldly Goods definitely stands on its own. I’m excited to own this book and look forward to rereading it, especially reading it aloud with my husband. I can’t recommend this book enough.
Reading this book, you feel the horrible and wonderful sweep of history and fate. Wonderful in that love, however embattled, seems to find its home over and over again in this book (lovers find each other, children are born, people are forgiven) – horrible in that the modern reader knows the devastation of each world war looming around the corner.
Knowing, too, that Nemirovsky herself was a victim of the holocaust – she died in a concentration camp in 1942 – I felt her own death looming as the events of the book marched steadily towards the second world war. The reader feels the weight of the war and its impact not just on the main characters, but on the world – or at least on France. But even as such huge, sweeping events set the tone – and much of the course – of the book, Nemirovsky’s writing is still tenderly evocative of the individual experience.
The author has a substantial gift for understanding people and writing convincingly and compassionately about their emotions and experiences. Even with characters that are selfish, or cruel, or dishonest, Nemirovsky writes with an understanding eye. It’s easy to present the big brute of the family who rules the roost; it’s not easy to show the reader why they are the way they are, and even make you sympathize with them a little.
Nemirovsky uses simple language to capture the strange core of life and love – one favorite passage, though short and simple, is Charles Hardelot’s titular line:
“I place the happiness of these children in the hands of Providence, but I know how fate defines happiness, in its divine wisdom: worry, anxiety, endurance, our worldly goods…”
I’m not sure in this passage if Charles means that worry, anxiety, endurance, etc become a necessary part of love, because they are a necessary part of life, as love weaves itself through hardship – or if happiness and love cost “all our worldly goods.” Or, as T.S. Eliot would say, “costing not less than everything.”
I haven’t read Suite Francaise, but I feel that All Our Worldly Goods definitely stands on its own. I’m excited to own this book and look forward to rereading it, especially reading it aloud with my husband. I can’t recommend this book enough.