Suite Française (2004) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Charlotte Pericand: Add a description of this character.
• Philippe Pericand: a priest
• Hubert Pericand: Second son in family of 5 children.
• Gabriel Corte: writer, upper class
• Maurice Michaud: Fled Paris with his wife when Germans invaded. Father of Jean-Marie.
• Jean- Marie Michaud: French soldier
• Florence
• Hortense
• Lucille Angellier: Married and living with her mother in law while her husband is off in the war.
• Bruno: German officer who is stationed to live at the Angellier house.
• Madame Lucile: French wife of a prisoner of war. Lives with her mother-in-law, a landowner in the village of Bussy. German soldiers occupy the town.
• Madame Pericand: Mother to the pericand children, catholic, upper middle class, lives with her husband, children, and father-in-law in Paris.
• Madame Angellier: Mother-in-law of Madame Lucile.
• Benoit: French farmer near Sabarie, simple minded, stubborn.
• Madeleine Sabarie: Foster child on a farm outside Sabarie. Speaks of intentions to become a nun.
• Monsieur Pericand
• Charlie
• Monsieur Corbin
• Cecile
• Jacqueline
• Gaston: Husband of Madame Lucile. Prisoner of war.
• Madame Michaud: Fled Paris with her husband. Mother of Jean-Marie.
• Marthe: Cook employed by Madame Angellan.
• Bernard
• Madame Perrin
• Bonnet: Officer stationed on the Sabarie farm where Madeleine and Benoit live. He is an interpreter, very fluent in french, and also brutal in war.
• Emmanuel
• Amaury
• Julie
• Louise
• Jules Blanc
• Madame De Montmort: Upper middle class land owner of Sabarie. Adheres fervently to strict religious (catholic) principles. Loathes the lower classes yet initiates charities both for and with people of those classes. Wife of the mayor.

Quotes edit see section history

• “If I want to create something striking, it is not misery I will show but the prosperity that contrasts with it.”

  Irene Nemirovsky - appendix 1

• “They're trying to make us believe we live in the age of the "community" when the individual must perish so that society may live, and we don't want to see that it is society that is dying so the tyrants can live.”

  Irene Nemirovsky - appendix 1

• “It was forbidden to walk down the street between nine o'clock in the evening and five o'clock in the morning; forbidden to keep any firearms; forbidden to "aid, abet or shelter" escaped prisoners, English soldiers, or citizens of countries which were enemies of Germany; forbidden to listen to foreign radio stations; forbidden to refuse German currency.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• After all, people judge one another according to their own feelings. It is only the miser who sees others enticed by money, the lustful who see others obsessed by desire.

  Highlighted by 65 Kindle customers

• What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork.

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• Important events—whether serious, happy or unfortunate—do not change a man’s soul, they merely bring it into relief, just as a strong gust of wind reveals the true shape of a tree when it blows off all its leaves. Such events highlight what is hidden in the shadows; they nudge the spirit towards a place where it can flourish.

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• Christian charity, the compassion of centuries of civilisation, fell from her like useless ornaments, revealing her bare, arid soul. She needed to feed and protect her own children. Nothing else mattered any more.

  Highlighted by 54 Kindle customers

• What’s important is to live: Primum vivere. One day at a time. To survive, to wait, to hope.”

  Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers

• “if she drank or had lovers, you could understand her lack of religion, but just imagine, Amaury, the confusion that can be caused in people’s minds when they see virtue practised by people who are not religious.”

  Highlighted by 44 Kindle customers

• “As a nation, we Germans too have a weakness that is also our greatest quality: our tactlessness, which is really a lack of imagination; we are incapable of putting ourselves in anyone else’s place; we hurt people for no reason; we make others hate us, but that allows us to behave inflexibly and without faltering.”

  Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers

• They’re trying to make us believe we live in the age of the “community,” when the individual must perish so that society may live, and we don’t want to see that it is society that is dying so the tyrants can live.

  Highlighted by 34 Kindle customers

• It’s a truism that people are complicated, multifaceted, contradictory, surprising, but it takes the advent of war or other momentous events to be able to see it. It is the most fascinating and the most dreadful of spectacles, she continued thinking, the most dreadful because it’s so real; you can never pride yourself on truly knowing the sea unless you’ve seen it both calm and in a storm. Only the person who has observed men and women at times like this, she thought, can be said to know them. And to know themselves.

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• He was cruel, but it was the cruelty of adolescence, cruelty that results from a lively and subtle imagination, focused entirely inward, towards his own soul. He didn’t pity the suffering of others, he simply didn’t see them: he saw only himself.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Paris
• France
• Germany
• Nimes
• England
• Europe
• Moulins
• Good Lord
• Bleoville
• Bordeaux
• Midi

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Stuart, and followed by The Damned Utd.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Irène Némirovsky (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 843.912

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › French
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary