Impossible Allusions

As I read the assigned segment of Suite Française for Monday's class, I could feel myself becoming more and more anxious. Némirovsky describes the panic of the French people very well, with so many different perspectives and images, that every statement of every character seems to foreshadow their inevitable, ultimate demise. Of course, I think much of this may be influenced by what we've learned about the author's biography as well. It is interesting that Némirovsky stayed somewhat calm in her life that seemed to be embedded in war. Even her early life was spent fleeing war, but it seems that the end of her biography may foreshadow the unwritten end of this novel. There are so many phrases that seem to elicit ideas that would not have come in her life until after her death.

Anna mentioned the Michauds in her blog post and at one point they mention how grateful they are that they at least have each other. This seems to foreshadow how Némirovsky and her husband Michel Epstein will be torn apart by the same war she was illustrating in her writing. At a later point, Mme Péricand enters a church during their stop on their way to the country and in the scene, Némirovsky describes a memorial to those who died in World War I. This seems to be foreshadowing, or at least hinting towards the idea that the death toll for this war will be much higher.

I am amazed by these images and ideas because, though I know she would have know way of alluding to the events that occurred after her death, these images seem to have a certain insight and poignancy as though they came from an author who knew the full extent of France's situation. This idea offers perhaps even more amazement to the fact that Némirovsky predicted her own death: not specifically of course, but her feeling that death and destruction was imminent certainly translates into the lives of her characters.