Dimanche and Other Stories

Irene Nemirovsky's collection of short stories show the insecurities of the individual in an age where dictators governed and when-to use a well-known expression-"the lights went out in Europe".She is able to penetrate the soul of her characters showing them in their good or bad times,their loves, betrayals,intrigues,deceptions and self-deceptions.Her great talent is to dissect,sometimes in very short and precise sentences,what her figures are thinking and their motivations.Int his respect she masters the genre of the short story.Some stories in this collection are confusing and some are better and more interesting.She is extremely good at conveying the conflicts and tension withing marriages and her conclusion is that marriages are not a blessing at all.Most men who people her stories are deceiving others,especially their wives.Children are ungrateful and do not appreciate their parents most of the time.The individual is never certain about his-or her-fate and the age of insecurity is almost always to be found in her stories, which mainly focus on the upper-middle class. The Jewish element of her writing-as already shown in her wonderful book and masterpiece"David Golder"-comes again to surface,to a limited albeit honest degree.There are no heroes here,just people living their daily lives,pretending or thinking they are masters of their fate with a lot of self-confidence,but most of them or doomed without knowing it.This is the tragical dimension of her characters.Unfortunately,this great writer never knew was in stock for her and she was murdered by the Nazi beasts in 1942.

There is a restraint in these stories that reminds me of John Cheever. Nemirovsky aims exactly right for the short story form: simple plots, worlds expansive enough to hold our interest but specific enough so a singular feeling can be conveyed. For example, in one of the longer stories, Flesh and Blood, we meet a family whose matriarch suffers an illness. That is all that happens, yet the centrifugal force of siblings grown older and thus apart is beautifully and entertainingly conveyed. There is also a sad wisdom in these stories, made even sadder by the knowledge of the reader that the author's work could have and should have flourished for so much longer than it did. David Roberts

The posthumous publishing of Irene Nemirovsky's masterpiece, //Suite Francaise//, was an important literary event. It introduced the wartime French writer to English-speaking audiences, and readers were stunned by her deep reflection on the horrors of war. Now, //Dimanche and Other Stories// has been translated into English for the first time, giving us a chance to love this writer all over again. The stories, which take place throughout France, span the period of pre-war prosperity to post-war terror. The chasm between classes is felt in stories such as "Brotherhood," where a wealthy Frenchman meets a poor immigrant who shares his last name. A similar gap between people is felt in the title story, where a young girl falls into the same trap of a loveless marriage that her mother did. The wartime stories are horrifying and eye-opening. In each, a character comes to terms with the truth that no one, regardless of money or status, is safe. Nemirovsky's skill with point-of-view and emotional detail comes shining through as a result of the wonderful translation by Bridget Patterson. This collection of stories is everything literature should be: gripping, beautiful, and thought-provoking. Reviewed by Katie Cappello