This book was intended by the author a great opus to the lives of the French during the occupation of World War II, a kind of War and Peace. It was mean’t to be a five part novel but was unfortunately never finished due to Némirovsky’s death in Auschwitz. It is never the less a fascinating insight into French society in 1940 and 1941.

Némirovsky creates characters that are flawed and nearly always both arrogant and selfish. However, each one is beautifully, beautifully drawn. She describes the innate selfishness of people trying to flourish and survive during world war II. She describes the people packing their valuables for the mass exodus out of Paris, linens, scripts, jewellery but in one memorable occasion they forgot their father in law. In the second part of the book “Dolce”, Némirovsky humanises the Germans as not just the enemy but as boys and men living among them (the French) and no different than the French conquerors in Germany after the first War.

The novel also tells of how life goes on despite war and tragedy. Mothers of dead and missing Sons compete over who has the worst Rheumatism, young French women and German soldiers ignore the fact they are in opposite sides and children play in the Gardens of abandoned houses.


Overall this unfinished piece of writing (particularly the first part – A Storm in June) had the potential to be something amazing