War Wounds

A tale of loss and longing from Occupied France

A tale of loss and longing from Occupied France
How incredible that a novel so filled with beauty,love and hope should be set between and during the two most terrible wars of the twentieth century.
All Our Worldly Goods Les Biens de ce Monde is the elegantly crafted love story of Pierre and Agnes,a young man and woman whose relationship,at the start of the novel,has been carefully prohibited by Pierres wealthy family and by the strict codes of behaviour in their town. Pierre is engaged to be married to another young woman who comes with a handsome inheritance. Though circumstances turn out differently,the lives of these French families remain intertwined through the decades during and between the wars.

Irene Nemirovsky writes with Chekhovian delicacy about families and their complicated webs of love,pride,and loyalty. She writes with tenderness,humour and occasional sharp irony about maternal love,married love,the love of siblings,and the love that flows downwards,to the next generation. She describes the ways in which men and women form attachments: to their homes,to familiar landscapes and to ways of life.

It is hard to believe that this novel was written in 1940,less than two years into World War II,in Occupied France; by a woman who wore the Star of David,who wrote carefully by hand to save paper,and who would be murdered in Auschwitz two years later.

Born in Kiev in 1903,the daughter of a Jewish banker,Nemirovsky perhaps knew what it was to live under threat. In 1918,her family fled the Russian Revolution and eventually settled in France where she became a bestselling novelist long before the posthumous publication of her masterpiece Suite Francaise. All Our Worldly Goods preceded Suite Francaise in this most creative period of the authors life. In July 1942,Nemirovsky would be arrested and deported to Auschwitz.

One of the loveliest descriptions in the novel is of a day when Agnes discovers a ring she had lost a decade earlier,when she used to meet Pierre in the woods near their town; later that day,watching their little son running circles around them,Pierre and Agnes have a little argument. As they walk home with their son,pushing the pram,we are reminded that these are moments to be cherished: It had been one of the sweetest and most peaceful days of their lives. But they had no way of knowing that.

If she writes with aching gentleness about love,Nemirovsky also describes the atmosphere of war with devastating honesty. In July 1914: No one wanted to believe there would be war,but everyone could feel the hot breath of its approach. Weeks later: It was the very beginning of the war,when the heart bleeds for everyone who dies,when tears are shed for each man sent to fight. Sadly,as time goes on,people get used to it all. And: The news about the war was not good. Not the news in the papers8230; No,it came from somewhere mysterious,carried on the wind,spread throughout the land. At the end of the war,in 1918: On the pavements,disabled war veterans passed by in small wheelchairs8230; no one really noticed the wounded any more.
In 2009,with parts of the world still suffering the devastation of war,these words speak to us with renewed urgency.