Understanding Irène Némirovsky
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| Title: | Understanding Irène Némirovsky |
|---|---|
| Description: | A sympathetic, nuanced exploration of the fiction and turbulent life of this best-selling authorA best-selling novelist in the 1930s, Irène Némirovsky (1903-1942) was rediscovered in 2004, when her Suite Française, set during the fall of France and the first year of German occupation, became a popular and critical success both in France and in the United States. Surviving in manuscript for sixty years after the author's deportation to Auschwitz, the work drew respectful attention as the voice of an early Holocaust victim. However, as remaining portions of Némirovsky's oeuvre returned to print, many twenty-first-century readers were appalled. Works such as David Golder and The Ball were condemned as crudely anti-Semitic, and when biographical details such as her 1938 conversion to Catholicism became known, hostility toward this'self-hating'Jew deepened.Countering such criticisms, Understanding Irène Némirovsky offers a sympathetic, nuanced reading of Némirovsky's fiction. Margaret Scanlan begins with an overview of the writer's life—her upper-class Russian childhood, her family's immigration to France, her troubled relationship with her neglectful mother—and then traces how such experiences informed her novels and stories, including works set in revolutionary Russia, among the nouveau riche on the Riviera, and in struggling French families and failing businesses during the Depression. Scanlan examines the Suite Française and other works that address the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism. Viewing Némirovsky as a major talent with a distinctive style and voice, Scanlan argues for Némirovsky's keen awareness of the unsettled times in which she lived and examines the ways in which even her novels of manners analyze larger social issues. Scanlan shows how Némirovsky identified with France as the center of culture and Enlightenment values, a nation where a thoughtful artist could choose her own identity. The Russian Revolution had convinced Némirovsky that violent liberations led to further violence and repression, that interior freedom required political stability. In 1940, when French democracy had collapsed and many seemed reconciled to the Vichy state, Némirovsky's idea of private freedom faltered—a recognition that her last work, Suite Française, for all its seeming reticence, makes poignantly clear. |
| Authors: | Margaret Scanlan |
| Resource Type: | eBook. |
| Subjects: | Language arts, French language, Rhetoric, Electronic books |
| Categories: | LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French |
| Database: | eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) |
| FullText | Links: – Type: ebook-pdf – Type: ebook-epub Text: Availability: 0 |
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| Header | DbId: nlebk DbLabel: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) An: 1632216 RelevancyScore: 1084 AccessLevel: 6 PubType: eBook PubTypeId: ebook PreciseRelevancyScore: 1083.55249023438 |
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| ImageInfo | – Size: thumb Target: https://rps2images.ebscohost.com/rpsweb/othumb?id=NL$1632216$PDF&s=r – Size: medium Target: https://rps2images.ebscohost.com/rpsweb/othumb?id=NL$1632216$PDF&s=d |
| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Understanding Irène Némirovsky – Name: Abstract Label: Description Group: Ab Data: A sympathetic, nuanced exploration of the fiction and turbulent life of this best-selling authorA best-selling novelist in the 1930s, Irène Némirovsky (1903-1942) was rediscovered in 2004, when her Suite Française, set during the fall of France and the first year of German occupation, became a popular and critical success both in France and in the United States. Surviving in manuscript for sixty years after the author's deportation to Auschwitz, the work drew respectful attention as the voice of an early Holocaust victim. However, as remaining portions of Némirovsky's oeuvre returned to print, many twenty-first-century readers were appalled. Works such as David Golder and The Ball were condemned as crudely anti-Semitic, and when biographical details such as her 1938 conversion to Catholicism became known, hostility toward this'self-hating'Jew deepened.Countering such criticisms, Understanding Irène Némirovsky offers a sympathetic, nuanced reading of Némirovsky's fiction. Margaret Scanlan begins with an overview of the writer's life—her upper-class Russian childhood, her family's immigration to France, her troubled relationship with her neglectful mother—and then traces how such experiences informed her novels and stories, including works set in revolutionary Russia, among the nouveau riche on the Riviera, and in struggling French families and failing businesses during the Depression. Scanlan examines the Suite Française and other works that address the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism. Viewing Némirovsky as a major talent with a distinctive style and voice, Scanlan argues for Némirovsky's keen awareness of the unsettled times in which she lived and examines the ways in which even her novels of manners analyze larger social issues. Scanlan shows how Némirovsky identified with France as the center of culture and Enlightenment values, a nation where a thoughtful artist could choose her own identity. The Russian Revolution had convinced Némirovsky that violent liberations led to further violence and repression, that interior freedom required political stability. In 1940, when French democracy had collapsed and many seemed reconciled to the Vichy state, Némirovsky's idea of private freedom faltered—a recognition that her last work, Suite Française, for all its seeming reticence, makes poignantly clear. – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Margaret+Scanlan%22">Margaret Scanlan</searchLink> – Name: TypePub Label: Resource Type Group: TypPub Data: eBook. – Name: Subject Label: Subjects Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+arts%22">Language arts</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22French+language%22">French language</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Rhetoric%22">Rhetoric</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Electronic+books%22">Electronic books</searchLink> – Name: SubjectBISAC Label: Categories Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="ZK" term="%22LITERARY+CRITICISM+%2F+European+%2F+French%22">LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French</searchLink> |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=nlebk&AN=1632216 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Classifications: – Code: 843.912 Scheme: ddc Type: prePub Languages: – Code: eng Text: English Subjects: – SubjectFull: Language arts Type: general – SubjectFull: French language Type: general – SubjectFull: Rhetoric Type: general – SubjectFull: Electronic books Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Understanding Irène Némirovsky Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Margaret Scanlan – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Margaret Scanlan IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2018 – D: 30 M: 06 Type: profile Y: 2018 Identifiers: – Type: isbn-print Value: 9781611178685 – Type: isbn-electronic Value: 9781611178692 Titles: – TitleFull: Understanding Irène Némirovsky Type: main |
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