Tempesta in Giugno by Irene Némirovsky

 Tempesta in Giugno

by Irene Némirovsky published by Adelphi is the still unknown second version of Suite Française, published in Italy in 2005. Irene was working to a book divided in several part: a book, witness of the years that she was living in. She was arrested without having completed her beloved book ending her existence in Auschwitz in 1942.

I have the American version of Suite Française. My American friend Connie presented me that book a lot of time ago. So, when Adelphi proposed me to read also this one I was thrilled and I accepted with enthusiasm. 

Of course the reading has been pretty different in these times defined by a senseless war and there was a different heaviness. Scenes that Irene portrays magistrally well of people running away, walking away, abandoning in a word, Paris, for other cities, for countrysides, for the unknown because cities in the hands of the enemy, are similar to the Ukrainians leaving, in this case not for other areas but other countries, in search of some peace. 

I enjoyed the book because Nemirovsky is captivating. This one you see, will be an unputtable down book because you will want to understand the rest of the story of the various characters portrayed compulsively.

The family Pericard-Maltete is a very good and wealthy one of Paris. Numerous, they have a son Philippe who, priest, is in war; then there is a son Hubert, rebel. Auguste is the old patriarch of the family, then there are Adriene and Charlotte the parents of Philippe, Hubert and other children as well. They decide to leave bringing with them Leonard the cat,  when they understand that the Germans would have invaded Paris soon.

Being a family with large capacities and maybe not understanding well that the outside world lived a different asperity, at first the family shared their food with everyone they met along their way, for later understand that a best economy was more proper. They found hospitality in a house, for later leaving it, without Hubert, who disappeared in the while into the wood in search of french soldiers for trying to defeat the enemy, and having forgotten the patriarch in the house!!! A patriarch who will be in grade once in an institute owned by nuns to leave the world in order. 

 

Hubert was a good boy although he felt abruptly a patriotic spirit deciding to join the french army. He understood soon that the french army had been completely defeated and that there wasn't anymore anything to do. This experience, formative, helped him to become a man, a real man, leaving behind his youthness, having experienced love for the first time with a seducent lady. Other unpleasants news will determine a strongest solidity in Hubert at the end of this story.

In this book there is the perspective of the enemy, seen with an acute eye by the author. A german soldier, the first one, in a little village where Hubert is, is welcomed by a french man who looked at him, curious: what will want that german soldier? Will want to kill him? Nah: the German asked for a cigarette, and sounded tired, consumed by the war. 

An enemy, that in little centers didn't bring danger but vivacity. Irene was a beautiful soul, because she could read the beauty of life in war-times everywhere. In a passage of the book is affirmed that after all the man is an egoist: he must be social but will constantly think to himself.That's the main limit of the man.

Gabriel Corte is a famous writer, Florence Beauchamp the lover. Like many other famous and successful people, Gabriele has a wonderful, big consideration of himself. 

He is one of the most disgusting characters of this book.

Gabriel wouldn't want to stay close to that little miserable men so worried to lose their little and insignificant existences. People who wouldn't take in consideration anything else, like the beauty of Paris,its monuments, but just their poor existences. 

Being pretty snob, he doesn't want to eat with these people and doesn't want to wait for simple food. 

Sure rich people in a war-time are much more lucky because they are in grade to open many more doors, they have immense connections that permit them to survive in a way or in another. Poor are limited: in general they have just a house, they can't leave, when they leave and their house is heavily damaged the destruction is global. For a rich person the story is different. 

Gabriel knocks to the door of a famous restaurant where in the past had eaten asking for food that he would have paid. War means bestiality: people, starved, steals food without compassion: it is what happens to Gabriel, ready to eat a good dinner with the companion! Nothing to do: the food is stolen by some poor people. One of them, housemaid in the house of a lady who tended to receive Gabriel often, remembers that he wasn't kind at all. Who knows if they would acted differently if Gabriel a good person, asking for some food. At the end the character of a person defines him and the gestures of other people, also in case of desperation and empty bellies. 

Joseph Corbin, 65 is the co-director of the central bank of industry. He leaves Paris with an upset lover, Arlette Corail,38, leaving behind Jeanne and Maurice Michaud two valued employers.

I loved the characters of Jeanne and Maurice. Good people. They tried their best to reach Tours, where the bank decided to move. Just...They left Paris...walking...It is suggestive. Maurice helped to bring animals, food, with generosity and kindness. They were all desperate people close in this research of peace. Elderly, young, mothers, children: pretty diversified, united in a tiring trip in the unknown, trying to avoid Germans. A lady left her house wearing wagons of bijoux: maybe she wanted to be brilliant: maybe that one was her reaction to the darkness of that times: colors, colors, colors.

She will be killed and a lot of mothers, scared, abandoned their little ones, like, vice-versa, tells Irene, other mothers hugged them with big strength. Jeanne will recuperate the abandoned children and situation.

Not reaching Tours in time, Jeanne and Maurice returned home. Upset, Corbin fired them but they found two great news once arrived home: their son at war, Jean-Marie was sick but had been cured and soon ready to leave and return home: at the same time someone else offered them another work! 

The story of Jean-Marie is touching: seriously injured, his friends soldiers knocked to the door of someone: if he had to die, better in a bed than outside. They wanted to return to see what was going on, but they were captured by Germans. A little love will start between Jean-Marie and Madeleine. An impossible love, the girl will marry the peasant once returned home from the war.

Charles Langelet is a man of big squalor. Like a serpent, this art collector in love for coldness leaves Paris, stealing some gasoline at a young and ingenuous couple once. Charles saved apparently his existence, rediscovered his entire circle of friends, once back to Paris. Everyone safe and enriched by the conflict, ready to re-join great evenings together. Just... Life will take in consideraton his actions and his alienation for the best part of life.

Irene doesn't forget to tell something on the mateorological conditions of that years: seasons, because of the war, were altered. They returned to the normality after the end of the conflict. 

A conflict involves environment, men, animals, the globality of a place presenting desperation to everyone.

A solid book that should be read by everyone.

Anna Maria Polidori