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  • Before Auschwitz Irène Némirovsky and the Cultural Landscape of Inter-war France
  • Jonathan Weiss
Before Auschwitz Irène Némirovsky and the Cultural Landscape of Inter-war France. By Angela Kershaw. (Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 10). New York: Routledge, 2010. viii + 234 pp. Hb £75.00; $103.00.

The title of this important new book says it all. Despite the popularity of her post-humous Suite française, Irène Némirovsky was 'first and foremost a French novelist of the inter-war period' (p. 171), and Kershaw's approach is to consider her work outside of the shadow of Auschwitz, where the author died. But the reception of Némirovsky's work by the contemporary public is indelibly impregnated by the knowledge of Auschwitz. Therein lies the dilemma that Kershaw tries to resolve. Can we read David Golder, published in 1929, and not wince at the stereotypes of Jews in this novel by a Jewish author? Can we understand why Némirovsky published much of her work in far-right, anti-Semitic publications in the 1930s? Can we explain why some of Némirovsky's later fiction seems to replicate aspects of the ideology of the Vichy regime? The Némirovsky that Kershaw paints is an astute, pragmatic author who 'actively managed her relationships with her publishers and her critics' (p. 9) and chose her subjects at least partly in response to the [End Page 122] latter. Although Némirovsky was born in Russia, her literary identity, carefully constructed by her publishers, was that of a French author, 'someone who remembers what the French remember' (p. 163). Kershaw's methodology, inspired by Bourdieu, allows her to look at Némirovsky's writing within the context of the literary values of her time, and throws light on Némirovsky's choice of subject matter as well as her 'ability to weave together discourses derived from an impressively wide range of sources' (p. 162). Hence, for example, Némirovsky's novels about Russia were successful because they were a 'response to a literary vogue [...] established in the 1920s' (p. 81) and had the authenticity of the author's origins. Similarly, her novels about Jews were primarily intended to 'select and fictionalize aspects of her own experience which would resonate with contemporary readers' (p. 100). Does this mean that Némirovsky's works are shallow sops to popular modes? No, says Kershaw; Némirovsky's keen antennae for literary convention did not prevent her from probing the human soul, and she also had an uncanny ability to 'fictionalize contemporary events without the benefit of historical distance' (p. 170). Still, as Kershaw points out, Némirovsky's reputation today is coloured by our interpretation of the era in which she lived. It is hard not to cringe when reading descriptions of some Jewish characters in David Golder, but these caricatures were common currency in post-Dreyfus France (even the philo-Semitic Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu distinguished between acceptable Israelites and repulsive Juifs). Besides, Némirovsky's purpose was never to excite hatred but to present a recognizable portrait of Jews. Here, as in all aspects of Némirovsky's literary career, Kershaw correctly warns against 'backshadowing', or anachronistic reading (a term coined by Michael André Bernstein), and urges us to read her works 'without attempting simplistically to resolve contradictions' (p. 194). But the shadow of Auschwitz is always present, and Kershaw's book, which is a major contribution to Némirovsky scholarship, will probably not quell the arguments and accusations about Némirovsky's life and work, especially in the Anglo-American literary world.

Jonathan Weiss
Colby College, Maine
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