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All Our Worldly Goods (1947)

by Irène Némirovsky(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307743292 (ISBN13: 9780307743299)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Vintage Books

review 1: Beautiful WWI through WWII story told from the point of view of the people who loved through it. It gives a glimpse of life in France before WWI, the perils endured by ordinary people durning the invasion, life after between the wars and the begining of WWII. It describes the years between the wars as turbulent and full of uncertainties. The impact of not one but two wars during one lifetime. The book is almost completely character driven. It does not carry political implications. It does not evilize the Germans or describes victims. The tone is even and it felt a neutral account of a time in history without sensationalism. A quiet, engaging, easy to read and informative book. Loved it!
review 2: The author's voice and the scenes she uses to tell thi... mores story of a French couple separated twice by war are fresh and evocative. One of the early scenes of two mothers sharing a bathing machine while scoring social points is quite funny while so descriptive that you almost feel the cold seawater. Her characters are all too human and, for the most part, cynically but tolerantly portrayed. "The women sat on the beach as if they were in drawing-room armchairs, backs straight, skirts modestly covering their ankles. If a blade of pale dune grass bent in the wind to tickle their calves, they closed their legs tight, as if ashamed. Their dresses were long and black; their starched linen collars, stiffened with whalebone, restricted their necks, forcing them to turn their heads from side to side with sudden, staccato movements, like hens pecking at worms. When the lighthouse beacon passed you could see their hats, a veritable garden of chiffon and velvet flowers quivering on wire stems. Here and there a stuffed seagull with a pointy beak stood perched on a straw boater. This was the height of fashion, the favorite adornment of the season, though some people found it somewhat daring. There was something unsubtle about that bird, with its little glass eye and extended wings, Pierre's mother thought, as she looked at Agnes's mother, comparing her neighbor's grey-feathered hat to her own with its decoration of daisies. But Agnes's mother was from Paris. There were niceties she couldn't sense, couldn't understand.""She must have no family left," people said, slightly maliciously; in the eyes of Saint-Ellme, the absence of numerous relatives was suspicious. "She says she's lost everyone." That was no excuse. A good middle-class family should be large, and hardy enough to stand up to death."The fireworks," shouted the children, " the fireworks are starting." less

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