Bitter Sweet : Suite Française - A Writer’s Lesson

Bitter Sweet : Suite Française - A Writer’s Lesson: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
It’s not that unusual in fiction for dramatic events in an author’s life to enter into the work of fiction that they are creating. It’s perhaps a lot less common when that real life drama is happening at the same time that the work is being written and that the tragic outcome for the author, in this case execution in a Nazi death camp, leads both to a sudden interruption in the narrative and to the manuscript only being discovered and published sixty four years after the author’s death. That alone is perhaps enough to make Irene Némirovsky’s book, Suite Française, an extraordinary story - not enough, perhaps, to make it a great novel and for that you have to add in Némirovsky’s incredible skills as a writer and observer of human behaviour. Given that she was writing the novel with an ever deepening sense of her own death at the hands of the Nazis it is all the more extraordinary that she handles their presence in her novel, and the occupation of France by the Germans, with such humanity and sensitivity and decides to tackle themes in the novel which are far larger than her own personal story.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road - the story of a father and son escaping from the North through a horribly desolate and scorched landscape and heading toward what they hoped to be a safer and less damaged South. The first part of Némirovsky’s book describes the exodus from Paris on the eve of the German invasion and there were many moments while I was reading this part of her novel when I thought of the The Road - a very different book but one that was also able to throw a brilliant light on how human’s can behave when all of the social and cultural props have been removed.

As this blog is about the English language I really concentrated in that post on talking a little about how the rules of English can be bent by an author to achieve certain effects. In this post, along the same lines, I don’t really want to talk about the story or even about the tragic real-life background which it so brilliantly describes - I really think that this is a bitter-sweet pleasure best left up to you as the reader. What I do want to have a quick look at are some of the notes in the Appendix 1 of the book which give an insight into Némirovsky’s writing process and which provide invaluable lessons for anyone who would like to write and that I am hoping all our English4Today Creative Writing Course students will read. Again, I am going to talk about one or two isolated notes that I found revealing about the writing process and after that I’m hoping that you will be interested enough to read the book yourself.

These notes are all taken from Némirovsky’s jottings for the Suite Française and are in Appendix 1 of the book. They need no extra comment from me so I have added them here for you to read and think about in terms of your own writing:

Treating her theme:

If I want to create something striking, it is not misery I will show but the prosperity that contrasts with it… Contrasts! Yes, there’s something to that, something that can be very powerful and very new.

…it’s like music when you sometimes hear the whole orchestra, sometimes just the violin.

What interests me here is the history of the world.

I must create something great and stop wondering if there’s any point

In spite of everything, the thing that links all of these people together is our times, solely our times. Is that really enough? I mean: is this link sufficiently felt?

On the one hand, I would like a kind of general idea. On the other … Tolstoy, for example, with one idea spoils everything. Must have people, human reactions, and that’s all…

What’s important - the relationship between the different parts of the work…..

All in all, make sure to have variety on one hand and harmony on the other…Pursuit - people in love - laughter, tears etc. It’s this type of rhythm I want to achieve.

The movement of the masses must give the book its worth.

What would be good all in all (but is it doable?) is to always show the advance of the German army in the scenes not seen from the perspective of the characters.

By unifying, always simplifying the book (in its entirety) must result in a struggle between individual destiny and collective destiny. Must not take sides.

The most important thing and most interesting thing here is the following: the historical, revolutionary facts etc. must be only lightly touched upon, while daily life, the emotional life and especially the comedy it provides must be described in detail.

On research:

What I need to have:

• an extremely detailed map of France or Michelin Guide
• the complete collection of several French and foreign newspapers between 1 June and 1 July
• a work on porcelain
• June birds, their names and songs
• A mystical book (belonging to the godfather) Father Brechard

Comments on her text and characters:

1. Will - he talks for too long
2. Death of the priest - schmaltzy
3. Nimes? Why not Toulouse which I know?
4. In general, not enough simplicity

- keep it simple. Tell what happens to people and that’s all

… convince yourself that the sequences in Storm, if I may say so, must be, are a masterpiece. Work on it tirelessly.

I think I should replace the strawberries with forget-me-nots. It seems impossible tobring cherry trees in blossom and ripe strawberries together in the same season.

Adagio: Must rediscover all these musical terms …

This, as I’ve said, is a small sampling of her notes while writing Suite Française and I’d encourage you to get hold of the book and read both the novel and her notes to see just how carefully crafted the book is. In any case, I think that this sampling shows that the writing process is one of constant revision and questioning, testing of ideas, reduction of the complex to the simple and of careful research.

You may also be interested in:

• New York Times review of the book
• BBC article on the book and on Némirovsky’s daughter who ‘discovered’ the manuscript.
  
• Amazon page for Suite Francaise
• The Road : Previous post referred to above

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More problem prepositions arriving…

Prepositions with arrive and late: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
Question from Cathy in Canada:

Can we say I arrive to work at 9 o’clock or do we need to use “at”? Also can we say I was late to class or do we need to use “in”? Thank you.

Answer:

Hi Cathy, thanks for your question. The worst thing about prepositions is that there are no nice simple rules to let you know how to use them with certain words. Your question, Cathy, demonstrates this. In most cases you just have to learn the prepositions that go with certain words. Let’s look at your two verbs : to arrive and to be late.

‘Arrive‘ can be followed by several prepositions depending on what is following, look at these:

• I arrived for work in the morning. (arrive + for where ‘work’ is a task or job to undertake)
• I arrived at work in the morning. (arrive + at where ‘work’ is a place)
• I arrived in time to see her. (arrive + in time where there is a temporal aspect)

So, in terms of your first question, I would say that you can use ‘for‘ or ‘at‘ depending on what sense you want to give ‘work’ (a place or a task).

Your second question with ‘to be late‘ is a bit different as I don’t think either of your options is correct.

• I was late for class.

is the correct usage … late for something.

Hope that’s helped!

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Hear and Listen: Easy confusion

Hear and Listen : Easily Confused: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
Question from Khadija in Morocco:

What is the difference between ‘hear’ and ‘listen’?

Answer:

Hi, Khadija. Thank’s for your question, I’m sure that the difference between ‘listen‘ and ‘hear‘ is not clear for a lot of English language learners.
Let’s have a look at them:

Listen is used to talk about or describe sounds that are being made around you and which you are making an active effort to focus on. For example:

• Did you listen to the news last night on television?
• She was listening to music on her iPod when I walked in.
• Mike listened to his teacher and then repeated what she had said.
• ‘Just listen to yourself! You talk such rubbish!’, she said angrily.

Note that ‘listen‘ is nearly always followed by ‘to‘ - you listen to some sound.

Just to repeat an important point; listening is active - that is you are making an active effort to listen to the sound.

Hear is used for sounds that come to our ears, but we do not, unlike listen, need to be actively engaged in trying to listen to the sound - it can just come to your ears! For example:

• Mike heard a bang in the night which woke him up.
• She heard someone screaming and called the police.
• I heard a loud explosion and then the building collapsed.

Note that ‘hear’ is not followed by ‘to’. But, to make it a little more complicated let’s look at this conversation:

• ‘Did you hear what I said’, asked John’s father.
• ‘No, I wasn’t listening‘, replied John.
• ‘Well, if you don’t listen you will never hear what I am telling you!’.

Now, that last sentence seems a little confused but also shows cleary how the two verbs are used - in this case, if John does not make an active effort to listen he will not hear his father’s advice (even if he may have heard sounds his father was making!)

Where hear and listen may seem very close is when you hear something like:

• Did you hear about Jane? She got married!
• I heard about the accident but I didn’t see it.

This is when information is passed to you from another source without you necessarily seeking it - in this case note that ‘hear’ is followed by ‘about’ - ‘to hear about’ something, someone or some action or event.

So, you can hear something without wanting to, but you can only listen to something intentionally.

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 PEMULA

1) Speaking (berbicara); Anda akan menyimak contoh percakapan (short conversataion/dialogue) dari narrator kemudian anda bisa mengambil bagian dari percakapan tersebut. Percakapan tersebut mencakup ungkapan – ungkapan yang biasa digunakan dalam percapan setiap hari dan disesuaikan dengan situasi. Misalnya: Percakapan tentang aktivitas di kantor, rumah sakit, hotel, dll. Anda juga bisa berinteraksi secara langsung dengan Native Speaker (Tanya jawab).

2) Listening (mendengarkan); Anda akan mendengarkan beberapa contoh percakapan yang berlangsung di suatu tempat (berupa tanya jawab, setelah itu anda bias mengambil bagian dalam percakapan tersebut, baik sebagai penanya atau yang menjawab pertanyaan), mendengarkan penjelasan narrator tentang kebudayaan Amerika (anda akan melihat video kota – kota di Amerika dan penjelasan tentang kebudayaannya dan anda juga dapat membaca text bahasa Inggris jika anda kesulitan mendengarkan penjelasannya), serta mendengarkan instruksi dari narrator tentang apa yg harus anda lakukan pada topik yg akan anda pelajari.

3) Writing (menulis); Anda akan belajar menulis jawaban pada bagian latihan pronunciation, grammar, pasangan kata / menjodohkan kalimat, mendiskripsikan gambar. Karena anda mempunyai pilihan dalam memberikan jawaban; berupa suara atau teks.

4) Pronunciation (pengucapan); Anda akan mendengarkan cara pengucapan kata (intonasi dan tekanan) dalam bahasa Inggris yang benar. Setelah itu, anda akan melakukan latihan pengucapan kata dan anda akan dinilai berupa prosentase apakah anda sudah mengucapkan kata – kata tersebut dengan benar? Anda bisa melakukannya secara berulangkali sampai sempurnah.

5) Vocabulary (kosa kata); Anda akan melakukan banyak latihan pada sesi ini. Misalnya; memilih kata yang paling tepat dalam satu bacaan/ reading, melengkapai kalimat, sinonim (persamaan kata, antonim (lawan kata).

6) Reading (membaca); Anda akan membaca teks pada bacaan kemudian anda menjawaban pertanyaan. Aktivitas pada sesi ini sangat berhubungan dengan sesi vocabulary termasuk memahami bacaan.

7) Grammar & Structure (tata bahasa); Anda akan mempelajari bagaimana membuat kalimat bahasa Inggris yang benar yang disesuaikan dengan waktu. Sebelum menyusun kalimat, anda akan mempelajari beberapa jenis kata yang merupakan basic / dasar dalam penyusunan kalimat bahasa Inggris. Misalnya; kata benda, kata sifat, kata kerja, kata ganti, kata keterangan, dll. Setelah anda memahami penjelasannya, anda dapat mengerjakan latihan yang sangat bervariasi. Semakin banyak anda mengerjakan latihan yang bervariasi maka anda akan semakin memahami / mengerti bagaimana sebenarnya menyusun kalimat bahasa Inggris yang benar.

English Games (permainan); Anda pasti tertarik belajar bahasa Inggris dalam bentuk permainan. Ini adalah salah satu metode yang lagi nge-trend bagi dunia anak – anak sekarang. Anda dapat menikmati permainan ini namun sedikit memahami bahasa Inggris karena instruksinya dalam bahasa Inggris.

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