kiriamarin's review against another edition
Conta a estória de duas famílias burguesas entrelaçadas por as duas grandes guerras e revés de fortunas e mudanças sociais que se seguem,da geração louca e perdida no pós guerra. Centrado pelo amor entre Agnes e Pierre.
Uma narrativa bem escrita mas tradicional, não me deixou uma forte impressão como o curto e excelente "El Baile".
Uma narrativa bem escrita mas tradicional, não me deixou uma forte impressão como o curto e excelente "El Baile".
albarodriguez_p's review against another edition
4.0
Un libro corto, pero lleno de emociones. Muy bueno
christiek's review against another edition
4.0
This book picks up where Jane Austen leaves off. She does it with her own characters and they are French. Our misclassed lovers have their happy beginning when the factory owner's son decides to ditch the fiancee his parents chose for her dowry and to please the patriarch for the merchant's daughter. They accept their exile and his disinheritance and live happily ever after meeting head on all sorts of difficulties through the early part of the 20th century.
Nemirovsky has an eloquent way of showing us that people everywhere and in every time are awfully alike. She gracefully moves her characters through their generational roles without a hitch.
Nemirovsky has an eloquent way of showing us that people everywhere and in every time are awfully alike. She gracefully moves her characters through their generational roles without a hitch.
lynnedf's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book! A simple tale of love and living. Nothing torrid, nothing shocking. Nothing to keep you on your toes. But it's so well written you don't care ... or need any of that. This books starts off on the beaches of Normandy in 1910 and takes us all the way to Paris and back, through the Great War and into the beginings of the second world war. I think I loved it because she was writting about things that had either just happened, or were happening. There is no 20 - 20 hindsight, there is not thoughtful gap between the war and the writing of the book. It is simply a story of the times, about the times. If you loved Suite Française - then you should give this book a try. I think you'll soon fall in love with it.
pmg227's review against another edition
4.0
I received this as a Goodreads First Reads book. This is a book of two families in France from 1911 to 1940. It's a story of love, family expectations, and hope that never fails in spite of wars, rumor of wars, and family pressure.
Pierre and Agnes were childhood friends, though it was a friendship their parents did not encourage and marriage was unthinkable. 'the bourgeoisie didn't mingle with the lower middle classes.' However, Pierre and Agnes declare their love for each other and the book goes on to tell of their lives through the years which includes two wars and their own son's forbidden loves.
Nemirovsky did a good job of developing her characters and showing what France was like in the early part of the twentieth century and also the changes that came about in France, both in social and business settings.
As I read and felt the hope of Nemirovsky's characters, I couldn't help but think of the irony of Nemirovsky's own fate. Her family left Russia to escape the Russian Revolution. However, Nemirovsky herself was a victim of war, dying at Auschwitz, and this book was not published until five years after her death.
Pierre and Agnes were childhood friends, though it was a friendship their parents did not encourage and marriage was unthinkable. 'the bourgeoisie didn't mingle with the lower middle classes.' However, Pierre and Agnes declare their love for each other and the book goes on to tell of their lives through the years which includes two wars and their own son's forbidden loves.
Nemirovsky did a good job of developing her characters and showing what France was like in the early part of the twentieth century and also the changes that came about in France, both in social and business settings.
As I read and felt the hope of Nemirovsky's characters, I couldn't help but think of the irony of Nemirovsky's own fate. Her family left Russia to escape the Russian Revolution. However, Nemirovsky herself was a victim of war, dying at Auschwitz, and this book was not published until five years after her death.
astroneatly's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
missyanne1919's review against another edition
4.0
I love Nemirovsky's writing. She was a Jewish woman born in Russia, fled to France with her family, and ended up dying at Auschwitz. Written in French by a non-native and translated into English, the language is still powerful, poignant, and offers a razor-sharp observation of human nature. Characters show their true colors in crisis. Though Suite Francaise is incomplete, I prefer that novel to this one. All Our Worldly Goods paired with Suite Francaise offer a look into war-time and occupied France. And as you read them, it's hard to forget about the author's demise.
remanso's review against another edition
4.0
"Pero ella ya no sentía ni pena ni fatiga. Le parecía que había recogido su cosecha, que había recibido toda la riqueza, todo el amor, la risa y las lágrimas que Dios le debía, y que ahora todo había terminado..."
middleditch's review
4.0
An interesting perspective on the war - from the people left behind and the trials they must endure. A story of generations of a rich and privileged family - their loves and losses - experiencing the same heartbreaks and deprivations as the lower classes. A good translation from French.
thistleheather's review against another edition
5.0
This is a sweet, sad, nostalgic, and unexpectedly uplifting tale of love in the turmoil of the two world wars. It put me a lot in the mind of William Trevor’s Fools of Fortune – although this book was, I think, significantly less tragic, it shares a lot of the same themes of families that seemingly can’t help but be entangled by births, marriages, and deaths, and of people – particularly young people – whose lives are swept up by forces they cannot control.
Reading this book, you feel the horrible and wonderful sweep of history and fate. Wonderful in that love, however embattled, seems to find its home over and over again in this book (lovers find each other, children are born, people are forgiven) – horrible in that the modern reader knows the devastation of each world war looming around the corner.
Knowing, too, that Nemirovsky herself was a victim of the holocaust – she died in a concentration camp in 1942 – I felt her own death looming as the events of the book marched steadily towards the second world war. The reader feels the weight of the war and its impact not just on the main characters, but on the world – or at least on France. But even as such huge, sweeping events set the tone – and much of the course – of the book, Nemirovsky’s writing is still tenderly evocative of the individual experience.
The author has a substantial gift for understanding people and writing convincingly and compassionately about their emotions and experiences. Even with characters that are selfish, or cruel, or dishonest, Nemirovsky writes with an understanding eye. It’s easy to present the big brute of the family who rules the roost; it’s not easy to show the reader why they are the way they are, and even make you sympathize with them a little.
Nemirovsky uses simple language to capture the strange core of life and love – one favorite passage, though short and simple, is Charles Hardelot’s titular line:
“I place the happiness of these children in the hands of Providence, but I know how fate defines happiness, in its divine wisdom: worry, anxiety, endurance, our worldly goods…”
I’m not sure in this passage if Charles means that worry, anxiety, endurance, etc become a necessary part of love, because they are a necessary part of life, as love weaves itself through hardship – or if happiness and love cost “all our worldly goods.” Or, as T.S. Eliot would say, “costing not less than everything.”
I haven’t read Suite Francaise, but I feel that All Our Worldly Goods definitely stands on its own. I’m excited to own this book and look forward to rereading it, especially reading it aloud with my husband. I can’t recommend this book enough.
Reading this book, you feel the horrible and wonderful sweep of history and fate. Wonderful in that love, however embattled, seems to find its home over and over again in this book (lovers find each other, children are born, people are forgiven) – horrible in that the modern reader knows the devastation of each world war looming around the corner.
Knowing, too, that Nemirovsky herself was a victim of the holocaust – she died in a concentration camp in 1942 – I felt her own death looming as the events of the book marched steadily towards the second world war. The reader feels the weight of the war and its impact not just on the main characters, but on the world – or at least on France. But even as such huge, sweeping events set the tone – and much of the course – of the book, Nemirovsky’s writing is still tenderly evocative of the individual experience.
The author has a substantial gift for understanding people and writing convincingly and compassionately about their emotions and experiences. Even with characters that are selfish, or cruel, or dishonest, Nemirovsky writes with an understanding eye. It’s easy to present the big brute of the family who rules the roost; it’s not easy to show the reader why they are the way they are, and even make you sympathize with them a little.
Nemirovsky uses simple language to capture the strange core of life and love – one favorite passage, though short and simple, is Charles Hardelot’s titular line:
“I place the happiness of these children in the hands of Providence, but I know how fate defines happiness, in its divine wisdom: worry, anxiety, endurance, our worldly goods…”
I’m not sure in this passage if Charles means that worry, anxiety, endurance, etc become a necessary part of love, because they are a necessary part of life, as love weaves itself through hardship – or if happiness and love cost “all our worldly goods.” Or, as T.S. Eliot would say, “costing not less than everything.”
I haven’t read Suite Francaise, but I feel that All Our Worldly Goods definitely stands on its own. I’m excited to own this book and look forward to rereading it, especially reading it aloud with my husband. I can’t recommend this book enough.