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Monday 1 December 2008

Fire in the Blood

A gathering of ghosts

Patrick Marnham

Fire in the Blood stands by itself, but part of its interest today for readers of Suite Française lies in the way it prefigures ‘Dolce’, the second part of the wartime novel. Once again Némirovsky has been well-served by her publishers, who have taken great trouble to explain the biographical interest of her work, and by her translator Sandra Smith who has risen to the challenge with a text that is meticulous, sympathetic and readable.

In contrast to Némirovsky’s previous work, which won her a wide readership and depicted the sophisticated and corrupt world of Paris or Biarritz, Fire in the Blood is set in the depths of the French countryside. This change of scene was inspired by a visit she made to the obscure village of Issy-l’Evêque in April 1938 when she was in search of a nanny for her two young children. She already had a theme, a story of two generations, in which the children go off the rails while their respectable parents hide the fact that they too, in their time, once knew ‘fire in the blood’. After only four days in Burgundy, Némirovsky found all that she needed to tell this story. She was delighted by the Arcadian beauty of the setting. But her descriptions of harvest time, with the children shaking plums off the trees, the orchard buzzing with bees and the families vying with each other to produce the best wine and the thickest cream, do not tempt her into painting a sentimental picture of the private lives of les paysans. Instead, she notes the contrast between the glory of the surroundings and the ‘dark, secret life’ of the people, with their greed for land, their complex family ties and their instinctive mutual distrust. This is a world where ‘everything is hidden, even hatred’. A man dies and the farmers playing cards in the winter pay him their highest compliment: ‘a miser, a penny was a penny to him. No one round here liked him much, but he knew about farming’. If anyone is caught out misbehaving their neighbours are quick to complain. ‘Madame Declos’, says a fat farmer with rosy cheeks and a tranquil smile, ‘would definitely be better off selling. There’s some things a woman can’t do.’ The motive is not moral outrage.If Madame Declos can be ostracised and driven out, then one of the pleasant-faced gossips will acquire her land.

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