Tea at Trianon: All Our Worldly Goods: A Novel of Love Between the Wars

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

All Our Worldly Goods: A Novel of Love Between the Wars

Russian-born writer Irène Némirovsky, who escaped the Communists only to be killed by the Nazis for her Jewish heritage, was a Catholic convert who captured the soul of her adopted country, France, in her many novels. Her novel Les Biens de ce monde, originally published in 1947 several years after her death in the Nazi concentration camp, has been translated as “all our worldly goods,” but it can also be said to mean “the goods of this world” and indeed, the book celebrates the aspects of life which give the most joy and beauty.
In Mme Némirovsky’s masterpiece, the things which bring the most happiness to life are faith, children, home life, and the enduring love of a man and a woman. While drawing the portrait of the life-long romance between her hero and heroine Pierre and Agnes, Mme Némirovsky also presents a searing exposé of the hypocrisies and false values of provincial bourgeois France. A story of adventure and love amid the wars and social upheaval of the first part of the 20th century, it shows how Pierre and Agnes, who risk losing everything in order to be together, in the end have what really matters most. Written in stirring, restrained prose with vivid yet subtle descriptions, All Our Worldly Goods is a book for all lovers of romance and history.

This review originally appeared in the August 2012 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

(*NOTE: This book was sent to me by the Historical Novel Society in exchange for my honest opinion.)

Share

1 comment:

julygirl said...: The story also captures war from the civilian point of view in terms of losing ones home, and being thrust into the unknown with no food, no means of protection, and no where to go to be safe. Even armies have provisions and know what is about to happen and where.; August 8, 2012 at 4:52:00 PM EDT