132,566
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Dogs and the Wolves by Irene Nemirovsky (view source)
Revision as of 13:32, 18 September 2010
, 13:32, 18 September 2010no edit summary
{{infobox
|title=The Dogs and the Wolves
The clue to the story is in the title. ''Entre chien et loup'' means dusk in French. It's that time of day when the light is such that members of the same family look eerily similar and it's impossible to tell the feral from the domesticated, the good from the bad. This is the theme which runs through the fortunes of the Sinner families, trailing Ada and Harry in its wake. From the Ukrainian pogroms of the early thirties to the tensions of pre-war Paris in the late thirties the families circle each other. Recessions and revolutions bring the banking system to breaking point (so much less mundane than sub-prime mortgages, but no less effective) and Harry and Ada's lives are doomed.
Nemirovsky is incapable of producing a poor story and ''The Dogs and the Wolves'' is no exception. It's relatively short, but every word tells and there. There's a perfection about the structure and the plot which is difficult to better and the reading quickly becomes compulsive, with an ending which surprised but was curiously uplifting. The book's a delight from beginning to end.
Each of Nemirovsky's books which I've read has been translated by Sandra Smith. I'm not in a position to comment on how they compare to the original French, but I've never for a moment thought that I was reading a translation.
