Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise stands up well as a great novel and social document

As I select books from my own library while we're voluntarily shut in during the Covid19 crisis, I'm looking at books that I haven't read for at least ten years and that in my mind and memory were great works of fiction, and let's see how they hold up. So a few days ago I started (re)reading Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise (written in 1942, first published in France in 2006, 2009 in English), and through the first section (of a planned 6 sections; she only completed 2), Storm in June, this novel stands up over time as even better than I'd anticipated. In part, my interest in SF comes from our current situation, facing an uncertainty that is throwing our country and the world at large into the unknown. But on reflection it's much easier to be ordered to stay at home than it would be to have to feel one's home; the life of a war refugee, then and today, is terrifying, and IM captures this epochal moment in world history perfectly. The first section of the novel follows 4 (I think) groups of Parisians leaving everything behind and fleeing to what they hope will be safety in southern France as the German army enters Paris. Through their stories, which IM recounts w/ vivid detail, we see a range of human behavior, most of it not so great: the selfishness, the class snobbery, the mindless brutality, the chicanery, the foolish bravado - but at least set off against a few instances of the country folk, overwhelmed by this onrush of refugees, try in some ways to provide comfort and shelter, in particular for wounded French soldiers. IM's view of humanity is bleak and dark, and this is understandable; from what I recall, she was a successful novelist in France, and wrote this book while a refugee in southern France - but her safety didn't last long. You were OK, it seems, in the southern villages and cities unless you were a Jew; IM was Jewish by birth (though not by practice - I think she was a practicing Catholic but I'm not sure). She was deported to Auschwitz where the Nazis murdered her. Decades later, her unfinished ms was discovered and published. My sense on reading the first section is that she would have been a terrific journalist; her ability to convey an entire scene through sharp detail - the emptiness of the Paris streets following the exodus, the fear of attack from overhead by German air power, the crowds in village squares and on the roads, the chaos at rr stations, the constant fear and uncertainty, and even a great chapter from the POV of a cat, and it's not a sweet story about a cute little house pet. So far, it's a terrific novel on every score and particularly worth reading now (though perhaps too unsettling for those looking for more soothing entertainment) in in light of the steady influx of war refugees into Europe.