The Misunderstanding

The Misunderstanding is Ir ne Nemirovsky's first novel, written when she was just twenty-one and published in a literary journal two years later. An intense story of self-destructive and blighted love, it is also a tragic satire of French society after the Great War. /b> ves Harteloup, scarred by the war, is a disappointed young man, old money fallen on hard times, who returns for the summer to the rich, comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye, where he spent blissful childhood holidays. He becomes infatuated with a beautiful, bored young woman, Denise, whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights and Yves' intensity, Denise falls passionately in love, before the idyll has to end and Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love flounders on mutual misunderstanding, in the apparently unbridgeable gap between a life of idle wealth and the demands of making a living, between a woman's needs and a man's way of loving. As Denise is driven mad with desire and jealous suspicion, Yves, too sure of her, tortures himself and her with his emotional ambivalence. Taking her sophisticated mother's advice, Denise t

About the Author :
Ir ne Nemirovsky was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist, author of David Golder, Le Bal, The Courilof Affair, All Our Worldly Goods and other works published in her lifetime or afterwards, such as Suite Fran aise and Fire in the Blood. The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu) was first published in France in Les OEuvres libres in 1926. Nemirovsky was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l'Ev que (in German occupied territory). She died in Auschwitz in 1942.

Review :
How easy it is to be drawn into this superb period novel Written when the author was just 21 years old, The Misunderstanding shows remarkable understanding of the mysteries of the human heart and the social, familial and economic pressures that pull two lovers apart, even as passion draws them closer. The two central figures are exquisitely drawn, with Yves, in particular, a remarkable portrait of the deep pain and wounded pride of a man born to luxury and living in reduced circumstances Knowing, empathic and sophisticated: it’s a wonder that someone so young could have written it This is an astonishingly mature work of art. This study in the fleeting nature of happiness is immaculately translated by Sandra Smith An astonishingly mature account of a doomed adulterous affair... it deserves to be ranked alongside all the other fine novels by this great writer