David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courlif Affair

I have previously read several of Irène Némirovsky's longer works (my favorite,
Suite Française, as well as All Our Worldly Goods and The Wine of Solitude); this book encompasses four short stories. Like The Wine of Solitude, each of the short stories is that of a Russian individual or family forced one way or another into French exile, not unlike Némirovsky herself. (That's not entirely true: the origins of the family at the center of The Ball are not Russian, but they are outsiders to Parisian society, still finding their way after coming into money. They are also - like Némirovsky - Jewish.)

Snow in Autumn  and The Courlif Affair were my favorite stories of the four. The former chronicles the flight of a White Russian family from their lovely villa into the chaos of Boshevik Russia and then onto Paris; more poignantly, it is also the story of the family's most devoted servant who adapts to the changes with even greater difficulty than those for whom she worked for more than half a century.

Snow in Autumn contrasts neatly with The Courlif Affair whose narrator is a Red Russian born to celebrated revolutionary parents and assigned at a young age to assassinate the Minister of Education, whose policies are responsible for the heavy-handed repression of the student movement at high schools and universities across Russia. As part of his assignment, he becomes the personal physician to his intended target, changing his perspective, if not the ultimate outcome. He, too, ends up in France after the Revolution, hunted and perhaps haunted by this assignment more than any other. 

As always, it is a pleasure to read Némirovsky's prose, and her character development and story telling are superb. This book is a wonderful compilation of short stories, one that I can easily recommend.