Descrita como la novela más personal y autobiográfica de Irène Némirovsky, El vino de la soledad (publicada en 1935) recrea el destino de una adinerada familia rusa refugiada en París, y describe la venganza de una joven contra su madre, motivo que la escritora ya había tratado en esa pequeña joya literaria que es El baile. Con una mirada inteligente y ácida, la novela sigue a la pequeña Elena de los ocho años a la mayoría de edad, desde Ucrania hasta San Petersburgo, Finlandia y finalmente París, donde la familia se instala tras el estallido de la revolución rusa, en un recorrido paralelo al que realizó la propia Némirovsky. La madre de Elena, una mujer bella y frívola de origen noble, desprecia a su marido, un potentado judío, y a su hija. Tras la muerte de la gobernanta, la vida de la niña se vuelve aún más difícil, pues su madre instala en la casa a su amante, un primo quince años más joven que ella. No obstante, el tiempo convierte a Elena en una joven hermosa, y el día que descubre que atrae al amante de su madre, comprende que ha llegado el momento de vengarse.

In what is regarded as at least a semi-autobiographical work, The Wine of Solitude relates the coming-of-age of Helene, who is 8 when the novel begins and 21 when it ends. While her father makes a lot of money through his various business ventures in Kiev, it’s a very sad family, with her mother openly carrying on an affair with a man 15 years younger than she is, and completely uncaring towards her daughter. Meanwhile her father has a gambling problem and is often away from the home, at one point for a couple of years. She takes solace in her French governess and her own development into a young woman noticed by the men around her.

Even if her mother is an awful person, someone who is shallow, vain, and unloving, the open descriptions of her sexual desire are liberating. “To hold a man tightly in her arms when she didn’t even know his name or where he came from, a man she would never see again, that and that alone gave her the sharp thrill of pleasure she desired,” Nemirovsky writes early on. But the child observes little signs that gradually develop into full understanding, like her mother “stuffed into a corset at three o’clock in the afternoon,” and hatred grows in her heart. Central to this novel is just how broken this mother-daughter relationship is, and whether Helene will find herself acting in the same ways when she becomes an adult.

Her father is hardly better, at one point leaving her as a child, alone and hungry in the lobby of a casino, until late at night while he gambles. “I feel like a suitcase forgotten at the left luggage office,” she thinks to herself. These characters are all sharply drawn, including the grandmother who is such a timid soul, and the novel is evocative of the time period and the places the family goes. They flee the Russian Revolution by going to Finland, and then eventually make their way to Paris. By the time the parents are in their mid-40’s, we feel the full pathos of the lives they’ve led catching up to them, in sad but honest writing.

The opulence of the family as it rises into the nouveau riche is contrasted with the horrible things going on in the world – WWI in addition to the revolution, and things like people desperately marching for food – but those things are only distantly felt because Nemirovsky doesn’t devote a lot of space to them. While that may have been honest to the experience of the young woman, it would have been more satisfying to me had these things been expanded on. In the little bits we get, though, like when people outside are carrying their dead children to the cemetery in sacks because there aren’t enough coffins, and a man is executed against a wall, after which Helene is studying Racine and the history of the Russian tsars, it’s devastating.

It's also absolutely heartbreaking to know that Nemirovsky would die at Auschwitz just seven years later, at the age of 39, followed shortly after by her husband. Such a tragedy, and such a waste.

Quotes:
On desire:
“She let him kiss her, even leaned in towards him, offering her face, her hands, her lips, savoring waves of delight, aching waves of bliss that pierced straight through her body.”

On families, this bitter cynicism from Helene:
“The father is thinking about a woman he met in the street, and the mother has only just said goodbye to her lover. They do not understand their children, and their children do not love hem; the young girl is thinking about the boy she’s in love with, and the boy about the naughty words he’s learned at school. The little children will grow up and be just like them. Books lie. There is no virtue, no love in the world. Every household is the same. In every family there is nothing but greed, lies and mutual misunderstanding.”

On solitude:
“’I’m not afraid of life,’ she thought. ‘The past has given me my first experiences of the world. They have been exceptionally difficult, but they have forged my courage and my pride. And that immutable treasure is mine, belongs to me. I may be alone, but my solitude is powerful and intoxicating.’” ( )

I am glad that Helene found freedom in the end and she resisted wreaking revenge on her mother, who had destroyed her childhood. She knows that if she wrought revenge, she will end up like the people she detested. Good story but I feel there is something lacking, probably in the writing. It doesn't cause you to feel for the characters, who are pitiful in their own way. ( )

[This is a review I wrote in 2012]

**Powerful story about a young girl's loss of innocence**

The novel begins in a shabby apartment in a provincial town in the Ukraine ...'The silence of this sleepy provincial town, lost deep within Russia, was intense, heavy and overwhelmingly sad.' Eight-year-old Hélène sits at the dinner table with her mother, father, grandparents and French governess, Mademoiselle Rose. Devoid of affection from her mother, indifferent to the affections of her grandparents, Hélène has only eyes for her beloved Papa, who rarely makes the time to notice her, and her practical and caring Mademoiselle Rose. In this environment young Hélène's distance from her mother begins its descent to hatred, fuelled by her mother's love affairs, her treatment of her papa, her coldness towards her daughter and treatment of Mlle Rose.

As the family's fortunes change, Boris moves them first to St. Petersburg, leaving Hélène's grandparents behind and taking with them Hélène's cousin and Bella's lover, Max; subsequently, the Russian Revolution leads Boris and Bella to hide money and share certificates in every available piece of furniture, stuffing notes into sofas for safekeeping. Hélène sadly watches the Revolution go on around them from her privileged position, despondent at her parents ignorance of the hardships surrounding them. The Revolution then leads them to flee first to the Finnish borders, and then to Helsinki; later, after the War's end, to Paris. Hélène's teenage years are spent mostly in isolation, against this backdrop of war and upheaval, changing fortunes, lies and deceit. She grows up devoid of affection, falls into an innocent, brief affair with a married man and hatches a plot to wreak revenge on her mother. In all, we see her emerge into a hard and bitter young woman; her redeeming features being her determination to turn out differently and not succumb to the same path as her mother. It's not difficult to empathise with this bitter, young Hélène as what else has she known?

A number of Irène Némirovsky's novels carry this theme of mother-daughter estrangement and the rebellious daughter, and 'The Wine of Solitude' is believed to be the most autobiographical of these - the fleeing from the Russian Empire, the year spent in Finland, before settling in Paris. The denouement of the novel is perhaps more final than Irène's gradual estrangement from her mother (reference. Jonathan Weiss, 'Irène Némirovsky: Her Life and Works'). It leaves the reader to wonder if this is the dramatic exit from her mother's life that Irene wishes she had taken.

It's a very well-executed novel, short on words but not lacking in description; fluidly written, evocative and shocking and undeniably, a powerful coming-of-age story. ( )

Que una niña en su adolescencia y observando un grabado donde aparecía reunida una familia en un momento dichoso llegue a la conclusión citada dice mucho de que forma ve la realidad que la rodea. Pero es que Elena en su corta existencia na ha disfrutado de un momento como el que está viendo en la ilustración. Ella es una criatura solitaria; su madre Bella la tiene desatendida, es un estorbo en su vida frivola y libertina. Su padre, Boris Karol, por el que Elena siente un cariño especial, es un hombre sin tiempo que dedicarle; aunque le muestra afecto y amor cuando están juntos. Su vida la ocupan sus negocios y su pasión por el juego. Viaja constantemente y es el sostén de la familia. Están también sus abuelos maternos, los Safronov, nobles venidos muy a menos después de dilapidar su hacienda y que ahora viven de las ganancias de Karol, razón por la que Bella se casó con él.

Solo hay una persona que siente verdadero cariño por Elena, su nodriza francesa Rose. Elena le corresponde y no concibe la vida sin ella.

La narración empieza en Rusia, en una pequeña ciudad a orilla del Dnieper en los años anteriores a la primera guerra mundial. Aquel acontecimiento tendrá una influencia total en el devenir de la familia Karol. De ese lugar se trasladarán a San Petesburgo, luego a Finlandia y finalmente a Francia, a París, el lugar soñado por Bella y Elena, si bien por distintas razones. Para la primera es un lugar de lujo y donde puede dar rienda suelta a sus aventuras amorosas. Para Elena en cambio es la tierra en la que pasó los mejores momentos de su infancia y primera juventud en compañía de su querida Rose.

Hay un tercer e importante personaje en la historia. Se trata de Max Safronov, primo de Elena, por el que esta siente un desprecio absoluto. Bastantes años mayor que ella es, desde su adolescencia, amante de su madre.

La muerte de Rose, a quien su madre ha despedido cuando está ya mayor y no tiene oportunidad alguna ni de regresar a su país ni de encontrar otra ocupación en aquella convulsa Rusia, hace germinar en Elena un vigoroso deseo de venganza contra su progenitora. Será la razón más poderosa por la que vivir aquellos años de adolescencia y juventud. Pronto encontrará la manera de hacer efectivo su deseo, seducir a Max, el amante de su madre. Solo ha de esperar a tener los años precisos y poner en juego los encantos físicos que sin duda acompañarán a estos. Además esta acción le permitirá saldar viejas deudas de desprecios e injurias que tiene con su primo.

La narración termina una vez consumada su venganza. Su dicha no será completa ya que en esos momentos se produce la muerte de su padre. Pero Elena se siente por primera vez libre y capaz de enfrentarse a una nueva vida en su querido París y en compañía de su nuevo amigo, su gato Tintabel.

Es una novela dura. Describe muy bien los sentimientos de las personas que intervienen en el relato. La codicia de Boris, su ánsia de dinero y a la vez su pasión por el juego. La amoralidad de Bella, su desenfreno sexual y su amor por el lujo y la aperiencia. El débil caracter de Max, entregado a su lujuria por una mujer mucho mayor que él y a la vez seducido por Elena sin sospechar que solo es un medio para lograr un fin. Y Elena, su odio, su clarividencia para comprender su entorno y establecer las pautas por las que juzgará a las personas que lo componen. Todo ello esta escrito con una prosa precisa aunque en ocasiones un tanto densa. Explica con todo detalle la evolución de la protagonista y las de los actores más importantes en la historia, Bella y Max. Nos hace ver unos personajes que viven un mundo lejos de la realidad en la que está inmersa la sociedad de su tiempo, centrados en sus placeres y acumulación de riqueza sin vislumbrar el gran cambio que se avecinaba.

Es un libro interesante que refuerza el éxito como escritora de Némirovsky. Lástima que las circunstancias dieran al traste con lo que sin duda sería una de las novelistas más lúcidas del siglo XX. Esta narración se basa en lo que fue su propia familia y el periplo que la misma efectuó escapando de la revolución Rusa.