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La strada per Chevreuse
Un tardo pomeriggio d'estate degli anni Sessanta Jean Bosmans si ritrova per caso nella valle di Chevreuse. Qui Jean ha la sensazione di riconoscere strade, paesi, edifici. E una casa, che sembra appartenere alla geografia della sua anima... Oltre le frontiere lineari del tempo, tra ricordi risvegliati e sogni a occhi aperti, Jean si addentra nel labirinto della memoria per interrogare i fantasmi di una vita e svelare il mistero di quella le sue mura custodiscono solo le ombre dell'infanzia, oppure nascondono la verità su un crimine commesso in un giorno lontano? «Forse Modiano non è mai stato cosí vicino a Proust nel suo modo cosí particolare di raccontare, di ritrovare il suo tempo perduto».
«Le Monde des Livres»
a Jean torna in mente questa parola a distanza di piú di cinquant'anni. Poi, come di colpo liberati dalle catene dell'oblio, riaffiorano i versi di una canzone che passava spesso alla radio, le immagini di una serata parigina, e ancora visi, poesie, altri nomi legati a un certo periodo della sua giovinezza, negli anni Sessanta. Cosí, annotando su un quaderno azzurro ogni particolare all'apparenza insignificante, Jean spera di trovare un filo conduttore che unisca quelle immagini sfocate per poter finalmente, forse, far luce sui fatti del passato. Riemerge allora Camille, che si faceva chiamare «Teschio»: era stata lei a parlare a Jean della «rete», un numero di telefono disattivato al quale rispondevano voci oscure. E sempre lei lo aveva portato per la prima volta nell'appartamento di Auteuil, ritrovo di enigmatici frequentatori. Proprio da Auteuil, un tardo pomeriggio d'estate, per una serie di casualità, Jean era partito con Camille e un'amica di lei, Martine Hayward, per la valle di Chevreuse. Durante il tragitto, e una volta a destinazione, a Jean era sembrato di aver già percorso quelle strade, e di distinguere luoghi familiari che lo riportavano a ricordi d'infanzia a lungo dimenticati. Una casa, in particolare, lo aveva colpito, quasi appartenesse alla geografia della sua anima... Ora, nel labirinto della memoria, dove tempi e spazi si confondono, Jean si propone di decifrare gli indizi lasciati da eventi e coincidenze, interrogare i fantasmi di una vita e svelare il mistero di quella casa. Era davvero un caso oppure le due donne lo avevano condotto lí con uno scopo preciso? E cosa cercavano le figure dalle molteplici identità che lo inseguivano, incalzandolo tra le strade di Parigi, scortandolo nella valle di Chevreuse, braccandolo nel Sud della Francia - forse una verità nascosta tra le mura, per l'eternità?
«Le Monde des Livres»
a Jean torna in mente questa parola a distanza di piú di cinquant'anni. Poi, come di colpo liberati dalle catene dell'oblio, riaffiorano i versi di una canzone che passava spesso alla radio, le immagini di una serata parigina, e ancora visi, poesie, altri nomi legati a un certo periodo della sua giovinezza, negli anni Sessanta. Cosí, annotando su un quaderno azzurro ogni particolare all'apparenza insignificante, Jean spera di trovare un filo conduttore che unisca quelle immagini sfocate per poter finalmente, forse, far luce sui fatti del passato. Riemerge allora Camille, che si faceva chiamare «Teschio»: era stata lei a parlare a Jean della «rete», un numero di telefono disattivato al quale rispondevano voci oscure. E sempre lei lo aveva portato per la prima volta nell'appartamento di Auteuil, ritrovo di enigmatici frequentatori. Proprio da Auteuil, un tardo pomeriggio d'estate, per una serie di casualità, Jean era partito con Camille e un'amica di lei, Martine Hayward, per la valle di Chevreuse. Durante il tragitto, e una volta a destinazione, a Jean era sembrato di aver già percorso quelle strade, e di distinguere luoghi familiari che lo riportavano a ricordi d'infanzia a lungo dimenticati. Una casa, in particolare, lo aveva colpito, quasi appartenesse alla geografia della sua anima... Ora, nel labirinto della memoria, dove tempi e spazi si confondono, Jean si propone di decifrare gli indizi lasciati da eventi e coincidenze, interrogare i fantasmi di una vita e svelare il mistero di quella casa. Era davvero un caso oppure le due donne lo avevano condotto lí con uno scopo preciso? E cosa cercavano le figure dalle molteplici identità che lo inseguivano, incalzandolo tra le strade di Parigi, scortandolo nella valle di Chevreuse, braccandolo nel Sud della Francia - forse una verità nascosta tra le mura, per l'eternità?
120 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2021
49 people are currently reading
632 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Modiano
139 books2,123 followersPatrick Modiano is a French-language author and playwright and winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He is a winner of the 1972 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, and the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his novel "Rue des boutiques obscures".
Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began a clandestine relationship. Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere: with an absent father -- of which he heard troubled stories of dealings with the Vichy regime -- and a Flemish-actress mother who frequently toured. His younger brother's sudden death also greatly influenced his writings.
While he was at Henri-IV lycee, he took geometry lessons from writer Raymond Queneau, who was a friend of Modiano's mother. He entered the Sorbonne, but did not complete his studies.
Queneau, the author of "Zazie dans le métro", introduced Modiano to the literary world via a cocktail party given by publishing house Éditions Gallimard. Modiano published his first novel, "La Place de l’Étoile", with Gallimard in 1968, after having read the manuscript to Raymond Queneau. Starting that year, he did nothing but write.
On September 12, 1970, Modiano married Dominique Zerhfuss. "I have a catastrophic souvenir of the day of our marriage. It rained. A real nightmare. Our groomsmen were Queneau, who had mentored Patrick since his adolescence, and Malraux, a friend of my father. They started to argue about Dubuffet, and it was like we were watching a tennis match! That said, it would have been funny to have some photos, but the only person who had a camera forgot to bring a roll of film. There is only one photo remaining of us, from behind and under an umbrella!" (Interview with Elle, 6 October 2003). From their marriage came two girls, Zina (1974) and Marie (1978).
Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940.
(Arabic: باتريك موديانو)
He is a winner of the 1972 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, and the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his novel "Rue des boutiques obscures".
Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began a clandestine relationship. Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere: with an absent father -- of which he heard troubled stories of dealings with the Vichy regime -- and a Flemish-actress mother who frequently toured. His younger brother's sudden death also greatly influenced his writings.
While he was at Henri-IV lycee, he took geometry lessons from writer Raymond Queneau, who was a friend of Modiano's mother. He entered the Sorbonne, but did not complete his studies.
Queneau, the author of "Zazie dans le métro", introduced Modiano to the literary world via a cocktail party given by publishing house Éditions Gallimard. Modiano published his first novel, "La Place de l’Étoile", with Gallimard in 1968, after having read the manuscript to Raymond Queneau. Starting that year, he did nothing but write.
On September 12, 1970, Modiano married Dominique Zerhfuss. "I have a catastrophic souvenir of the day of our marriage. It rained. A real nightmare. Our groomsmen were Queneau, who had mentored Patrick since his adolescence, and Malraux, a friend of my father. They started to argue about Dubuffet, and it was like we were watching a tennis match! That said, it would have been funny to have some photos, but the only person who had a camera forgot to bring a roll of film. There is only one photo remaining of us, from behind and under an umbrella!" (Interview with Elle, 6 October 2003). From their marriage came two girls, Zina (1974) and Marie (1978).
Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940.
(Arabic: باتريك موديانو)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
July 31, 2024
Awakening from Hibernation
He only had to think about those two people to become all the more sensitive to the dust, or rather smell, of time.
Soon, the English translation of Patrick Modiano’s 30th novel Chevreuse, will be published in an English translation with the markedly different title Scene of the Crime – this fact as such a playful nod to the protagonist and narrator of this novel, Jean Bosmans, who playfully suggest some possible alternative titles for the novel the readers are holding in their hand: ‘The mysteries of the Chatham Hotel’, ‘The secret life of René-Marco Heriford’ - and a couple more.
For faithful readers of Modiano this novel infers a renewal of vows. They will recognize the familiar elements and can sing along with the tune, revelling in Modiano’s atmospheric music of menace, memory and melancholy. The ceremony comes with a collection of shadowy figures, familiar names, places, streets and themes (parallel worlds, stumbling through life like a somnambulist, the working of memory that blends past and present, reality and dream:
He thought about the flat, which was so different by day and night, as if it belonged to two parallel worlds. But why should he care, he who for years had been used to living on the border between dream and reality, allowing the two to mutually illuminate and sometimes even merge?
In Modiano’s own words: “I realised that I was practically always writing the same book, The titles of the novels change, but you could remove the titles and it would be one book. A bit like music where there are motifs that come back and form a whole."
Triggered by an old song he hears in a café and by seeing an American watch, Jean Bosmans – the narrator who the reader has met before in L'Horizon, looks back on an eventful period of his youth about fifty years ago, when he was around twenty, an aspiring writer, living in Paris and frequenting Camille Lucas, an enigmatic woman he nicknamed Deathmask because she is so often silent and inscrutable:
Right from their first meeting, he had noticed that Camille was very good at keeping quiet. Usually people talked way too much about themselves. But he had understood pretty quickly that she would always remain silent about her past, her relationships, her doings and perhaps her accounting work. He did not blame her. You like people the way they are. Even if you might not fully trust them.
He tries to write down his fragmentary memories as quickly as possible: a few images from a particular period of his life, which he watched pass by at an accelerated pace before being swallowed up definitively by oblivion, seemingly disjointed details. He recollects being chased by a bunch of people who seem to know something he witnessed as a child, when he was living together with some of them in a house about 40 km from Paris, away from his parents. Corralling snippet by snippet to reconstruct the past in flashbacks, Bosmans unearths who those people are, why they keep taking him back to that house, to the Chevreuse valley and a flat in Auteuil (which turns into a maison close at night) and what they actually want from him.
Unfortunately for them, not only Deathmask but also Jean Bosmans has always been a taciturn person:
Ever since childhood, he had devoted himself to that difficult art [of silence] that he admired more than any other and that you could apply to any field even that of literature. Had his teacher not taught him that prose and poetry are made not only of words but, above all, of the silences in between?
Silence will be golden in the perpetuum mobile of Modiano’s past continuous.
(photograph by Arsene Mosca)
Once more Modiano’s clear and precise prose is of a stylish beauty that offers a soft glow to this novel, making this 15th immersion into Modiano’s work another gripping and distinctive episode in his perpetual roman fleuve of (memory) novels.
Pretty sublime.
(****½)
He only had to think about those two people to become all the more sensitive to the dust, or rather smell, of time.
Soon, the English translation of Patrick Modiano’s 30th novel Chevreuse, will be published in an English translation with the markedly different title Scene of the Crime – this fact as such a playful nod to the protagonist and narrator of this novel, Jean Bosmans, who playfully suggest some possible alternative titles for the novel the readers are holding in their hand: ‘The mysteries of the Chatham Hotel’, ‘The secret life of René-Marco Heriford’ - and a couple more.
For faithful readers of Modiano this novel infers a renewal of vows. They will recognize the familiar elements and can sing along with the tune, revelling in Modiano’s atmospheric music of menace, memory and melancholy. The ceremony comes with a collection of shadowy figures, familiar names, places, streets and themes (parallel worlds, stumbling through life like a somnambulist, the working of memory that blends past and present, reality and dream:
He thought about the flat, which was so different by day and night, as if it belonged to two parallel worlds. But why should he care, he who for years had been used to living on the border between dream and reality, allowing the two to mutually illuminate and sometimes even merge?
In Modiano’s own words: “I realised that I was practically always writing the same book, The titles of the novels change, but you could remove the titles and it would be one book. A bit like music where there are motifs that come back and form a whole."
Triggered by an old song he hears in a café and by seeing an American watch, Jean Bosmans – the narrator who the reader has met before in L'Horizon, looks back on an eventful period of his youth about fifty years ago, when he was around twenty, an aspiring writer, living in Paris and frequenting Camille Lucas, an enigmatic woman he nicknamed Deathmask because she is so often silent and inscrutable:
Right from their first meeting, he had noticed that Camille was very good at keeping quiet. Usually people talked way too much about themselves. But he had understood pretty quickly that she would always remain silent about her past, her relationships, her doings and perhaps her accounting work. He did not blame her. You like people the way they are. Even if you might not fully trust them.
He tries to write down his fragmentary memories as quickly as possible: a few images from a particular period of his life, which he watched pass by at an accelerated pace before being swallowed up definitively by oblivion, seemingly disjointed details. He recollects being chased by a bunch of people who seem to know something he witnessed as a child, when he was living together with some of them in a house about 40 km from Paris, away from his parents. Corralling snippet by snippet to reconstruct the past in flashbacks, Bosmans unearths who those people are, why they keep taking him back to that house, to the Chevreuse valley and a flat in Auteuil (which turns into a maison close at night) and what they actually want from him.
Unfortunately for them, not only Deathmask but also Jean Bosmans has always been a taciturn person:
Ever since childhood, he had devoted himself to that difficult art [of silence] that he admired more than any other and that you could apply to any field even that of literature. Had his teacher not taught him that prose and poetry are made not only of words but, above all, of the silences in between?
Silence will be golden in the perpetuum mobile of Modiano’s past continuous.
(photograph by Arsene Mosca)
Once more Modiano’s clear and precise prose is of a stylish beauty that offers a soft glow to this novel, making this 15th immersion into Modiano’s work another gripping and distinctive episode in his perpetual roman fleuve of (memory) novels.
Pretty sublime.
(****½)
January 27, 2023
“Definitely, we always came back to the same places”
It has already been said so often: Modiano writes more or less the same novel over and over again. That may not be completely right, but almost. In this case, we again see an older man obsessively trying to reconstruct what happened in his youth. Again, this story takes place largely in Paris (as always with very precise place names), although there are side trips to the valley of the Chevreuse (hence the title) and to Saint-Raphael, on the Mediterranean Coast. Once again we are confronted with shady characters, with a vague criminal smell attachted to them, characters that stand out by their complete silence or their mysterious, slightly threatening statements. So, - as in his previous books - it is not surprising that during the course of the story some pieces of the puzzle fall into place, but that the big picture remains elusive, even at the end.
Modiano introduces a certain Jean Bosmans as his protagonist, an elderly writer (another common feature in Modiano’s novels). This time, the plot is quite complicated because you only realize after a while that the story takes place in three different time layers: the childhood years of Bosmans, 15 years later when he is briefly threatened by criminal figures and makes a first attempt to understand what is going on, and another 50 years later, when he's a renowned writer, still trying to get the gist of those early occurrences. That makes this story not always easy to follow, but it's nevertheless ingeniously composed. So let’s say this is vintage Modiano. Well done, without question, but nothing more.
It has already been said so often: Modiano writes more or less the same novel over and over again. That may not be completely right, but almost. In this case, we again see an older man obsessively trying to reconstruct what happened in his youth. Again, this story takes place largely in Paris (as always with very precise place names), although there are side trips to the valley of the Chevreuse (hence the title) and to Saint-Raphael, on the Mediterranean Coast. Once again we are confronted with shady characters, with a vague criminal smell attachted to them, characters that stand out by their complete silence or their mysterious, slightly threatening statements. So, - as in his previous books - it is not surprising that during the course of the story some pieces of the puzzle fall into place, but that the big picture remains elusive, even at the end.
Modiano introduces a certain Jean Bosmans as his protagonist, an elderly writer (another common feature in Modiano’s novels). This time, the plot is quite complicated because you only realize after a while that the story takes place in three different time layers: the childhood years of Bosmans, 15 years later when he is briefly threatened by criminal figures and makes a first attempt to understand what is going on, and another 50 years later, when he's a renowned writer, still trying to get the gist of those early occurrences. That makes this story not always easy to follow, but it's nevertheless ingeniously composed. So let’s say this is vintage Modiano. Well done, without question, but nothing more.
October 20, 2021
Patrick Modiano dit qu'il écrit toujours le même roman, et c'est le cas de "Chevreuse" de manière encore plus explicite que d'habitude puisque des noms de personnages, déjà utilisés, reviennent ici dans de nouvelles configurations. C'est le cas du protagoniste, Jean Bosmans, un écrivain qui se souvient de diverses époques de sa jeunesse. Au début, le récit évolue entre le présent de la remémoration, la jeunesse fragile de Bosmans au milieu des années 1960, et son enfance, encore une quinzaine d'années auparavant, dans une maison de la vallée de Chevreuse où deux de ses amies, dans les années 1960, le conduisent comme par hasard, déclenchant des réminiscences. Ainsi Bosmans se souvient qu'il se souvenait, et de la façon dont pour se débarrasser de ses souvenirs il est devenu écrivain. Modiano joue avec ses propres souvenirs, d'une façon assez ludique : Bosmans reçoit des lettres de lecteurs qui ont croisé telle ou telle personne qu'il évoque sous son vrai nom ; mais les noms, dans le récit de Modiano, sont évidemment fictifs, à commencer par celui de Bosmans lui-même, de sorte que "Chevreuse" désigne et réfute en même temps son caractère autobiographique.
On a effectivement déjà rencontré, chez Modiano, ce genre de dispositifs en abyme et en miroirs. Ici le temps retrouvé déclenche l'écriture, et on l'a comparé à Proust ; on pourrait tout aussi bien évoquer Nerval face à la chronologie très embrumée de "Chevreuse" qui nous perd dans les échos entre les différents époques de la vie presque aussi sûrement que "Sylvie". Petit à petit se met en place une intrigue d'ordre policier, Bosmans étant rempli du désir de "tirer les choses au clair", ce qui impliquerait pour commencer de parvenir à bien discerner les choses en question. Et cette intrigue aboutit dans une certaine mesure ; mais le récit laisse toujours échapper quelque chose. Certains détails reviennent avec une précision d'ordre photographique ; en revanche des éléments cruciaux sont à peine suggérés. La maison de la vallée de Chevreuse est située dans la rue du docteur-Kurzenne, mais cette précision récurrente n'est donnée au lecteur qu'ironiquement puisque le nom de la commune, lui, est caché… L'annonce de la mort d'un personnage (et non, ce n'est pas Adrienne en 1832) oblige d'ailleurs à se demander si la chronologie du récit est bien sûre, si les souvenirs ne sont pas les faux-semblants de la mémoire, si le vrai passé n'est pas masqué par le souvenir revendiqué comme un certain butin l'est par un certain mur.
Rien de tout cela ne pèse un seul instant. L'écriture de Modiano est allègre, rythmique, musicale comme une session de jazz. Tout donne l'impression d'avoir été rédigé dans un bar sur un coin de table, comme mémorial de menus incidents dont la signification échappe à peine les couche-t-on sur le papier. Tout a le naturel et l'apparent arbitraire du quotidien, alors même que s'esquisse un petit complot. Mais petit à petit, à mesure que Bosmans interprète la réalité d'une façon paranoïaque, ou que celle-ci s'avère effectivement menaçante (comment savoir ?), le récit, cousu de décalages experts (par exemple les étapes d'un trajet en automobile sont énumérées rapidement, avec une apparente négligence, en fait dans le sens inverse du trajet lui-même) prend un caractère de plus en plus onirique et ce n'est pas pour rien qu'il culmine dans un récit de rêve. Qui est peut-être un rêve dans le rêve.
On a effectivement déjà rencontré, chez Modiano, ce genre de dispositifs en abyme et en miroirs. Ici le temps retrouvé déclenche l'écriture, et on l'a comparé à Proust ; on pourrait tout aussi bien évoquer Nerval face à la chronologie très embrumée de "Chevreuse" qui nous perd dans les échos entre les différents époques de la vie presque aussi sûrement que "Sylvie". Petit à petit se met en place une intrigue d'ordre policier, Bosmans étant rempli du désir de "tirer les choses au clair", ce qui impliquerait pour commencer de parvenir à bien discerner les choses en question. Et cette intrigue aboutit dans une certaine mesure ; mais le récit laisse toujours échapper quelque chose. Certains détails reviennent avec une précision d'ordre photographique ; en revanche des éléments cruciaux sont à peine suggérés. La maison de la vallée de Chevreuse est située dans la rue du docteur-Kurzenne, mais cette précision récurrente n'est donnée au lecteur qu'ironiquement puisque le nom de la commune, lui, est caché… L'annonce de la mort d'un personnage (et non, ce n'est pas Adrienne en 1832) oblige d'ailleurs à se demander si la chronologie du récit est bien sûre, si les souvenirs ne sont pas les faux-semblants de la mémoire, si le vrai passé n'est pas masqué par le souvenir revendiqué comme un certain butin l'est par un certain mur.
Rien de tout cela ne pèse un seul instant. L'écriture de Modiano est allègre, rythmique, musicale comme une session de jazz. Tout donne l'impression d'avoir été rédigé dans un bar sur un coin de table, comme mémorial de menus incidents dont la signification échappe à peine les couche-t-on sur le papier. Tout a le naturel et l'apparent arbitraire du quotidien, alors même que s'esquisse un petit complot. Mais petit à petit, à mesure que Bosmans interprète la réalité d'une façon paranoïaque, ou que celle-ci s'avère effectivement menaçante (comment savoir ?), le récit, cousu de décalages experts (par exemple les étapes d'un trajet en automobile sont énumérées rapidement, avec une apparente négligence, en fait dans le sens inverse du trajet lui-même) prend un caractère de plus en plus onirique et ce n'est pas pour rien qu'il culmine dans un récit de rêve. Qui est peut-être un rêve dans le rêve.
April 23, 2024
Un Modiano de toda la vida, sin grandes alegrías ni impactantes sorpresas, nuevas narraciones de misterio que se sostiene en imágenes de entornos clandestinos, de contrabando y estraperlo, de la Francia de la II Guerra Mundial y las dos décadas posteriores, que se ramifica a apartamentos desocupados, hoteluchos de mala muerte, restaurantes semi-vacíos, estaciones de tren y garajes, esos lugares que existen dentro del mapa y sin embargo no reflejan la vida corriente, sólo el medio ambiente de sus personajes ambiguos, extraños, escurridizos, de identidad incierta y cambiante, y que buscan generar en el lector una sensación de vaga inquietud, como que esas fugaces figuras que se ven en las ciudades ocultan secretos discretamente sórdidos, pero como digo sin grandes descargas.
Quien haya leído algunas de las novelas de Modiano encontrará elementos que aparecen en otras de sus obras: teléfonos clandestinos dónde se cita gente para cometer actos depravados, personas que caen en una soledad incurable y a veces indeseada, paseos nocturnos, calles tranquilas, porteros y demás elementos de ese mundo retraído, ajeno al glamour del jazz y otras imágenes tópicas del noir urbano al que se adscriben ciertos escritores cursis (Antonio Muñoz Molina, vamos). Pedir grandes variaciones respecto lo anterior equivaldría a pedir un coche sin neumáticos.
Al estilo de Simenon o Philip K. Dick, las novelas de Modiano son el resultado de diversos elementos combinatorios, que pueden ser mezclados indefinidamente con leves variaciones para dar lugar a nuevos títulos, que sólo cesarán de aparecer con la muerte del autor. O puede que ni eso, porque ya sabemos qué suerte corren los póstumos en las últimas cuatro décadas, así que cuando Modiano entre en el hotel de pino seguramente aparecerán todavía más personajes obsesionados con su pasado, mujeres de cierta edad de belleza mustia, hombres neurasténicos a los que les cuesta horrores hablar, más pisos por alquilar, casitas en pueblitos del extrarradio parisense y demás elementos inagotables. Y seguramente será una novela perfectamente legible, que se presta a unir puntos dispersos pero que se puede leer de corrido sin mayores dificultades.
Siempre que estoy a la mitad de uno de estos libritos me digo que esta ya es la última vez, que es imposible que hayan sorpresas y embeleso, está todo muy visto. Pero acabas la novela razonablemente satisfecho, luego transcurrirán unos meses y sé que volveré a sentir la tentación de otro libro diferente de Modiano, retomar el contacto con más paisajes neblinosos, gente desencantada y entornos alejados del mundanal ruido. En todo caso, también se el debe reconocer que si te ha gustado una vez posteriormente nunca te falla. Modiano sigue escribiendo como si todavía esperara ser premiado por el jurado del premio Nobel.
Quien haya leído algunas de las novelas de Modiano encontrará elementos que aparecen en otras de sus obras: teléfonos clandestinos dónde se cita gente para cometer actos depravados, personas que caen en una soledad incurable y a veces indeseada, paseos nocturnos, calles tranquilas, porteros y demás elementos de ese mundo retraído, ajeno al glamour del jazz y otras imágenes tópicas del noir urbano al que se adscriben ciertos escritores cursis (Antonio Muñoz Molina, vamos). Pedir grandes variaciones respecto lo anterior equivaldría a pedir un coche sin neumáticos.
Al estilo de Simenon o Philip K. Dick, las novelas de Modiano son el resultado de diversos elementos combinatorios, que pueden ser mezclados indefinidamente con leves variaciones para dar lugar a nuevos títulos, que sólo cesarán de aparecer con la muerte del autor. O puede que ni eso, porque ya sabemos qué suerte corren los póstumos en las últimas cuatro décadas, así que cuando Modiano entre en el hotel de pino seguramente aparecerán todavía más personajes obsesionados con su pasado, mujeres de cierta edad de belleza mustia, hombres neurasténicos a los que les cuesta horrores hablar, más pisos por alquilar, casitas en pueblitos del extrarradio parisense y demás elementos inagotables. Y seguramente será una novela perfectamente legible, que se presta a unir puntos dispersos pero que se puede leer de corrido sin mayores dificultades.
Siempre que estoy a la mitad de uno de estos libritos me digo que esta ya es la última vez, que es imposible que hayan sorpresas y embeleso, está todo muy visto. Pero acabas la novela razonablemente satisfecho, luego transcurrirán unos meses y sé que volveré a sentir la tentación de otro libro diferente de Modiano, retomar el contacto con más paisajes neblinosos, gente desencantada y entornos alejados del mundanal ruido. En todo caso, también se el debe reconocer que si te ha gustado una vez posteriormente nunca te falla. Modiano sigue escribiendo como si todavía esperara ser premiado por el jurado del premio Nobel.
December 4, 2021
Une fois encore je me suis laissée séduire par Modiano et son écriture si particulière, son écriture pleine de silences.
Selon son habitude Modiano part d'un détail, d'un mot qui parle à sa mémoire. Chevreuse ...un mot, une image , des mots, des images ... et la mémoire s'éveille.
D'Auteuil à Chevreuse de Chevreuse à Auteuil . C'était il y a 50 ans et même d'avantage il n'était encore qu'un enfant mais "on ne pensait pas à écouter le témoignage des enfants, en ce temps-là " C'est à cette époque là d'ailleurs qu' il a appris à se taire ou à parler le moins possible.
D'Auteuil à Nice et de Nice à la Rive gauche c'était il y a cinquante ans et eux étaient ils réels ou sortis d'un rêve éveillé?
A lire bien sûr ...
Selon son habitude Modiano part d'un détail, d'un mot qui parle à sa mémoire. Chevreuse ...un mot, une image , des mots, des images ... et la mémoire s'éveille.
D'Auteuil à Chevreuse de Chevreuse à Auteuil . C'était il y a 50 ans et même d'avantage il n'était encore qu'un enfant mais "on ne pensait pas à écouter le témoignage des enfants, en ce temps-là " C'est à cette époque là d'ailleurs qu' il a appris à se taire ou à parler le moins possible.
D'Auteuil à Nice et de Nice à la Rive gauche c'était il y a cinquante ans et eux étaient ils réels ou sortis d'un rêve éveillé?
A lire bien sûr ...
May 9, 2024
No French writer of the last half century has impressed me quite like Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature. Over the last ten years, I have read approximately twenty of his novels and am at the point of wanting to re-read some of them. What draws me are his melancholic memories of a lonely youth wandering the streets of Paris.
I have just finished Scene of the Crime. In my lap was a book of street maps of Paris so that I could follow the ceaseless wanderings of his heroes, in this case of Jean Bosman as he remembers the shady characters from his youth. And his youth always seems to be in the 1960s, a time when I was a young man. It is like reliving the French New Wave in Cinema, except translated into literature. As Boesman muses at one point, "We are from our childhood as we are from a country."
If you read his autobiographical Pedigree: A Memoir, you will begin to understand how Modiano was raised by diffident and slightly larcenous parents who left island-sized holes in his perception of his own childhood.
I have just finished Scene of the Crime. In my lap was a book of street maps of Paris so that I could follow the ceaseless wanderings of his heroes, in this case of Jean Bosman as he remembers the shady characters from his youth. And his youth always seems to be in the 1960s, a time when I was a young man. It is like reliving the French New Wave in Cinema, except translated into literature. As Boesman muses at one point, "We are from our childhood as we are from a country."
If you read his autobiographical Pedigree: A Memoir, you will begin to understand how Modiano was raised by diffident and slightly larcenous parents who left island-sized holes in his perception of his own childhood.
Read
January 27, 2023Jean Bosmans, a man in his 70s, recalls his efforts in his 20s to piece together the jagged remnants of his memories of his childhood fifteen years earlier. So: man now in his 70s, thinking back to his 20s, when he was thinking back to his early childhood. Bosmans remembers an unhappy, uprooted childhood in which he was abandoned with no explanation by his rootless parents, leaving him with their equally rootless friends, minor criminals struggling to get by while staying out of jail. Jean in his twenties and later in his 70s, strives to make sense of the barely controlled chaos of his childhood. The Scene of the Crime may strike familiar notes to confirmed Modiano readers, but Modiano remains masterful at evoking in his readers the isolation, fright, and loneliness that the young Jean must have felt as an abandoned child and then in his 20’s when he tries to recreate the circumstances of his childhood. Is Patrick Modiano’s The Scene of the Crime repetitive with his other work? Yes, but it remains deeply affecting regardless.
September 30, 2023
H Chevreuse είναι το Κομπραί του Μοντιανό: ο τόπος που οι θύμησες ανακατεύονται κι οι αποστάσεις του τόπου και του χρόνου έχουν λίγη δημασια, αφού αυτό που μετράει δεν είναι τί έγινε, αλλά τί ένιωσες.
H Chevreuse είναι ένα βιβλίο για τις αναμνήσεις και τις αναμνήσεις των αναμνήσεων, το παρελθόν ειναι ένας τόπος που η αλήθεια έχει μικρότερη βαρύτητα από τις αισθήσεις.
H Chevreuse είναι η κατάθεση της μνήμης αλλά κυρίως η κατάθεση της λήθης. Όσα δε θυμόμαστε αποκτούν, τελικά, μεγαλύτερη βαρύτητα από όσα ανακαλούμε μέσα μας; Εξάλλου κι ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας καταλήγει πως η λογοτεχνία φτιάχνεται κυρίως από τις σιωπές, από όσα δεν λέει, παρά από τις λέξεις, κι από όσα λέει.
H Chevreuse είναι ένα βιβλίο για τις αναμνήσεις και τις αναμνήσεις των αναμνήσεων, το παρελθόν ειναι ένας τόπος που η αλήθεια έχει μικρότερη βαρύτητα από τις αισθήσεις.
H Chevreuse είναι η κατάθεση της μνήμης αλλά κυρίως η κατάθεση της λήθης. Όσα δε θυμόμαστε αποκτούν, τελικά, μεγαλύτερη βαρύτητα από όσα ανακαλούμε μέσα μας; Εξάλλου κι ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας καταλήγει πως η λογοτεχνία φτιάχνεται κυρίως από τις σιωπές, από όσα δεν λέει, παρά από τις λέξεις, κι από όσα λέει.
July 18, 2023
Uma leitura surpreendente, eu esperava que fosse algo mais policial, mas ele vai mais para o suspense. Ainda assim, a trama do crime é mais como uma porta que se abre para discussões mais subjetivas como a memória e a obliquidade do passado, o que foi muito agradável para mim. O protagonista sente a todo momento que falta uma peça essencial de seu passado para chegar a uma resposta que ele não sabe o que é, mas necessita desse elo para compor o quadro. Então, ele busca incessantemente essa última peça, e nessa busca, percebe que outras pessoas têm mais informações do que ele e sente que está em uma armadilha. Todo o livro é muito elusivo, mas isso é muito bom, pois deu abertura para explorar a subjetividade da memória, do passado e da necessidade humana de buscar uma resposta para sua própria vida. Além disso, também há a presença do subgênero “livro sobre um livro”, onde a vida do protagonista e seu livro se misturam e se desenrolam juntos.
December 2, 2023
as always an intrigueing read and a sort of mystery as well -love Modiano
September 22, 2023
This one was apparently not for me. Perhaps if I had read Modiano’s earlier book Suspended Sentences, or perhaps if I knew more about France, or perhaps… In any event, it has the virtue of being short, at only 157 pages in my translated copy.
April 29, 2024
Pas trop compris l’intérêt
A la fin ça s’améliore quand même (= un sens est donné au tout)
L’écriture est bien mais normale, je comprends pas trop la fame
Je pense que le but c’était de faire un livre sur la mémoire, les lieux, les liens (en tout cas j’ai eu cet espoir les 2 premières pages)
A la fin ça s’améliore quand même (= un sens est donné au tout)
L’écriture est bien mais normale, je comprends pas trop la fame
Je pense que le but c’était de faire un livre sur la mémoire, les lieux, les liens (en tout cas j’ai eu cet espoir les 2 premières pages)
April 28, 2024
Impression d'être spectatrice d'un narrateur spectateur qui se lance dans un enquête qui n'a pas d'objectif.
Très compliqué...
-
feel like I'm watching a spectator-narrator who's embarking on an investigation that has no objective.
felt left out...
Très compliqué...
-
feel like I'm watching a spectator-narrator who's embarking on an investigation that has no objective.
felt left out...
January 17, 2024
Es difícil escribir una novela corta como Chevreuse. Una novela que juega con los recuerdos y la memoria en superposición de tres planos en la edad de su protagonista, Jean Bosmans. Los recuerdos y los distintos personajes tienen una capacidad evocadora tan enorme, que la mera enumeración de los mismos, en pocas páginas, es capaz de construir una historia de misterio e intriga que se sostiene magníficamente hasta el final.
December 8, 2023
Όταν απονεμήθηκε το Νόμπελ Λογοτεχνίας στον Πατρίκ Μοντιανό το 2014, η Σουηδική Ακαδημία δικαιολόγησε την απόφασή της και ταυτόχρονα συνόψισε το έργο του Γάλλου συγγραφέα με τον καλύτερο δυνατό τρόπο: «για την τέχνη της μνήμης με την οποία έχει ανακαλέσει τα πιο άπιαστα ανθρώπινα πεπρωμένα».
Ο ίδιος ο Μοντιανό έχει δηλώσει ότι γράφει για πάνω από 45 χρόνια το ίδιο βιβλίο και στο Chevreuse, το προτελευταίο του, η μνήμη είναι και πάλι το κεντρικό θέμα, αυτή τη φορά μάλιστα σε δύο χρόνους, κάτι σαν inception της μνήμης δηλαδή, σε ένα κατεξοχήν άπιαστο πεπρωμένο, αυτό του ίδιου του συγγραφέα μέσω ενός ακόμα alter ego του, που εδώ ονομάζεται Ζαν Μποσμάν και χαρτογραφεί εκ νέου ένα ολότελα προσωπικό Παρίσι ως αντικατοπτρισμό του λαβύρινθου των αναμνήσεών του.
Η συνοικία του Οτέιγι και η κοιλάδα της Σεβρέζ όπως τις έζησε ο κεντρικός ήρωας ως παιδί, νεαρός άνδρας και ηλικιωμένος πλέον συγγραφέας, γεμίζουν από ονόματα, ημερομηνίες, τηλεφωνικούς αριθμούς, κατακερματισμένες εικόνες και ασήμαντες λεπτομέρειες που αναδύονται από την άβυσσο του παρελθόντος, κάπου «στο μεταίχμιο μεταξύ ονείρου και πραγματικότητας» χωρίς να παίρνουν ποτέ σαφή μορφή.
Ακόμα και το αστυνομικό μυστήριο, που έχει αναλογίες με την πραγματική ζωή του συγγραφέα για όποιον θέλει να τις ψάξει, χωρίς να είναι απαραίτητο, χρησιμεύει περισσότερο ως πρόσχημα για να διερευνήσει ο Μοντιανό «μέχρι ποιού σημείου μπορείς να ονειρεύεσαι τη ζωή σου».
Απαιτητικό στην αρχή κι εθιστικό στη συνέχεια, αυτό το (κάθε άλλο παρά) μικρό βιβλίο θα ενθουσιάσει όσους αγαπούν το ιδιαίτερο ύφος του συγγραφέα. Η τελευταία πρόταση, που δεν θα την αποκαλύψω, είναι σκέτη μαγεία, όπως και η μετάφραση του Αχιλλέα Κυριακίδη.
Ο ίδιος ο Μοντιανό έχει δηλώσει ότι γράφει για πάνω από 45 χρόνια το ίδιο βιβλίο και στο Chevreuse, το προτελευταίο του, η μνήμη είναι και πάλι το κεντρικό θέμα, αυτή τη φορά μάλιστα σε δύο χρόνους, κάτι σαν inception της μνήμης δηλαδή, σε ένα κατεξοχήν άπιαστο πεπρωμένο, αυτό του ίδιου του συγγραφέα μέσω ενός ακόμα alter ego του, που εδώ ονομάζεται Ζαν Μποσμάν και χαρτογραφεί εκ νέου ένα ολότελα προσωπικό Παρίσι ως αντικατοπτρισμό του λαβύρινθου των αναμνήσεών του.
Η συνοικία του Οτέιγι και η κοιλάδα της Σεβρέζ όπως τις έζησε ο κεντρικός ήρωας ως παιδί, νεαρός άνδρας και ηλικιωμένος πλέον συγγραφέας, γεμίζουν από ονόματα, ημερομηνίες, τηλεφωνικούς αριθμούς, κατακερματισμένες εικόνες και ασήμαντες λεπτομέρειες που αναδύονται από την άβυσσο του παρελθόντος, κάπου «στο μεταίχμιο μεταξύ ονείρου και πραγματικότητας» χωρίς να παίρνουν ποτέ σαφή μορφή.
Ακόμα και το αστυνομικό μυστήριο, που έχει αναλογίες με την πραγματική ζωή του συγγραφέα για όποιον θέλει να τις ψάξει, χωρίς να είναι απαραίτητο, χρησιμεύει περισσότερο ως πρόσχημα για να διερευνήσει ο Μοντιανό «μέχρι ποιού σημείου μπορείς να ονειρεύεσαι τη ζωή σου».
Απαιτητικό στην αρχή κι εθιστικό στη συνέχεια, αυτό το (κάθε άλλο παρά) μικρό βιβλίο θα ενθουσιάσει όσους αγαπούν το ιδιαίτερο ύφος του συγγραφέα. Η τελευταία πρόταση, που δεν θα την αποκαλύψω, είναι σκέτη μαγεία, όπως και η μετάφραση του Αχιλλέα Κυριακίδη.
December 31, 2022
Opnieuw een parel aan de elk jaar langer wordende snoer van vertellingen van Modiano waarin het draait om de ontoereikendheid van de herinnering. Het mysterieuze verleden van de hoofdpersoon - ook voor hemzelf -, vage figuren die niet helemaal zuiver op de graat waren (of zijn) en de daardoor veroorzaakte vage dreiging houden de lezer voor een paar uur gevangen. Op een wel heel prettige manier! En natuurlijk is het verhaal weer helemaal topografisch te volgen als je de plattegrond van Parijs (of Google maps) naast het boek houdt.
April 6, 2023
A perfect example of where Modiano shines and excels. The story of a man in his 70s reflecting on a period in his 20s when he crossed paths with people who were interested in where he was 15 years before that. It focuses on the fragility and ephemeral nature of memory. How things can pass in and out of your life with occasionally recurring motifs. Also includes shady characters who tend to be involved in the black market.
October 14, 2024
«Ils arrivèrent à Buc. Bosmans eut un coup au cœur. Ce nom qu'il avait oublié, ce nom si bref et si clair, on aurait dit qu'il le réveillait brutalement d'un long sommeil»
December 23, 2024
«En aquella època, no parava de caminar per París en una llum que conferia a les persones amb qui es creuava i als carrers una fosforescència molt viva»
Me'l varen regalar pes meu aniversari <3 Se nota que en Modiano té talent perquè ha fet interessant una història que passa a nes barri d'Auteuil!
Me'l varen regalar pes meu aniversari <3 Se nota que en Modiano té talent perquè ha fet interessant una història que passa a nes barri d'Auteuil!
August 29, 2024
Una història d'intrigues construida sobre records, reals o figurats, amb l'estil d'escriptura nostàlgic i bell que caracteritza l'autor.
August 14, 2022
Ein weiterer genialer Roman von Patrick Modiano. Ich habe die deutsche Übersetzung gelesen, die in Goodreads jedoch noch nicht verfügbar ist.
Im Vergleich zu vorhergehenden Werken kommen zu den verwirrenden Ortsebenen unterschiedliche Zeitebenen hinzu, mit denen der Autor virtuos spielt. Er zeigt, wie aus Erinnerungsbruchstücken Literatur erwächst und beschreibt die Geburt des Schriftstellers aus dem Geist der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit. Realität und Fiktion, Wirklichkeit und Literatur verschmelzen miteinander und gehen ineinander über.
Im Vergleich zu vorhergehenden Werken kommen zu den verwirrenden Ortsebenen unterschiedliche Zeitebenen hinzu, mit denen der Autor virtuos spielt. Er zeigt, wie aus Erinnerungsbruchstücken Literatur erwächst und beschreibt die Geburt des Schriftstellers aus dem Geist der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit. Realität und Fiktion, Wirklichkeit und Literatur verschmelzen miteinander und gehen ineinander über.
June 17, 2023
Inutile, prix Nobel qui fait du remplissage. Impression d’avoir perdu mon temps, heureusement le livre ne fait que 158p dans la collection blanche. Seul avantage : sa longueur correspondant parfaitement au trajet Liège-Bruxelles.
March 5, 2022
Toujours le même livre? En tout cas pour moi toujours aussi bien écrit, et toujours aussi émouvant.
December 29, 2024
Harvoin yhdyn kirjojen takakansiteksteihin, mutta tässä Patrick Modianon teoksessa Chevreusen vuodet teksti on enemmän kuin oivallinen ja osuva. Käytän siis sitä:
”Nobelistin aavemainen romaani luotaa ajan ja muistin arvoituksia.
”Ja koska menneisyyttä ei voisi elää uudelleen eikä oikaista, paras tapa tehdä haamut lopullisesti harmittomiksi ja pitää ne loitolla olisi muuntaa ne romaanihenkilöiksi.” Chevreusen vuodet kuvaa lapsuuden outojen tapahtumien pitkiä jälkimaininkeja. Parikymppinen Jean Bosmans kokee sarjan hermostuttavia yhteensattumia, joihin liittyy katoilevainen nainen, Jeanin oma lapsuudenkoti Chevreusessa ja joukko levottomuutta herättäviä hahmoja, jotka ovat kiinnostuneita hänen menneisyydestään. Jeanin kuulostellessa muistin kaikuja mennyt ja nykyhetki punoutuvat hetki hetkeltä lujemmin toisiinsa ja muodostavat lopulta verkon, joka kattaa puoli vuosisataa.”
Hyvin sanottu. Luin Chevreusen vuodet Uinuvia muistoja- teoksen jälkeen ja näistä kahdesta - vaikkei vertailua tietenkään tarvitse tehdä - pidin enemmän Uinuvia muistoja - teoksesta. Molemmat olivat unenomaisia ja ihmishenkilöiden lisäksi Pariisi oli tekstissä kaikkialla läsnä. Mies - molemmissa teoksissa hyvin samankaltainen (kirjailijan oloinen?) törmää muistoihinsa vuosikymmenten jälkeen nuoruutensa tapahtumiin. Mies koettaa selvittää menneiden tapahtumien kulkuja, niiden vaikutusta omaan elämänpolkuunsa ja nykyiseen hetkeen.
Chevreusen vuodet sisältää lisäksi dekkarimaisen salaisuuden ja Modiano kirjoittaa sen kaiken hyvin, haaveellisesti, pariisilaisella välinpitämöttömyydellä (?), olankohautuksin. Silmiinpistävää on henkilöiden ilmaantuminen ja häviäminen. Noin vain he tulevat, sattumanvaraisesti, niin tuntuu ja noin vain he haihtuvat, selittämättä. Noin vain.
Chevreusen vuodet- teoksessa siis kirjoitetaan kirjaa. Mies, tapahtumahetkillä nuori, parikymppinen ja nyt viisi vuosikymmentä vanhempi, yhdistelee ja kokoaa mennyttä kuin palapeliä, yrittää asettaa tapahtumat lineaariseen kronologiseen ymmärrettävään järjestykseen ja kantaa arvoistuksen ratkaisua sisällään ja sen vuoksi koki itsensä uhatuksi, jahdatuksikin.
Mies törmää muistoissaan tapahtumaketjuihin, jotka sijoittuvat hänen lapsuuteensa, lastenkotiin, karkumatkaan sisäoppilaitoksesta, salaseuroihin ja kolmeen hämärän menneisyyden mieheen ja naisiin, jotka ovat arvoitustakin arvoituksellisempia.
Tunnelma on utuinen, hämärä, unenomainen (kuin Uinuvia muistoja-teoksessa) ja tässä teoksessa matkakaat myös Etelä-Ranskaan (kotikonnuilleni).
Hän kirjoittaa kaiken ymmärtääkseen kirjaan.
Tavallaan pidän Modianosta. Näistä kahdesta teoksesta olen saanut hyvn kuvan tyylistään, teosten tunnelmasta.
”Nobelistin aavemainen romaani luotaa ajan ja muistin arvoituksia.
”Ja koska menneisyyttä ei voisi elää uudelleen eikä oikaista, paras tapa tehdä haamut lopullisesti harmittomiksi ja pitää ne loitolla olisi muuntaa ne romaanihenkilöiksi.” Chevreusen vuodet kuvaa lapsuuden outojen tapahtumien pitkiä jälkimaininkeja. Parikymppinen Jean Bosmans kokee sarjan hermostuttavia yhteensattumia, joihin liittyy katoilevainen nainen, Jeanin oma lapsuudenkoti Chevreusessa ja joukko levottomuutta herättäviä hahmoja, jotka ovat kiinnostuneita hänen menneisyydestään. Jeanin kuulostellessa muistin kaikuja mennyt ja nykyhetki punoutuvat hetki hetkeltä lujemmin toisiinsa ja muodostavat lopulta verkon, joka kattaa puoli vuosisataa.”
Hyvin sanottu. Luin Chevreusen vuodet Uinuvia muistoja- teoksen jälkeen ja näistä kahdesta - vaikkei vertailua tietenkään tarvitse tehdä - pidin enemmän Uinuvia muistoja - teoksesta. Molemmat olivat unenomaisia ja ihmishenkilöiden lisäksi Pariisi oli tekstissä kaikkialla läsnä. Mies - molemmissa teoksissa hyvin samankaltainen (kirjailijan oloinen?) törmää muistoihinsa vuosikymmenten jälkeen nuoruutensa tapahtumiin. Mies koettaa selvittää menneiden tapahtumien kulkuja, niiden vaikutusta omaan elämänpolkuunsa ja nykyiseen hetkeen.
Chevreusen vuodet sisältää lisäksi dekkarimaisen salaisuuden ja Modiano kirjoittaa sen kaiken hyvin, haaveellisesti, pariisilaisella välinpitämöttömyydellä (?), olankohautuksin. Silmiinpistävää on henkilöiden ilmaantuminen ja häviäminen. Noin vain he tulevat, sattumanvaraisesti, niin tuntuu ja noin vain he haihtuvat, selittämättä. Noin vain.
Chevreusen vuodet- teoksessa siis kirjoitetaan kirjaa. Mies, tapahtumahetkillä nuori, parikymppinen ja nyt viisi vuosikymmentä vanhempi, yhdistelee ja kokoaa mennyttä kuin palapeliä, yrittää asettaa tapahtumat lineaariseen kronologiseen ymmärrettävään järjestykseen ja kantaa arvoistuksen ratkaisua sisällään ja sen vuoksi koki itsensä uhatuksi, jahdatuksikin.
Mies törmää muistoissaan tapahtumaketjuihin, jotka sijoittuvat hänen lapsuuteensa, lastenkotiin, karkumatkaan sisäoppilaitoksesta, salaseuroihin ja kolmeen hämärän menneisyyden mieheen ja naisiin, jotka ovat arvoitustakin arvoituksellisempia.
Tunnelma on utuinen, hämärä, unenomainen (kuin Uinuvia muistoja-teoksessa) ja tässä teoksessa matkakaat myös Etelä-Ranskaan (kotikonnuilleni).
Hän kirjoittaa kaiken ymmärtääkseen kirjaan.
Tavallaan pidän Modianosta. Näistä kahdesta teoksesta olen saanut hyvn kuvan tyylistään, teosten tunnelmasta.
March 3, 2023
This is the most recent translation of a book by Patrick Modiano in English. Originally published under the title Chevreuse in 2021, it is a continuation of sorts of Modiano’s novella Suspended Sentences (originally Remise de Peine, or “Remission,” 1988). I found it useful to go back and read Suspended Sentences before starting Scene of the Crime; it’s not completely necessary, but it provides a sort of framework for the later book. The earlier novella is written in a straightforward way, recalling memories of the period when Modiano’s mother leaves Patrick and his brother (never named, but he was Rudy) at a house in Chevreuse. This would have been around 1955. At the house there were three women who watched after Patrick and Rudy: Helene, Annie, and Matilde. There are men also who frequented the house, a Jean D. and a Roger Vincent. The boys are generally well cared for, and the makeshift family provide for them and give them gifts. But Patrick is old enough to sense that something is odd about these people, and one day, out of nowhere, every adult is gone and the cops are at the house. We are never completely sure what happened, or where the boys end up at the end of Suspended Sentences, which is more of a memoir than other books by Modiano.
Fast forward to Scene of the Crime: it is now around 1970, and the main character is now Jean Bosmans (Modiano also has the name “Jean” in his legal name), a man in his mid-twenties, who is befriended by two women, Camille and Martine. The women take Jean to visit a house they consider renting in Chevreuse. Once they get there, Jean realizes it’s the same house where he lived when he was 10 years old (so Jean, we now understand, is a fictional stand in for Patrick). The house was owned by a Rose-Marie Krawell, who does not feature in Suspended Sentences (unless she’s a fictional version of Mathilde, but I think not). None of these characters were in Suspended Sentences, but they are odd: why do they bring Jean to see the house? The women are friends with some shady characters, including one Guy Vincent, who resembles Roger Vincent from the earlier novella, and who is key to this one. What do they want from Jean and what will they do to obtain it?
Scene of the Crime is a good story: not as suspenseful as some of Modiano’s other novels, and not as strong as some of Modiano’s other stories in which he does not hide under a cloak of fiction. It takes a while for the story to unravel, and there is not much of a payoff at the end. But there is a buried treasure that begs to be found. The scenes with Kim and the boy seem to be the start of a relationship, but they unfortunately hit a dead end.
I always enjoy Modiano, and I think Scene of the Crime is an intriguing piece of the puzzle that make up the life of the real Modiano. There is plenty of Paris in the book, such as mentions of dinners at Wepler, restaurants on the rue des Grand-Degres, walks in the neighborhood around Cité Universitaire. And the book touches upon a universal reality: Everyone’s childhood is the “scene of the crime,” and we are all often tempted to return to it to figure out more about the people and places who inhabited it.
Fast forward to Scene of the Crime: it is now around 1970, and the main character is now Jean Bosmans (Modiano also has the name “Jean” in his legal name), a man in his mid-twenties, who is befriended by two women, Camille and Martine. The women take Jean to visit a house they consider renting in Chevreuse. Once they get there, Jean realizes it’s the same house where he lived when he was 10 years old (so Jean, we now understand, is a fictional stand in for Patrick). The house was owned by a Rose-Marie Krawell, who does not feature in Suspended Sentences (unless she’s a fictional version of Mathilde, but I think not). None of these characters were in Suspended Sentences, but they are odd: why do they bring Jean to see the house? The women are friends with some shady characters, including one Guy Vincent, who resembles Roger Vincent from the earlier novella, and who is key to this one. What do they want from Jean and what will they do to obtain it?
Scene of the Crime is a good story: not as suspenseful as some of Modiano’s other novels, and not as strong as some of Modiano’s other stories in which he does not hide under a cloak of fiction. It takes a while for the story to unravel, and there is not much of a payoff at the end. But there is a buried treasure that begs to be found. The scenes with Kim and the boy seem to be the start of a relationship, but they unfortunately hit a dead end.
I always enjoy Modiano, and I think Scene of the Crime is an intriguing piece of the puzzle that make up the life of the real Modiano. There is plenty of Paris in the book, such as mentions of dinners at Wepler, restaurants on the rue des Grand-Degres, walks in the neighborhood around Cité Universitaire. And the book touches upon a universal reality: Everyone’s childhood is the “scene of the crime,” and we are all often tempted to return to it to figure out more about the people and places who inhabited it.
April 11, 2024
Ancora i frammenti di una memoria che passa, nel racconto, dai 6 anni, quando Jean Bosmans ha visto qualcosa, ai suoi 20 anni (“quindici anni dopo”) quando le “brutte persone” lo circuiscono per farsi dire cosa aveva visto, a i 40/45 anni quando la storia è scritta, il racconto che lo stesso Bosmans scrive su tutti questi eventi. E Bosmans gioca qui anche sulla memoria degli altri … un sottobosco di persone che gli parlano, gli scrivono riguardo a quelle lontane persone. Un castello di stanze (le stanze di case sono di fatto l’oggetto del racconto, sia il castello delle stanze della memoria) che si dispiega a noi che osserviamo, contempliamo questo dipanarsi di pensieri essendone totalmente estranei eppure rimanendone intrappolati e affascinati. Interessante poi il finale che evoca tutta la “vanità delle vanità” - oggi - delle cose che ieri sembravano così importanti…
È vero che Modiano “scrive sempre lo stesso libro”. Però questo ha una caratteristica che lo rende un po’ diverso. Se in altri libri ti portava a immergerti nella storia ricordata-raccontata (come in Dora Bruder), oppure ti portava a entrare dentro i tuoi ricordi e i tuoi incontri del passato (sublime per questo Ricordi dormienti), qui ti lascia totalmente all’esterno, come un osservatore distaccato a cui non viene neppure “chiesto” di partecipare: ti viene solo chiesto di leggere!
Per questo trovo questo libro in qualche modo geniale, anche se mi è piaciuto di meno di altri.
È vero che Modiano “scrive sempre lo stesso libro”. Però questo ha una caratteristica che lo rende un po’ diverso. Se in altri libri ti portava a immergerti nella storia ricordata-raccontata (come in Dora Bruder), oppure ti portava a entrare dentro i tuoi ricordi e i tuoi incontri del passato (sublime per questo Ricordi dormienti), qui ti lascia totalmente all’esterno, come un osservatore distaccato a cui non viene neppure “chiesto” di partecipare: ti viene solo chiesto di leggere!
Per questo trovo questo libro in qualche modo geniale, anche se mi è piaciuto di meno di altri.
April 22, 2024
Modiano és un expert per suggerir, per introduir-te sense adonar-te'n a les històries que expliques i ser gaudir de les textures de la narració. I ho fa a totes les seves novel·les, que sempre sobrevolen temes similars. 'Chevreuse' no n'és una excepció i aquí ens explica els records confusos d'un escriptor, Jean Bosmans, al voltant de dues dones i tres homes, aquests darrers de reputació dubtosa, i com entre el record i l'oblit, entre la vivència i la imaginació, entre la persecució i la desparició, per mantenir-los presents s'empesca una tècnica, senzilla, però molt efectiva i que és la genialitat de la novel·la i la clou amb mestratge.
July 22, 2024
Patrick Modiano to many in France was a surprising Nobel Laureate. However, this the second book of his I have read -- admittedly translated into English -- reflects his talent. Unsure whether this is a common theme in his books but both the ones I have read are centred round lost identity and searching for the answers. This one is based over decades and some intriguing characters, some raffish, some more sinister whom the central character came into contact with when he was a young boy and then a bit older. No more of the plot shall be served up. However, it is an engrossing read, beautifully written/translated and very atmospheric. Rather moving too, the passage of time and falling out of contact with acquaintances, some better for his health than others. Modiano and Lemaitre so much more preferable for me than the pretentiousness of Houellebecq in the lexicon of modern French authors. This is a wonderful read.
September 1, 2024
On reconnaît quelques rues présentes dans les autres Modiano, et il semblerait encore et toujours que l'auteur réécrit le même livre (pour mon plus grand plaisir), parcourt inlassablement paris, narre un récit qu'on suit sans trop comprendre pourquoi, où les informations sont pleines d'interrogations, la trame pleine de vide et de flottements, pourtant ça fonctionne remarquablement bien. Une certaine nostalgie de fin d'été coule entre les pages, c'est joli et surtout inexplicable, bref, comme dans tous les Modiano, ça a des airs presque mystiques. Ce n'est peut-être pas le meilleur, et ça ne marque pas vraiment, c'est juste beau sur le moment, ça se contemple comme les derniers couchers de soleil de septembre.
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