Incidente notturno

by Patrick Modiano, Emanuelle Caillat (Translator)

Parigi. Durante una notte di foschia un giovane viene investito da un'auto e si ritrova in ospedale insieme alla donna che era al volante, anche lei leggermente ferita, e a un uomo bruno robusto dall'aria losca che, dopo avergli consegnato una busta, si allontana. Una volta dimesso, nonostante la gamba dolorante e la mente ancora un po' confusa, il ragazzo decide di ritrovare la Fiat verde acqua e la ragazza dell'incidente, di cui conosce solo il nome, Jacqueline Beausergent. Un incidente piuttosto banale apre così un canale misterioso con il passato e dà vita a una serie di domande: chi è Jacqueline? Si tratta forse della stessa donna che lo aveva accompagnato da bambino in ospedale, quando aveva avuto un incidente simile uscendo da scuola? E cosa vuole da lui quell'uomo dall'aria losca? Ma prima di tutto il ragazzo conduce un'inchiesta su se stesso: nulla sappiamo di lui, neppure il suo nome di battesimo. Il suo ritratto prende forma partendo da una scarpa troppo stretta, persa durante l'incidente, da un vecchio giaccone sporco di sangue e da un passaporto con una data di nascita falsificata per diventare maggiorenne prima del tempo. In una Parigi misteriosa e notturna, fra i caffè del centro e una periferia in rovina, il giovane va alla ricerca del padre, un padre che già una volta lo ha abbandonato e che di nuovo scompare nel silenzio e nella nebbia.

Genres: Fiction, France, Novels, Literature, French Literature, Nobel Prize, Mystery

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Patrick 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)

Reviews

[Vicky "phenkos" · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange little book that was! A book meant for night reading (as the title suggests) or, preferably, for very early in the morning when the blue hour has barely begun and before the responsibilities of the day ahead have come to dominate one's attention.

The plot is minimal; a young man -the narrator- gets knocked down by a car which then crashes against a nearby arcade. A woman emerges from the car: a blonde, young woman dressed in a fur coat. She's injured herself. The man has hurt his ankle badly. A police van takes them away from the accident scene. A big, brown-haired man with a menacing appearance accompanies them. A policeman? They get asked their names. 'Jacqueline Beausergent', the woman replies. That name is going to reverbate across the pages of the book taking on a much bigger importance than the circumstances suggest.

The young man's memories of the events that follow are fragmented; at some point he's muzzled with ether and loses consciousness. He later finds himself at a clinic but has no recollection of how he got there. Nothing is quite like it seems; the man is treated like he's guilty himself even though he's the injured party ('I thought of the handcuffs that the two women were wearing earlier and again said to myself that they would end up putting them on us, too'; 'He must have been preparing to stop us in case we tried to escape'). Flashbacks from another time come back to him. When he finally wakes up after who knows how long, things start to clear up slightly ('He could ask me all the questions he liked, interrogate me for hours; I no longer felt guilty of anything') but some residual weirdness lingers on. Before leaving the clinic, the man is made to sign a report and is given a large sum of money by the big, brown-haired man, and immediately we know something fishy is going on.

The young man will try to find this Jacqueline Beausergent again, in fact spends considerable time and energy in this endeavour. But why? Is it because of his injury? Does he feel shafted by the report he was made to sign? No, not quite. It seems that the accident has aroused a memory in him, a memory buried deep in his unconsious; a similar accident when he was a boy, before the 'age of reason', i.e. when he was seven, the memory of a woman who, like Jacqueline Beausergent, put her hand on his when he was little and vulnerable. Could it have been the same woman?

Modiano creates a dreamy, dark, foreboding atmosphere inviting the reader into his character's disjointed memories where everything happens twice (at least twice, in fact Nietzsche's 'eternal return of the same' is directly referenced in the book), and nothing has a simple, unambiguous meaning. The smell of ether ('that monochromatic smell') awakens a memory long suppressed; a dog arrives on the scene at critical junctures; a parrot becomes part of the man's frantic search for Jacqueline, and - who knows?- perhaps after thirty years this parrot 'is still repeating my phrase in another neighbourhood of Paris and in the commotion of another cafe, without anyone understanding it or really paying any attention'.

And where are we, the readers? At which point in the young man's life do we get to share in his thoughts? It is not entirely clear, the plotline being far from linear. Is it when the narrator is 21 (almost 21) at the time of his accident? Or is it much later as his reminiscences unfold? And what happens to the young man's father - not really a father to speak of - who occasionally meets his son in cafes and one day disappears in the fog (the fog of memory perhaps)?

Modiano's writing is compelling and keeps you immersed throughout despite the disjointed narration. I deducted a star because I thought that some loose ends (for example, the role of Dr Bouvière) might have been tidied up. That said, I enjoyed reading my first Modiano tremendously and am very grateful to my GR friend Ilse for introducing me to this terrific writer!

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the streets at night, I had the impression I was living another life, a more captivating one, or quite simply, that I was dreaming another life." Paris Nocturne is an intriguing novel about a young man uniquely prone to dreams (rêves) of the past. From its opening sentences, in which Modiano's unnamed narrator loses his memory in a car accident, to its conclusion ("I think there's something you're hiding from me"), one isn't quite sure, and one doesn't quite mind, if what is happening to Modiano's character as he wanders the streets of Paris at night in search of the driver of a sea-green Fiat, is real or merely a series of fragmented memories within his head. Modiano has the ability to disorient his reader with his writing, and this novel is no exception.

[Emilio Berra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A volte ritornano
Ogni testo del grande autore francese è in sé compiuto, ma le ambientazioni e le sfumate atmosfere parigine sono quelle che segnano un po' tutte le sue opere : ciascuna di esse è un tassello di un grande e raffinato mosaico che è l'intera sua opera, la sua 'Recherche' .

Qui l'io-narrante è un maturo signore che rievoca l'incidente accadutogli quand'era ventenne : "successo in tempo per permettermi di dare alla mia vita un nuovo inizio" ; "di riflettere in cosa era stata la mia vita fino a quel momento".
L'atteggiamento benevolo della giovane donna bionda, che con l'auto l'ha investito, lo induce a rievocare un'analoga disavventura di anni prima, anche allora con una donna bionda (la stessa ?).

Scorgiamo il protagonista, non ancora del tutto ristabilito, alla ricerca della donna bionda partendo dai pochi dati di cui è in possesso. In un clima da romanzo giallo, vaga per i quartieri di Parigi, ambienti colti in suggestive immagini notturne, come in un film d'autore girato in bianco e nero.

La bellezza dello stile di Modiano ha modo di esplicare tutto il suo fascino tramite una scrittura tersa ed evocativa; i diversi piani narrativi fluiscono e si intercalano con naturalezza; analogie e sottili ambiguità quasi oniriche producono sensazioni di 'eterno ritorno' .
Pur essendo un libro a mio avviso inferiore a "Dora Bruder" , brilla dello smalto di una scrittura bellissima. L'arte di Modiano, pur partendo da vissuti individuali, ci offre anche la possibilità di scorgere un 'afflato cosmico' che coinvolge il singolo lettore nel destino comune, in cui palpitano "tanti visi colti per un istante che brilleranno nella memoria con un scintillio di stelle lontane per poi spegnersi il giorno della nostra morte senza aver rivelato il loro segreto" .

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modiano has created a disquieting, disorienting atmosphere that continues to the novel's end. what is real? what is memory? what is real memory? This was not an easy read for me because of the continual blurring of past and present, memory with what may be reality. Modiano is expert at consistency with this somewhat tortured character, a young man, and with the telling of the tale. His concerns are with inability to trust memory, the moral dilemmas that occur in our lives and how we deal with them--or do not. As with any book read in translation, the reader wonders whether anything is lost in the shift to another language. Having read other of Modiano's works, I do not think it's a matter of translation but rather I think this book simply has too few concrete landmarks for me. But it does have atmosphere aplenty. Yes there appears to have been a car accident that triggers the entire process, and yes, Modiano approaches this story in an atmospheric manner which is incredibly consistent. But for me there is too much atmosphere and too little underlying tale to hold on to. I'm sure that many others will feel differently. I would be very interested in others' thoughts should they read Paris Nocturne.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[Negar Afsharmanesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

شبی در پاریس پسر جوانی توسط زن راننده‌ای زیر گرفته می‌شود؛ راننده‌ای که شاید برای پسرک آشنا باشد، البته شاید! بعد از این ماجرای رازآلود، اتفاقات عجیبی رخ می‌دهد؛ آمدن یک ون پلیس، به هوش آمدن در بیمارستانی غیرمعمولی و فرار زن راننده با پاکت‌نامه‌ای پر از یادداشت‌های بانکی که به پسر داده است.پسرک در پی این تصادف و مرخص شدن از بیمارستان همه‌ی آدم‌ها و مکان‌ها را آشنا می‌بیند، استشمام تمام عطرها برای او یادآور خاطراتی فراموش شده هستند؛ خاطراتی دور! در واقع این تصادف او را به فردی دیگر تبدیل می‌کند؛ فردی که با تمام وجود به دنبال گذشته‌‌اش می‌رود تا پاسخی برای معماهای ذهنی خود بیابد.
خیلی شاید کتاب برای کسایی که کتاب های جنایی و معمایی نمیخونن کتاب مناسبی نباشه مخصوصا وقتی فلش بک میخوره توی کتاب به گذشته ی راوی، یه کم درهم میشه و خیلی نمیشه تشخیص داد ماجرارو خیلی باید دقت کنی تا گیج نشی بعضی جاها، گیج کنندست یه کم کتاب.

[Paria Izadi · Rating 2 out of 5]

اسم تمام‌کوچه پس کوچه ها و کافه های پاریس که تو کتاب گفته بود حواسم رو پرت میکرد، بیشتر یه نقشه تو ذهنم شکل گرفت.

[ZaRi]

جایی خوانده بودم ملاقات هایی که تقدیر جلوی راه آدم میگذارد بسیار محدودند.
عشق خودش خواهد آمد...بی هیاهو...
نمیتوان از آن فرار کرد...
.آرام و آهسته می آید و در گوشه ای از قلبت می نشیند
زمانی متوجه آمدنش خواهی شد که بدون آن،نفس کشیدن دشوار می شود.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memory and loss. Mood and Atmosphere. Paris. Noir. Wandering around arrondissements.
Nameless narrators - generally unreliable. Shady characters. No real beginning, and no real end. Little or no plot. Loneliness. The mind playing tricks. Confusion. Incidents from the present opening up a hazy path back to the past.

Ah, we must be in the world of Patrick Modiano then. Had I read only a few pages of this without knowing who wrote it, then he'd stick out like a sore thumb immediately. There is simply no questioning that prose.

This novella, whilst not one of my faves - nothing has yet to surpass Missing Person & In the Café of Lost Youth, still ticks most of the boxes for those who have come to love and appreciate other short novels by him. The poignancy felt in a lot of his work it what sets him apart from just about any other writer I can think of. And when it comes to the novella; well, there aren't many better in my opinion.

There is a sinister feeling about Paris Nocturne, but it's a feeling that only ever remains in the depths of a fog. There is also a suspenseful edge to it, but one that always feels calm and dreamy. Almost like the suspense had taken a valium rather than drank too much coffee. Modiano never increases the pulse rate. He simply wouldn't be the same if he did. The pacing always feels like a perfectly fitted glove when it comes to his style.

Would make a good place to start for the Modiano newbie. Definitely one of those writers I wish I could read for the first time, again.

[Shahram · Rating 3 out of 5]

شبی در پاریس پسر جوانی توسط زن راننده‌ای زیر گرفته می‌شود و از همینجا داستان توسط پسر جوان روایت میشود.معرفی خیابان ها و هتل و کافه های پاریس در این اثر هم وجود دارد اما این صرفا یک معرفی در حد دادن یک آدرس است درست نقطه مقابل پروست که گاهی ۲۰ صفحه را صرف توصیف مکانی میکند .مانند دو اثردیگری که از مودیانو خواندم علیرغم کشش و روانی نثر کتاب شروع و پایانی نامشخص دارد.نگاهی اجمالی به ترجمه انگلیسی کردم ک�� درظاهر سانسور به کلیت داستان صدمه ای نزده.انتشاراتی که کتاب را به چاپ رسانیده در معرفی نویسنده میگوید:"شاید بتوان گفت داستان های پاتریک مودیانو شبیه قطار های شهربازی است که شما را به مقصد معینی نمی رس��ند، هرجایی که سوار می شوید همان جا مقصد شماست."نقل از متن:"بوها بهترین چیز برای جان دادن به گذشته هستند."نقل از متن:"نمی دانستم به سوی کدام آینده پیش می رویم. إحساس می کردم ما قبلا در زمان های دیگری، در همان محل، همان ساعت، قدم زده ایم."باز سراغ این نویسنده خواهم رفت.

[Nick Grammos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nocturnal Illuminations

Each Modiano novel is eerily similar. But not disappointingly so. I will often pick one up start reading, only to realise after 30 pages that I'd read it before. It's disorienting. But perhaps reading his works is meant to be like this. We can never be sure where we are, whether in his novel, or on firm ground. What we accept as real all around us here appears as though in an alternate universe, the reader steps into this place asked to answer some metaphysical question he or she can never know the answer to. We join the narrator in this universe of parallels.

Street names, buildings, ports and railway stations form the tangible phenomena in the universe of a Modiano narrator. They tell us something at least is real; or at least anchor our thoughts to something familiar - that we think we've seen or known previously. So these tangibles, let's call them, animate the universe of the book like a painted stage backdrop; the narrator like us must wait for the strange searching drama that will occur on the page.

Events happen, but these are also unclear. A car accident opens the novel to a twenty-year-old narrator. The accident exists the way the narrator experienced another accident when he was a six-year-old. And the running over of a dog on another occasion. These three accidents dovetail and erupt as though each is as important as the other. Memory creates a fluid relationship between the three. But memory gives no answer to any of them. The event that opens the novel will also recede into memory, thirty years later, another narrative timeline emerges telling of these events as though now. Some other meaning joins those three events. A woman was at the scene, ether was applied and a long time was spent in a bed as though in a hospital. The search for the woman becomes the action of the story, finding her may or may not provide answers, perhaps just another witness to the mystery. The smell of ether, functions like a modern madeleine moment.

The need for tangibles constantly bothers a Modiano narrator too. Who, what, where, how, when are constants because they are questions, never completed with answers, or the answers never create closure. But that is the space we inhabit within a Modiano novel. This is what I find fascinating, his work illuminates on the page (in so much as it can) the idea of existing in the 20thC: the modern condition, alienated by cities, transactional economic culture, flux and change, the upheaval of war, the absence of a clear view of self all emerge as the constants, but they are unsatisfying because we rarely if ever have an answer, only for the passage of time to erase what we thought we knew and start searching again. In that sense, another novel by Modiano – and there are many – is one more chapter of a corpus, the real the tangible is just the words on the page, the eeriness that we’ve experienced it all before reminds us it is our condition to live like that.

ADDIT: 8 June 2024. I spent the last few days in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. Anyone who knows about the city will know that since the 1500s it was a mostly Jewish city until ww2. during the 19thC, the population of jews was around 60%. I had read that Modiano's father's family came from here. True to form, the name Modiano is a historical one. The old undercover Jewish market is called Modiano Market. A visit to the extensive Jewish museum here shows the name Modiano to be a prominent one over many years, villas, prominent citizens etc. And tragically, the roll call of the deported and dead has dozens and dozens of Modianos. Pehaps Patrick knew this, perhaps the ghosts in his works, the obscure, shady details of personal history among his characters and narrators runs deeper.

[fคrຊคຖ.tຖ · Rating 3 out of 5]

باز هم فراموشی و معمای اتفاقات گذشته در آثار مودیانو

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected to join the chorus of English-speaking readers saying Modiano isn't all he's cracked up to be - but actually, I rather liked this dreamlike novella. I was very sleepy whilst reading most of it, which augmented the atmosphere. It's more precisely dreamlike than a lot of works that get the label: following no waking logic, certain things are in detailed, sharp focus; others fuzzy or unremembered or unmentioned. Like dreams from the same night, there are episodes which have connections and common motifs, but are not in chronological order. Quite a lot of the events make sense, but some don't seem like things that happen in the real world, or wouldn't unless the background was quite different. There is a strong emphasis on the fallibility of memory; Modiano may write interestingly but I get the impression he might not be the best chap for yr pub quiz team. The other common factor, apart from the narrator, is Paris; locations are anchors, usually remembered, whilst events, people and motivations are more opaque. The narrator is out most of the time, but not as a grand flaneur or psychogeographer; it's recognisable simply as that part of life when you're young and always out doing stuff, sometimes social, sometimes practical; unencumbered, there's always a good excuse to go somewhere, and your life takes place predominantly across different parts of the city, rather than at home. Whilst the geography didn't have as much shape and satisfaction for me as in a story set in a British city I knew well, Paris is just familiar enough for all this to feel roughly orientated - I might have been maplessly frustrated if the backdrop was a city I didn't know at all. (French chicklit novel The Red Notebook features a scene in which a character talks to Modiano in the street - not, say, a cafe. If Paris Nocturne is typical, then this certainly seems the most appropriate place to run into him: the streets of Paris perhaps being Modianoesque to his fans.)

The original title is Accident Nocturne, emphasising, as others have said, the opening scene of a road accident, the accidental or random nature of various events and meetings, and the more sinister aspects of the work. It is not the romantic tourist Paris or the self-focused existentialist one; it seemed perhaps appropriate for recent weeks to think of the city with an unreal, potentially threatening atmosphere.

I had my own curious experience of memory whilst reading Paris Nocturne; like the Norwegian Days in the History of Silence, which I read a few months ago, something unfathomable about it continually brought up visual images - with a vividness they had not possessed for years - tangentially related to the words on the page. With the other book, these were all from my own life, mostly from childhood and student days; here, from films. French films of the 50s and 60s - and yet at first I thought I was reading about a 21-year old circa 2003, or at most a couple of decades earlier. Then a reference came up to a young guy evading the draft for the Algerian war, and it became clear that those films were spookily appropriate. I don't know how Modiano has got the feeling of the Nouvelle Vague era on to the page without using its tropes, or why I find it there. The narrator has an ether mask clapped on his face; the head apparatus and medical/scientific environment of La Jetee and possibly Je t'aime, je t'aime (then there are the elusive young women); being told to leave a clinic, Le Feu Follet. Why Alphaville? I don't know, it just feels like that, the mystery and dislocation and determination maybe. The grand lady in the fur coat, a passer-by from the casinos of Bob Le Flambeur or La Baie des Anges. Someone says they feel like they are living behind glass; Le Feu Follet again, because that captured it. Groups of students talking in a black and white sitting room, I can't remember exactly where from, maybe they're also from Rivette's Paris Nous Appartient and early Rohmers that other scenes brought up. And the whole thing undulates between mysterious malevolence and moments of possible benign comfort, like Last Year in Marienbad. You get the picture...

Vague spoilers follow.
Aesthetics aside, I was sceptical about the narrator's quest to find the shady people whose car hit him - surely a waste of time that would lead either to greater danger, or nowhere at all. Best left alone - but understandable to try, for this young guy in shock, who feels dislocated and alone, and reminded of similar disconcerting events from his past, and of his dodgy father. Having read a little about Modiano over the past couple of days, it seems the pervasive sense of being an orphan, emotionally yet not in fact, is autobiographical, and the - to me unexpected - existence of a resolution of a sort is an attempt to alleviate that, one that retrospectively warmed the chill of the preceding chapters. From the emotional trajectory of the book, the general sense of nostalgia, and that for a time whose culture I like, I find - in contrast to a few blog posts of the last year I expected to agree with - that I wouldn't be averse to reading more Modiano.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paris Nocturne is one of Nobel winner Patrick Modiano’s later “novels” (it’s really a novella). I don’t know much about Modiano, but from what I understand this novel (and some of his others) has a strong autobiographical element. The novel, told in the first-person, opens with a young (21) unnamed man being struck by a car in Paris. He has some injuries, though not life threatening. His memory however seems impacted. But was this a condition that existed before the accident. Was it possibly a suicide attempt? As if in a dream, he and the young woman who was driving the car (she is also injured) are taken to the hospital. They are accompanied by a large and imposing man who appears to be taking care of all the details regarding the accident. Initially the narrator thinks the man is a policeman. Later he wonders if he’s a gangster, one that his own sketchy father may have known.

All of this is revealed in a dreamlike recounting, as the unnamed narrator recalls other events, other individuals who may or may not resemble people he is encountering now, and, importantly, other versions of Paris from the narrator’s past, present and future. Neighborhoods, cafes, buildings, come and go with memory, and yet they retain a presence that flickers between the ghostly and the concrete. Though the story opens with the young man’s account of an accident, you soon become aware the telling of the story is from an older man, a man in his 50s, a man who is still trying to understand himself, his need for an outer geography to match his lack of an inner one. Tellingly, late in the book, as the narrator is studies a map of the young woman’s (he has been searching for her since the accident), there is a necessarily incomplete coda for the novel and a life:

I couldn’t tear my eyes from all the hamlets, forests and little lakes. I wanted to merge with the landscape. Already, at that time, I was convinced that a man without a landscape was thoroughly diminished. An invalid of sorts.

This is delicate stuff, the kind that’s hard to describe in a short review. If you like Paris, French New Wave flicks, and fog, you might like Modiano. The writing is on surface very simple, but it does cast a noirish spell that left me wanting to read more by this author.

[lorinbocol · Rating 2 out of 5]

sarà sta nebbia pennellata su una parigi notturna da bravo stereotipo, ma qui a brancolare nel buio non sono gli inquirenti come nei gialli malscritti, è proprio il lettore. catapultato in una storia senza capo né coda. e anche se non c'è pioggia a rendere viscido l'asfalto, già intorno a pagina 40 slitto e rischio di perdere il controllo. forse un colpo di sonno, forse questa processione di donne misteriose che fanno capolino tra passato e presente, e ce ne fosse anche solo una a dare un minimo di senso compiuto.
arrivo alla fine solo perché sono appena 115 pagine e per oggi in spiaggia non mi sono portata dietro altro, mannaggiammè. ma da prima della metà agogno il varco telepass per lasciarmi alle spalle questa confusa storiella, il più velocemente possibile. nel frattempo diramo un bollettino (com'è? in collaborazione con aci, anas, aiscat, autostrade per l'italia e qui ci metto pure la gendarmerie francese) per segnalare che ancora una volta i ripescaggi ex post - nobel, bestseller, decesso anzitempo, varie ed eventuali - si confermano ad altissimo rischio sòla. occupare la corsia libera più a destra, e spernacchiare pure nel momento del sorpasso.

[مجیدی‌ام · Rating 3 out of 5]

بعد از تصادفی که قهرمان داستان میکنه، درواقع ماشینی پیدا میشه و قهرمان داستان رو زیر می گیره، بلافاصله به بیمارستان منتقل میشه و البته در همین گیر و دار متوجه میشه که راننده یک زن هست، با چهره و لبخندی آشنا. بعد از بیهوشی برای مداوا، زمانی که به هوش میاد میبینه خبری از خانومه نیست و تصمیم میگیره از روی یکی دو سرنخ باقی مونده اون زن رو پیدا کنه و کشف کنه که چرا براش انقدر آشنا بوده.
کل کتاب حول محور تجسس برای پیدا کردن خانومه و البته گذشته ی قهرمان داستان اتفاق می افته.

اولین کتابی بود که از مودیانو می خوندم، و آرزو میکنم کاش با کار قوی تری شروع می کردم، البته نمی دونم مودیانو کدوم کتابش بهترین کتابشه.

تصادف شبانه هم، کتابی بود خوب، نه خیلی خوب و نه عالی، اما بد هم نبود. ارزش خوندن داشت و البته کتاب چند جمله عالی و بیاد ماندنی هم توی خودش داره.
اگه تا بحال از مودیانو نخوندید، توصیه می کنم با کتاب های قوی تری شروع کنید تا دیدتون نسبت بهش بد نشه.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of Patrick Modiano until he was the recipient of the 2014 Nobel prize for literature. Since then this was my second Modiano novel and I am intrigued to keep reading his oeuvre.

His style is atmospheric and moody, with noir themes of memory, identity and loss. Darkly ethereal, Paris Nocturne keeps you second-guessing your own comprehension of the story, the substantiation of events, and the nature of the protagonist's unease. This is the finest exposition of elegant, captivating noir.

Thank you to the publisher Yale University Press for the complimentary copy via Goodreads' giveaways.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paris Nocturne revolves around an auto accident in which a twenty-year-old man is injured. For the unnamed man, the accident is a defining event in his life: ”The accident the night before did not happen by chance. It marked a breach in continuity. The shock was good for me, and it occurred in time for me to make a new start in life. . . the heaviness that I had always felt bearing down on me had lifted. For the first time in my life, I was light and carefree, and that was my real nature. . . I needed the shock. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on what my life had been up to that point. I had to admit that I was ‘heading for disaster’ — to use the words I’d heard others say about me.” (pp. 10-12)

Modiano reveals many of his usual themes in Paris Nocturne. The failed, disappearing, distant father: ”I recalled those last meetings with my father, when I was about seventeen years old, when I never dared to ask him for any money. Life had already drawn us apart and we met up in cafés early in the morning, while it was still dark. The lapels of his suits became increasingly threadbare and each time the cafés were further from the city centre.” (p. 19) The absence of a mother and family support: ”Very early on, perhaps even before adolescence, I had the feeling that I came from nothing. I remembered a rainy afternoon in the Latin Quarter, a fellow with a jawline beard in a grey trench coat was handing out leaflets. It was a questionnaire for a study about young people. The questions seemed strange to me: What family structure did you grow up in? I answered: none. Do you have a strong image of your mother and father? I answered: nebulous. Do you think you are a good son (or daughter)? I answered: I have never been a son. In the studies you have undertaken, have you endeavored to keep your parents’ respect and to conform to your social group. No studies. No parents. No social group.” (p. 116) The search for a mysterious young woman — here Jacqueline Beausergent, also injured in the accident — remembered many years after barely knowing her: ”Suddenly I heard one of those disembodied airport voices repeat three times: ‘WOULD JACQUELINE BEAUSERGENT PLEASE PROCEED TO DEPARTURE GATE 624.’ I ran the length of the hall. I didn’t know what had become of her in the past thirty years, but time no longer mattered.” (p. 52) The mutable sense of time and chronology: ”I had already crossed paths with a certain Jacqueline Beausergent, or the same person going by a different name. I had read that only a small number of encounters are the product of chance. The same circumstances, the same faces keep coming back, like the pieces of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope, with the play of mirrors giving the illusion that the combinations are infinitely variable. But in fact the combinations are rather limited.” (p. 21) The reminiscences and nostalgia of a man in his late 40s and late 50s for his late teens and early 20s: ”Last night, I dreamed for the first time about one of the saddest experiences of my life. When I was seventeen years old, in order to get rid of me, my father called the police one afternoon, and a police van was waiting for us in front of the apartment block. He handed me over to the superintendent, saying that I was a ‘thug’. I would rather forget this experience but, in my dream last night, a detail that had been erased with all the rest came back and rattled me, forty years on, like a time bomb.” (p. 71) The presence of a slightly older, powerful, somewhat threatening man with unclear and likely illegal sources of income. The occasional odd, even off-putting first person observation: ”Under the neon light, his face was veiled in a film of sweat and a kind of grey grease that I’ve noticed on the faces of men made to suffer by women.” (p. 30) And especially Paris and its cityscape once again appears as a dominant in the protagonist’ life and reminiscences. But Modiano also omits from Paris Nocturne some of his typical themes and touches: statelessness, WW2, the discovery of old photographs.

5+ Modiano stars. Paris Nocturne is one of my favorite Modianos

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book! Modiano drifts skillfully and effortlessly between the past and the present, between dream and the narrator's imagination and reality. Another compliment is due to translator Elisabeth Edl for making this book available to me — unfortunately, I don't read French.

[Amene · Rating 4 out of 5]

خوب بود و شاید بشه گفت از صفحه ی شصت به بعد عالی شد،سفر ادیسه وار رویایی در زمان رفت و برگشتی،حقیقتا متفاوت،در عین حال صمیمی و ساده بود.

[Solistas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"[...]κι ύστερα, ήταν Κυριακή βράδυ, κ τα κυριακάτικα βράδια αφήνουν παράξενες αναμνήσεις, σαν μικρές παρενθέσεις ανυπαρξίας στη ζωή σου. Πρεπει να επιστρέψεις στο κολέγιο ή τον στρατώνα. Περιμένεις στην αποβάθρα ενός σιδηροδρομικού σταθμού που δεν θυμάσαι το όνομά του πια [...]

Τρίτο βιβλιο του που διαβάζω κ το βρήκα καλύτερο απ´τη Χαμένη Γειτονιά αλλα όχι όσο καλο όσο Οι Κυριακές του Αυγούστου. Στα γνωστά του λημέρια της λήθης αλλα κ της λειτουργίας της μνήμης, ο Modiano παρουσιάζει έναν ήρωα που θυμάται ενα ατύχημα που είχε στο παρελθόν κ απο εκεί πιάνει το νήμα για να θυμηθεί: τα παιδικά του χρόνια, μια γυναίκα που του κρατούσε το χέρι όταν είχε χτυπήσει μικρός, τον δρ. Μπουβιερ κ τις φιλοσοφικές διαλέξεις που έδινε στα καφέ του Παρισιού, την Ελέν Ναβασιν κτλ.

Ο νομπελίστας έχει μια μαγική πένα κ δεν γράφει βιβλία που θέλουν να πουν μια ιστορια, πιο πολύ μοιάζει με επιστήμονα που έρευνα τον ανθρώπινο εγκέφαλο λες κ πιστεύει πως αν συνεχίσει να γράφει για το ίδιο θέμα θα βρει κ μια εξήγηση για την λειτουργία της μνημης.

Γίνομαι φαν σιγά σιγά, κ αν δεν μου ήταν αδιάφορες οι ατέλειωτες περιγραφές του Παρισιού θα ήμουν ήδη.

[mai ahmd · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية جميلة يحكيها رجل عن الفترة التي كان فيها يافعا اعتمدت على المشاعر الداخلية بصورة كبيرة كعادة موديانو ، تكاد تخلو الرواية من حدث مؤثر إذا استثنيا الحادث البداية ، تختلط الذكريات في ذهن الرواوي وهو يقوم برحلة بحث عن الفتاة ذات السيارة المائية الخضراء، ومن خلال هذا البحث نرى تأثير علاقته بوالده على طريقة تفكيره وعلى مجرى حياته فكل شيء يكاد يرتبط بوالده ، غير أن العلاقة لا تبدو واضحة تماما ، كمية هائلة من المشاعر في هذا النص تشعر إنها كانت غافية لكنها بفعل الصدمة خرجت إلى السطح ، الفتى يجوب ضواحي باريس التي تكاد ترى شوارعها وأحيائها ساحاتها ومعالمها لكي يحل لغز ذلك الحادث الليلي وتفاصيله التي سيطرت عليه ، إلا إن الموجع الذي يفجع به موديانو القارىء إن اللغز يظل لغزا



شاعرية موديانو لها البطولة في النص كما هي في معظم رواياته

[Mina khamoushi · Rating 2 out of 5]

اوایل داستان همه چی گنگ و نامفهوم بود از نیمه گذشته منسجم تر شد و تا انتها یک سیر معمولی رو طی کرد. کتابی نبود که من خوشم بیاد.

[Huy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiếp tục chuỗi đọc Patrick Modiano trong những ngày âm u lang thang trên mặt đất hoang vu. Cuốn sách này được mình đọc trong một thời điểm không thể thích hợp hơn khi mình đang có sự chuyển dời ở 2 thành phố, dù chẳng còn vương vấn gì nhưng mình vẫn có cảm giác có điều gì đó chưa được hoàn thành mà mình đã bỏ trốn đi mất. Những ngày mà mình thấy thích một mình tận hưởng vẻ đẹp của sự cô độc và nghĩ về cuộc đời mà mình mong được sống. Và Patrick Modiano tạo cho mình sự khoái cảm về một điều mình luôn bị ám ảnh: khoái cảm về sự biến mất.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a writer my themes are landscape, memory and identity. It took me a while to realise this (4 manuscripts) but now that I’m aware I do sometimes ponder why. Not surprisingly, I’m drawn to fiction that deals with the same themes. It’s a wonder that I hadn’t heard of him before but thank goodness Patrick Modiano was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature late last year and he came under my radar. Here was my literary godfather!
“Modiano’s novels all delve into the puzzle of identity, and of trying to track evidence of existence through the traces of the past.” Paris Nocture begins “with a nighttime accident on the streets of Paris. The unnamed narrator, a teenage boy, is hit by a car whose driver, Jacqueline Beausergent, he vaguely recalls having met before.”
What I found most surprising about his work is his readability. It is easy to be deceived by his simple prose. That is until Modiano reminds us how elusive the past is and then we know he has worked his sleight of hand - withholding information or leading us astray. We think we grasp the situation but then the past slips away from us just as it does for Modiano’s characters.
In Paris Nocturne the narrator contemplates: “I had read that only a small number of encounters are the product of chance. The same circumstances, the same faces keep coming back, like the pieces of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope, with the play of mirrors giving the illusion that the combinations are infinitely variable. But in fact the combinations are rather limited.”
I love the character’s speculations. “I’m trying to recall the colours and the mood of the period when I lived near Porte d’Orleans. Shades of grey and black, a mood that seems stifling in retrospect, perpetual autumns and winters. Was it just a coincident that I ended up in the area where I had met my father for the last time?”
One of the main delights for me is the descriptions of Paris. They are skilfully woven in with the unnamed narrator’s past and his perception of Paris. Here is a favourite passage:
“I often found myself, sometime later, making the same journey in reverse. At around nine o’clock at night, I would leave the Right Bank, cross the Seine at Pont des Arts, and find myself at the Corona Cafe. But this time, I was alone at one of the tables in the back room and I no longer needed to find something to say to the shifty-looking guy in the navy-blue overcoat. I began to feel a sense of relief. On the other side of the river I left behind a marshy zone where I was starting to flounder. I had set foot on solid ground. The lights were brighter here. I could hear the neon buzz. Soon I would be walking in the open air, through the arcades, up to Place de la Concorde. The night would be clear and still. The future opened out before me.”
As it says on the blurb: “Does Jacqueline Beausergent have the answers to the narrator’s questions about the past, about his father?” You will have to read the novel to find out.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The original French title of Paris Nocturne is Accident nocturne, which, for me, puts a slightly different focus on the book. Life is a series of accidental events, and in this pensive account, the unnamed narrator is looking back on an accident that he had at some unspecified time a long time ago when he was about to turn twenty-one. This accident, and other accidental events that swirl around it, has been preying on his mind for a long time…

The book would have put me in mind of Suspended Sentences even if I hadn’t known they were by the same author. There is the same dreamy quality, that same sense of an ill-defined menace, the same hint of an oppressive presence, the same half-light and mistiness that veils the night, and that same sense of confusion that inhibits action. And the same elusive people and places that the narrator does not and cannot ever know.

All of us, when we look back over our lives, have vague and unreliable memories of people, places and incidents, but how much more intense this fog of memory must be when the long ago was peopled by an occupying force of great menace and the shadowy figures of the Resistance. A young adult alert to new experiences and encounters would find childhood reliabilities shattered, and be overwhelmed by huge numbers of strangers bringing menace, be made uneasy by a new order that upsets old certainties, and be confused by familiar adults no longer in charge of their own destiny… And to some extent these uncertainties also permeate the lives of the next generation, in the way that my young life was shaped in part by what my parents experienced as young adults during the war.

Patrick Modiano (b.1945) was awarded the Nobel Prize for work which evokes the most ungraspable human destinies and often explores the Nazi Occupation, an event which still lingers in Parisian memory today. Even though this novella is set no further back in time than the 1960s, when his character is almost 21, there are still allusions which hint at the shadow of the Occupation. The accident which sends him on the trail of the mysterious woman in the car jolts him into a new reality, one which he thinks will resolve many issues which have been troubling him.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/09/10/pa...

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sono bastate le prime note su Parigi per farmi capire che questo romanzo di Modiano avrebbe potuto piacermi molto.
La Parigi descritta da Modiano non è la Parigi delle luci scintillanti e sfavillanti. E' una Parigi dalle tinte fosche, dai "colori neri e grigi" che contraddistinguono anche i vari personaggi.
Anche in questo romanzo, come ne "L'orizzonte", i personaggi hanno qualcosa di misterioso e imperscrutabile, che per lo stesso lettore risulta difficile riuscire ad entrare in contatto con loro, perché sembra sempre nascondano qualcosa.
"incidente notturno" non è solo il romanzo grazie al quale Modiano ha vinto il Premio Nobel nel 2014, ma è anche l'occasione per capire, tramite un incidente che "segnava una cesura. Era uno choc benefico, ed era successo in tempo per permettermi di dare alla mia vita un nuovo inizio", qualcosa di se stessi, qualcosa che forse non avevamo preso in considerazione e che può cambiare, forse, il corso della nostra esistenza.

[jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

once, twice, three times, you could almost say that fate — or chance — had a hand in it, and was willing a certain meeting or steering your life in a new direction, but you seldom heed its call. you let the face go, and it remains forever unknown, and you feel relief, but also remorse.

patrick modiano's paris nocturne (accident nocturne) is a(nother) work of mood, memory, meandering, and melancholy. the french nobel laureate's novels always seem to lure the reader along with hazy atmospherics and/or dimly lit peripheries, but, for all the following, never seem to lead anywhere all that substantial. a virtuoso of the vague.

*translated from the french by phoebe weston-evans

[Agnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una volta di più in sintonia con il commento di @Emilio (molto più bravo di me nelle recensioni ) :
Modiano si riconferma uno dei miei scrittori preferiti: non mi importa la trama nè il finale che rimane sempre aperto nei nei suoi romanzi, non mi interessa se si assomigliano: mi interessa che quando ho bisogno di una bella scrittura musicale nella quale immergermi, Modiano ci sia.
Onirico, trascinante , unico.
I suoi romanzi si assomigliano? Mi sta bene, so che mi faranno stare bene.
Se reinventarsi significa scrivere un romanzo che mi piace e due no, preferisco Modiano.
Io desidero trarre piacere dalla lettura , altrimenti mi leggo un saggio.
Spero scriva ancora, ho bisogno di tanti “ momenti-bene “

[Parastoo Ashtian · Rating 2 out of 5]

از خودم پرسيدم سمت كدام آينده در حال حركتيم؟ احساس ميكردم قبلا همان جا و همان ساعت، در دوران ديگري با هم قدم زده ايم.
از متن كتاب

[Lola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un chef-d'oeuvre de plus.