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I tried Modiano a few years ago and couldn't get into it. Reading your reviews makes think I should try again.

Fred wrote: "I tried Modiano a few years ago and couldn't get into it. Reading your reviews makes think I should try again."

I'm a devoted fan now, Fred, but I was only led to him through Ilse's fine reviews. There is magic in her writing, especially when it comes to Patrick Modiano.

It turns out, he's just my kind of fellow as I follow the twists and turns of his memories down some very dim backstreets of Paris. I like how he often "attacks" the memories from different perspectives, that word being chosen intentionally, for they do appear to be deliberate assaults on what is retained and what is discarded by the mind, whether consciously, or not.

I've still a great deal more thinking to do on his books (this is my 5th in a month) before I commit anything into reviews. It's like trying to herd cats: much luck is needed to capture the right moment.

Your review words have me falling into a reverie, Julie, thinking about how interesting it would be to see the under side of a writer's writing, the thoughts they have about where their piece is going, the threads they decide to not develop on the surface but allow to connect underneath.
I have this Modiano but the thing would be to find it...

Fionnuala wrote: "Your review words have me falling into a reverie, Julie, thinking about how interesting it would be to see the under side of a writer's writing, the thoughts they have about where their piece is going..."

Yes, I often think of exactly that, Fionnuala. What got left on the cutting room floor? Which leads to another obsession that many readers have of visiting a writer's den: where it all happened. Many of us want to pull that curtain when we get to Oz to see what secrets will be revealed.

As to finding the book, perhaps that will be its own memory exercise in preparation for reading the book ;-)

Julie,
Where should a person start, with Patrick Modiano?

Julie wrote: "Julie,
Where should a person start, with Patrick Modiano?"

Good question, AJ, but unfortunately I don't have a good answer.

I started with Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas , which is one of his later works, but seemed to be the perfect place for me to start: I fell into a spell, and couldn't stop reading -- forward and backward as it seems, from that point on.

What I mean is, the books come to me as they wanted to -- I ordered them through Interlibrary Loan (because our own library, if you can believe this, doesn't have even ONE of his books!) So I set out my list, and the reading gods delivered them in the order they wished me to have them: first came the aforementioned Suspended Sentences, then So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighbourhood, then Young Once then In the Café of Lost Youth and finally this one.

Though they are not necessarily in chronological order, they still dovetailed themselves beautifully because it seems Modiano has one story to tell -- but is each time framed from a different perspective. That's not to say that the characters are always the same: some do overlap, but in spiderweb fashion: you have to trace the lines very carefully.

There seems to be a lull in ILL dept, because the books have stopped coming -- so I think this is the point where I'm supposed to sit down and write reviews before I'm allowed more from the gods.

There's been a moratorium on buying books at our house, since we moved, and so now I only buy books that I've read and feel I. Must. Own. Or. Perish.

All of Modiano's books on this list are on my to-buy list, moratoriums be damned -- which should tell you how I feel about him.

All that being said, I think I've stopped "recommending" books or authors to people because they often don't hit the mark. Maybe I'm too quirky of a reader. But here's a thought: I feel about Modiano's writing the way I feel about Leonard Cohen's songs. Now that may stop you dead in your tracks, pard'ner .... so be warned. 😉 (Or at least you can't say I didn't warn you, if it doesn't work out.)

The thing that I loved most in his novels, is that he tells my own story -- over and over again; and I suspect he tells a lot of people's stories, because it's like a fun-house mirror: we see ourselves from different angles, and think we've got it, when suddenly the mirror tilts a minor degree, and it becomes a whole new vision. Fascinating. He invites much intro/retrospection -- which is very prominent in my life at this moment, and has been very useful.

Sorry for the long-winded reply. I should probably just have sent a pm.

Thank you for this fantastic response, CJ! I will take it to heart.
xoxo

Julie wrote: "Thank you for this fantastic response, CJ! I will take it to heart.
xoxo"

My pleasure. ☺️

Julie, it are such wonderful images in which you capture your experience with Modiano's oeuvre - herding cats, a tapestry we see in reverse, a spiderweb fashion in which his characters pop up and disappear to reappear in another of his books. While I wouldn't have dared to recommend this one as an entry to Modiano just because it starts with what you rightly describe as a dry list of names and addresses, it was one which hit me so hard I even remember I read it in the back of a car when on holiday with family (oh that scene with the dog, and the indifference of his mother 'She was a pretty girl with an arid heart' - stabbing).

Ilse wrote: "Julie, it are such wonderful images in which you capture your experience with Modiano's oeuvre - herding cats, a tapestry we see in reverse, a spiderweb fashion in which his characters pop up

Ilse, thank you for your kind words. I owe you such great thanks, besides, for having introduced me to Modiano in the first place. Following your reviews on him has certainly enlightened the path of what I might expect from him -- and the wisdom that you shed on his words undoubtedly helped to decipher him. Instead of walking into a dark tunnel blindly, I had "shadow lighting" so that I didn't stumble.

If read as a stand-alone, this work doesn't give the true art, the true picture of Modiano; but having outlined his photograph, in a matter of speaking, with all the stories I gleaned from his other novels, it is now moving from black and white to full-colour. (He would probably not like that, as all of his book covers are in b & w!) I think I've mentioned it before, but I can't stop reading him -- as much to find his own story, as to discover my own.