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Sleep of Memory
The newest best-seller by Patrick Modiano is a beautiful tapestry that brings together memory, esoteric encounters, and fragmented sensations
Patrick Modiano’s first novel since his 2014 Nobel Prize revisits moments of the author’s past to produce a spare yet moving reflection on the destructive underside of love, the dreams and follies of youth, the vagaries of memory, and the melancholy of loss. Writing from the perspective of an older man, the narrator relives a key period in his life through his relationships with several enigmatic women—Geneviève, Martine, Madeleine, a certain Madame Huberson—in the process unearthing his troubled relationship with his parents, his unorthodox childhood, and the unsettled years of his youth that helped form the celebrated writer he would become. This is
classic Modiano, utilizing his signature mix of autobiography and invention to create his most intriguing and intimate book yet.
Patrick Modiano’s first novel since his 2014 Nobel Prize revisits moments of the author’s past to produce a spare yet moving reflection on the destructive underside of love, the dreams and follies of youth, the vagaries of memory, and the melancholy of loss. Writing from the perspective of an older man, the narrator relives a key period in his life through his relationships with several enigmatic women—Geneviève, Martine, Madeleine, a certain Madame Huberson—in the process unearthing his troubled relationship with his parents, his unorthodox childhood, and the unsettled years of his youth that helped form the celebrated writer he would become. This is
classic Modiano, utilizing his signature mix of autobiography and invention to create his most intriguing and intimate book yet.
124 pages, Hardcover
First published October 27, 2017
About the author
Patrick Modiano
114 books1,981 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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August 7, 2023
Nocturnal shadow hunting in the City of Light
There's someone I want to forget tonight
Don't you want to forget someone too?
I left him, and I can leave you too
(The Triffids, Tender is the Night (The Long Fidelity)
Anyone who has read some of the more recent novels by Patrick Modiano, will feel on at least vaguely familiar territory with Patrick Modiano’s latest novel, Souvenirs Dormants, of which the English translation will be published in October 2018 as Sleep of Memory.
Jean D., the narrator, about the age of Modiano now, burrows in his murky past of elusive, short encounters with mysterious women in Paris during his youth in the sixties - women engaged in occultism, a woman so ethereal that she seems somnambulistic, like if she is walking next to her own life (be it with the lithe steps of a dancer), a woman that involve him in dissimulating what could be a murder. Dim memories and dreams seamlessly blend , leaving the protagonist wondering if and to which degree both can be directed and elucidated by will, like the 1867 book on lucid dreams he keeps on his night table seems to suggest, Dreams And How To Guide Them by oneirologist Hervey de Saint-Denys.
Recurrent places, names scribbled down in notebooks, a narrator who is roaming the silent streets of Paris at night, anchorless, hinting to indifferent parents, unwelcome memories like radioactive waste, unable to get rid of, or resurfacing like drowned bodies, a nebulous narrator and narrative, sinister characters dwelling in cafés and hotels constitute the meanwhile well-known ingredients of a nonetheless still intriguing and enigmatic cocktail.
Playing intensely with what is often considered as the ‘sameness’ of his novels, the reader will find familiar themes, metaphors, places and names and a plethora of self-referential and intertextual thoughts, moods, and sentences, soaked in the allegedly autobiographical Modiano strand: the fascination of the narrator for solving ‘the mysteries of Paris’; reminiscences to the boarding school Modiano fled at fourteen (Pedigree: A Memoir; the narrator, called Jean D., referring to the protagonist of So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Jean Daragane, also writer; the narrator and the characters always and everywhere on the verge of running away, escaping, vanishing from the vague threats; the narrator’s desire for solitude and escape which again echoes Jean Daragane’s in So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood (’When he was younger, he used the slightest opportunity to slip away from people, without his being able to understand very clearly why he did so: a longing to break free and to breathe in the fresh air?’)
The mesmerising and bedazzling effect of the repetition of these elements gets amplified by the traces Modiano earlier disseminated in the mind of heart of the dedicated reader of his previous novels, explicitly and repetitiously alluding to the ‘Eternal Recurrence of the Same’ – which might smell like Nietzsche but has more to do with how the past coagulates the characters in the present than with the repetition of events in the future – here also materialising in the title of a book held dear by the protagonist, ‘The eternal recurrence of the same’.
With every novel I get to read by Modiano, the more I tend to agree with the interpretation which considers the twenty-some novels of his oeuvre one single work - an obsessive roman fleuve in sheer endless variations. Why then that longing to read every new novel by him, when Modiano consequently repeats he has the impression of writing the same novel over and over again since 1975? I would compare such to Swann’s desire, yearning to hear that little phrase of the Vinteuil Sonate over and over again, without being able to tell why:
‘(…)the little phrase had just appeared, distant, graceful, protected by the long, gradual unfurling of it transparent, incessant and sonorous curtain.(…) When, after that first evening at the Verdurins’, he had had the little phrase played over to him again, and had had sought to disentangle from his confused impressions how it was that, like a perfume or a caress, it swept over and enveloped him, he had observed that it was to the closeness of the intervals between the five notes which composed it and to the constant repetition of two of them that was due that impression of a frigid and withdrawn sweetness; but in reality he know that he was basing this conclusion not upon the phrase itself, but merely upon certain equivalents, substituted (for his mind’s convenience) for the mysterious entity of which he had become aware.(…) There was a deep repose, a mysterious refreshment for Swann–whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting, whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life–in feeling himself transformed into a creature estranged from humanity, blinded, deprived of his logical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimeaera-like creature conscious of world through his hearing alone. And since he sought in the little phrase for a meaning to which his intelligence could not descend, with what a strange frenzy of intoxication did he strip bare his innermost soul of the whole armour of reason and make it pass unattended through the dark filter of sound!’
Haunted and fascinated at the same time by the continuum of forgetfulness and fickle remembrance, Modiano’s magnetic and intimate meditations seems to blur into infinity. Paris, memory and the mind are not so much a memory palace as a labyrinthine ramshackle mirror palace, reflecting the fragments of the past like distorting mirrors, of which some panes are broken - bringing remorse and melancholy and turning Paris into a place which is studded with painful spots and the countless forms that our lives could have assumed. In the world of Modiano, the most touching element is the eternal recurrence of those never healing wounds, people that were once near leaving us, disappearing willingly or vanishing into the fog of memory. We are only passers-by in life, can anyone be other than a mere passer-by to us?
Passers-by,
Out of your many faces
Flash memories to me
Now at the day end
Away from the sidewalks
Where your shoe soles traveled
And your voices rose and blent
To form the city's afternoon roar
Hindering an old silence.
Passers-by,
I remember lean ones among you,
Throats in the clutch of a hope,
Lips written over with strivings,
Mouths that kiss only for love.
Records of great wishes slept with,
Held long
And prayed and toiled for.
Yes,
Written on
Your mouths
And your throats
I read them
When you passed by.
(Carl Sandburg)
There's someone I want to forget tonight
Don't you want to forget someone too?
I left him, and I can leave you too
(The Triffids, Tender is the Night (The Long Fidelity)
Anyone who has read some of the more recent novels by Patrick Modiano, will feel on at least vaguely familiar territory with Patrick Modiano’s latest novel, Souvenirs Dormants, of which the English translation will be published in October 2018 as Sleep of Memory.
Jean D., the narrator, about the age of Modiano now, burrows in his murky past of elusive, short encounters with mysterious women in Paris during his youth in the sixties - women engaged in occultism, a woman so ethereal that she seems somnambulistic, like if she is walking next to her own life (be it with the lithe steps of a dancer), a woman that involve him in dissimulating what could be a murder. Dim memories and dreams seamlessly blend , leaving the protagonist wondering if and to which degree both can be directed and elucidated by will, like the 1867 book on lucid dreams he keeps on his night table seems to suggest, Dreams And How To Guide Them by oneirologist Hervey de Saint-Denys.
Recurrent places, names scribbled down in notebooks, a narrator who is roaming the silent streets of Paris at night, anchorless, hinting to indifferent parents, unwelcome memories like radioactive waste, unable to get rid of, or resurfacing like drowned bodies, a nebulous narrator and narrative, sinister characters dwelling in cafés and hotels constitute the meanwhile well-known ingredients of a nonetheless still intriguing and enigmatic cocktail.
Playing intensely with what is often considered as the ‘sameness’ of his novels, the reader will find familiar themes, metaphors, places and names and a plethora of self-referential and intertextual thoughts, moods, and sentences, soaked in the allegedly autobiographical Modiano strand: the fascination of the narrator for solving ‘the mysteries of Paris’; reminiscences to the boarding school Modiano fled at fourteen (Pedigree: A Memoir; the narrator, called Jean D., referring to the protagonist of So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Jean Daragane, also writer; the narrator and the characters always and everywhere on the verge of running away, escaping, vanishing from the vague threats; the narrator’s desire for solitude and escape which again echoes Jean Daragane’s in So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood (’When he was younger, he used the slightest opportunity to slip away from people, without his being able to understand very clearly why he did so: a longing to break free and to breathe in the fresh air?’)
The mesmerising and bedazzling effect of the repetition of these elements gets amplified by the traces Modiano earlier disseminated in the mind of heart of the dedicated reader of his previous novels, explicitly and repetitiously alluding to the ‘Eternal Recurrence of the Same’ – which might smell like Nietzsche but has more to do with how the past coagulates the characters in the present than with the repetition of events in the future – here also materialising in the title of a book held dear by the protagonist, ‘The eternal recurrence of the same’.
With every novel I get to read by Modiano, the more I tend to agree with the interpretation which considers the twenty-some novels of his oeuvre one single work - an obsessive roman fleuve in sheer endless variations. Why then that longing to read every new novel by him, when Modiano consequently repeats he has the impression of writing the same novel over and over again since 1975? I would compare such to Swann’s desire, yearning to hear that little phrase of the Vinteuil Sonate over and over again, without being able to tell why:
‘(…)the little phrase had just appeared, distant, graceful, protected by the long, gradual unfurling of it transparent, incessant and sonorous curtain.(…) When, after that first evening at the Verdurins’, he had had the little phrase played over to him again, and had had sought to disentangle from his confused impressions how it was that, like a perfume or a caress, it swept over and enveloped him, he had observed that it was to the closeness of the intervals between the five notes which composed it and to the constant repetition of two of them that was due that impression of a frigid and withdrawn sweetness; but in reality he know that he was basing this conclusion not upon the phrase itself, but merely upon certain equivalents, substituted (for his mind’s convenience) for the mysterious entity of which he had become aware.(…) There was a deep repose, a mysterious refreshment for Swann–whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting, whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life–in feeling himself transformed into a creature estranged from humanity, blinded, deprived of his logical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimeaera-like creature conscious of world through his hearing alone. And since he sought in the little phrase for a meaning to which his intelligence could not descend, with what a strange frenzy of intoxication did he strip bare his innermost soul of the whole armour of reason and make it pass unattended through the dark filter of sound!’
Haunted and fascinated at the same time by the continuum of forgetfulness and fickle remembrance, Modiano’s magnetic and intimate meditations seems to blur into infinity. Paris, memory and the mind are not so much a memory palace as a labyrinthine ramshackle mirror palace, reflecting the fragments of the past like distorting mirrors, of which some panes are broken - bringing remorse and melancholy and turning Paris into a place which is studded with painful spots and the countless forms that our lives could have assumed. In the world of Modiano, the most touching element is the eternal recurrence of those never healing wounds, people that were once near leaving us, disappearing willingly or vanishing into the fog of memory. We are only passers-by in life, can anyone be other than a mere passer-by to us?
Passers-by,
Out of your many faces
Flash memories to me
Now at the day end
Away from the sidewalks
Where your shoe soles traveled
And your voices rose and blent
To form the city's afternoon roar
Hindering an old silence.
Passers-by,
I remember lean ones among you,
Throats in the clutch of a hope,
Lips written over with strivings,
Mouths that kiss only for love.
Records of great wishes slept with,
Held long
And prayed and toiled for.
Yes,
Written on
Your mouths
And your throats
I read them
When you passed by.
(Carl Sandburg)
October 7, 2019
This is my first Modiano read, and I am proud to say I can't get enough of him. Not just because he is a Nobel winner and is supposed to be good, but because the way he presents his thoughts that leaves an everlasting impact on the reader.
In this book, he recalls incidents from his life pertaining to the women he was involved with in one way or the other. He jumps back-and-forth in time to link events and thoughts, drawing conclusions along the way. And those conclusive quotes are a must read, because they hold true when you apply them to your life now in the 21st century, making them easily relatable. Isn't that what defines a literary 'classic'?
And the way he describes Paris is just wonderful. I have been to the city once, and now I regret not having read him before my trip. I'd love to visit sometime again just to see the city from "Modiano's lens".
There is nothing that can go wrong if you choose to read this book. Plus, it's a short read, if you are looking for some quick motivation.
Needless to say, I look forward to reading his other works.
Thanks to the author and the publisher for the ARC.
Verdict: Highly recommended.
In this book, he recalls incidents from his life pertaining to the women he was involved with in one way or the other. He jumps back-and-forth in time to link events and thoughts, drawing conclusions along the way. And those conclusive quotes are a must read, because they hold true when you apply them to your life now in the 21st century, making them easily relatable. Isn't that what defines a literary 'classic'?
And the way he describes Paris is just wonderful. I have been to the city once, and now I regret not having read him before my trip. I'd love to visit sometime again just to see the city from "Modiano's lens".
There is nothing that can go wrong if you choose to read this book. Plus, it's a short read, if you are looking for some quick motivation.
Needless to say, I look forward to reading his other works.
Thanks to the author and the publisher for the ARC.
Verdict: Highly recommended.
January 5, 2018
The Eternal Return of the Same
It is known that much of what originally drove Modiano to investigate the past is to uncover his father who appears to have been a black marketeer and, though a Jew, a Gestapo collaborator in the Occupation. His father makes a brief appearance here too, or rather the narrator's, but as the author and his ficitonal character are both writers and both born in the same year, they are to all all intents and purposes identical:
Rating? This is so difficult with Modiano, because the usual criteria hardly apply. Has he turned over any new material? No. But if you're a Modiano addict, that is precisely the point. "The Eternal Return of the Same"—Nietzsche puts it pretty well.
*Modiano's 2017 novel has not yet been published in English. The translations here are therefore my own.
On one of those stalls by the Seine, the title of a book caught my attention: The Time of Encounters. It was a period of strange encouters for me also, that time in the distant past….*The flavor is as unmistakable as the whiff of Gitanes. Who but Patrick Modiano would start a book that way, responding to a trivial trigger, delving deeply into a half-remembered past? Let's go a little farther on the same page:
[…] I could start by recalling Sunday evenings. They were always sources of apprehension, as for all those who have had to return to boarding school, in winter, at the end of the afternoon, in the falling dusk. The feeling will pursue them in their dreams, possibly for their entire lives. On Sunday evenings, several people would gather in Martine Hayward's apartment, and I found myself among them. I was twenty, and did not feel entirely at ease. A sense of guilt took hold of me, as though I were still a schoolboy and, instead of going back to school, I had run away.*While reading, I had made a long list of passages to quote, and may indeed get to a few more of them, but I found myself writing out this paragraph from the first page instead. It really doesn't matter. For to read Modiano is to enter a fractal universe, where any one passage seems to contain all others. And not just in the one book; each one contains memories of those before it. In this one, for instance, in apparently random lists of names, you encounter the names Stioppa, Caisley, and Guy Lavigne. The last two names crop up in Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue ("In the Cafe of Lost Youth"); the first recalls Rue des boutiques obscures (translated as "Missing Person"). I am not saying that these are the same people in this later book—none of the three actually appears—merely that Modiano sows his narrative with details that are vaguely familiar; déjà vu might be the author's middle name.
"You surely remember." Yes, certainly. But I also have memories of things in my life, of certain persons that I have forced myself to forget. I thought I had succeeded, but sometimes after decades have passed they will surface unexpectedly like drowned bodies, at a bend in the street, at certain times in the day.*Modiano has many ways to conjure the past. In many of his books, though a little less so here, there is his meticulous gazetteer of Paris streets; when his narrator says he is extraordinarily sensitive to the spirit of a place, he isn't kidding. Then there is his catalogue of proper names, often strung together in lists. Some names are made up; some, as we have seen, recall his earlier fiction; some are shady figures from the real past—the point is that you are never sure which is which until you look them up. And particularly important in this novella are his references to books, almost all of which are real. The narrator will enter a room which has no furniture but a couch and a bookcase, and head straight for the books, because the titles will reveal something important. Le Temps des rencontres, for example, the book in the first sentence, is a 1948 novel by Michel Zéraffa. Another that crops up again and again is Dreams and How to Guide Them by Hervey de Saint-Denys; much of the novel seems to take place in a guided dream—and it plunged me into a navigated dream world of my own last night after I put it down, darn it! A third ubiquitous book is The Eternal Return of the Same, a concept of Nietzsche's that could hardly be a better statement of the fractal obsessiveness of Modiano's writing.
It is known that much of what originally drove Modiano to investigate the past is to uncover his father who appears to have been a black marketeer and, though a Jew, a Gestapo collaborator in the Occupation. His father makes a brief appearance here too, or rather the narrator's, but as the author and his ficitonal character are both writers and both born in the same year, they are to all all intents and purposes identical:
"I will explain everything," she told me on the phone. And for several days after, a voice getting ever more distant repeated that phrase in my dreams. Yes, I wanted to meet her, because I hoped she would indeed explain things. Perhaps what she said would help me better understand my father, this stranger who walked in silence by my side, down the long paths of the Bois de Boulogne.*The "she" is this passage is "Stioppa's daughter," a link with the distant past whom he never actually meets. The young woman he does meet, Geneviève Dalame, is described more than once as appearing to "walk at her own side," just like the absent father. In a half-real dream, she will lead him to a woman in an empty apartment who studies the occult, bring him into contact with several slightly sinister men, and involve him in a death that may or may not be murder. She will disappear for a time, only to resurface. There is a faintly erotic air to their relationship—as indeed there is to all his relationships with women, even when they are older—but we never know if anything happens. Instead, we walk through the streets of Paris at the side of an enigmatic woman who walks by her own side, both of us at the side of an aging author who is trying to become one with his younger self, but can never quite do so.
Rating? This is so difficult with Modiano, because the usual criteria hardly apply. Has he turned over any new material? No. But if you're a Modiano addict, that is precisely the point. "The Eternal Return of the Same"—Nietzsche puts it pretty well.
*Modiano's 2017 novel has not yet been published in English. The translations here are therefore my own.
August 16, 2019
Αμέτρητοι σωσίες του εαυτού μας ακολουθούν τους αμέτρητους δρόμους που δεν πήραμε στα σταυροδρόμια της ζωής μας, ενώ εμείς νομίσαμε ότι υπήρχε μόνο ένας δρόμος.
Τα κείμενα του Modiano θα μπορούσαν να αποτελούν κομμάτια/παραλλαγές ενός μεγαλύτερου, μελαγχολικού, εμμονικά ρομαντικού roman-fleuve, μυθιστορήματος-ποταμός.
Τόποι, πρόσωπα, ονόματα που επαναλαμβάνονται, ένας αφηγητής που περιπλανιέται στους δρόμους του Παρισιού, που μετεωρίζεται μεταξύ παρελθόντος και παρόντος έρμαιο κάποιων σιωπών, μνήμες που ανασύρονται, καφετέριες, ξενοδοχεία, φαντάσματα· η αίσθηση του πανομοιότυπου, οι οικείες θεματικές, τα αυτοαναφορικά χωρία κι η διακειμενικότητα είναι χαρακτηριστικά του μοτίβου της αιώνιας επανάληψης – à la manière de Proust - που μετέρχεται ο συγγραφέας και σε αυτό το έργο του.
Ήμουν βέβαιος ότι είχα ξανάρθει στο παρελθόν, θα έλεγε κανείς ότι ήταν ένα φαινόμενο που θα μπορούσαμε να το αποκαλέσουμε αιώνια επιστροφή ή, απλώς, να πούμε ότι για μένα ο χρόνος σταμάτησε σε μια συγκεκριμένη περίοδο της ζωής μου.
December 29, 2019
Αυτή η τέχνη να σε μεταφέρει στο Παρίσι! Ειδικά αν έχεις πάει, νιώθεις αυτή τη γοητεία του να περπατάς στους δρόμους του.
November 13, 2018
Souvenirs dormants, il titolo in lingua originale non viene tradito ma solo tradotto e permette proprio una lettura di questo breve, emblematico, potente lavoro del Nobel francese tutto giocato su due dimensioni vitali per l’essere umano: il ricordo e il sogno. Spesso, capita a tutti noi, soprattutto quando i giorni accumulatisi in anni si sono adagiati in un’identità che faticosamente abbiamo costruito e della quale mancano i particolari, perché offuscati da un ricordo non nitido, non oggettivo, non reale ma trasfigurato da pericolose sovrastrutture che ci hanno complicati, le due dimensioni si mescolano, si confondono e determinano nuove verità. Il tutto in fondo rimane misterioso, come la nostra esistenza, fatta di relazioni importanti ma costellata di comparse. Persone che abbiamo appena incrociato, in periodi brevi della nostra vita, incontri fugaci, apparentemente insignificanti che prepotentemente tornano in altre stagioni della vita, nel sogno, nel ricordo, nella rimembranza non casuale ma cercata o più semplicemente attraverso un ennesimo, fortuito incontro. E così, possiamo ripercorrerla la nostra esistenza incastonandola anche in una perfetta geografia: luoghi e ambienti che con la loro fisicità, con la loro presenza, richiamano il ricordo senza però mantenerlo, conservarlo o sigillarlo, poveri custodi di un effimero transitorio che è libero, passeggero, difficilmente intrappolabile. La geografia del ricordo in questo scritto è quella degli spazi esterni di Parigi, quei luoghi che già Modiano ha riesumato in altri suoi romanzi imprimendogli una forte potenza evocatrice, l’universo delle comparse è invece tutto al femminile in un andamento a ritroso che copre la vita di un uomo a partire dal suo debutto da giovincello nei misteri di Parigi. E ora, da vecchio, Parigi è popolata di fantasmi e il narratore si confonde con l’autore e la consapevolezza dell’errore insito nel proprio vissuto amareggia per la sua fuggevolezza:”se potessimo rivivere alle stesse , negli stessi luoghi e nelle stesse circostanze ciò che abbiamo già vissuto, ma viverlo molto meglio della prima volta…”.
Splendida lettura, ve la consegno con grande convinzione.
Splendida lettura, ve la consegno con grande convinzione.
September 24, 2021
As an entry-level book into Modiano's oeuvre, this seems ideal to me, perfectly in line with his 20 previous books: it's the story about a mysterious older person looking back on episodes of more than 50 years ago, when he walked through nocturnal Paris, visiting dark, grubby cafés, had short encounters with equally mysterious women who were all involved in something vague, sometimes crime-related, and whom he usually meeted briefly years later, without anything more. All Modiano's themes are in it: the faulty and deceptive memory of men, the past that always returns, the elusiveness of a human life, the impossibility of real human communication and finally the misleadingly precise topography of Paris. But in this ultra-short novel (you can read it in about one hour) Modiano has reduced his scope on life to the essence, and his style is even more sober and dreamy-like than before. As always it intrigues and appeals, but - in general - I prefer a little more meat on the bone.
August 31, 2018
Ever since Modiano won the Nobel prize in 2014 I wanted to read one of his novels, hence I took the chance of reading this very short one.
If I were to describe it in one word that would be ‘melancholic’. His memoirs - more or less accurate - as a young man, between age of seventeen and around twenty, are built from bits and pieces, disparate recollections of mundane events, all related to the women who were part of his life back then.
Some young, some not so, single, married, mysterious or not, they all put their mark on the man he became. Nostalgic recollections, some pleasant, other not so much are described through the eyes of the old man who, from memory or notes, had restored events thought forgotten.
Those who enjoy an emotionless narrative and his dry writing will appreciate this little novel at its true value. However, I, for one, am not in that category.
Recommended for Modiano’s fans or those who enjoy the writing described above.
>>> ARC received thanks to Yale University Press via NetGalley <<<
If I were to describe it in one word that would be ‘melancholic’. His memoirs - more or less accurate - as a young man, between age of seventeen and around twenty, are built from bits and pieces, disparate recollections of mundane events, all related to the women who were part of his life back then.
Some young, some not so, single, married, mysterious or not, they all put their mark on the man he became. Nostalgic recollections, some pleasant, other not so much are described through the eyes of the old man who, from memory or notes, had restored events thought forgotten.
Those who enjoy an emotionless narrative and his dry writing will appreciate this little novel at its true value. However, I, for one, am not in that category.
Recommended for Modiano’s fans or those who enjoy the writing described above.
>>> ARC received thanks to Yale University Press via NetGalley <<<
January 15, 2019
Come fa spesso, Modiano scava nel passato con un’ossessione per i ricordi determinata probabilmente da quel suo sentirsi privo di radici, dalla figura ambigua del padre, da quell’identità che va inseguendo in quai tutti i suoi scritti.
Con lui attraversiamo una Parigi
“disseminata di fantasmi, numerosi quanto le stazioni del metrò e tutti i relativi puntini luminosi che si accendevano quando capitava di premere i tasti sul tabellone dei cambi di linea.”
Brevi incontri, incontri fugaci e amicizie perse negli anni tornano alla sua mente con l’aiuto di foglietti e quaderni in cui aveva annotato date, indirizzi, nomi.
“è sufficiente incrociare una persona o incontrarla due o tre volte, o sentirla parlare in un caffè o nel corridoio di un treno, per cogliere frammenti del suo passato. I miei quaderni sono pieni di pezzetti di frase pronunciati da voci anonime.”
Sono frammenti anche i suoi ricordi, flash nati da una strada ripercorsa dopo tanto tempo, da una stagione, da un incrocio. Ripercorre così gli anni ‘63 e ‘64, quando
“sembrava che il vecchio mondo stesse trattenendo il fiato un’ultima volta prima di crollare, come tutte le case e i palazzi dei sobborghi e della periferia che stavano per essere demoliti”.
In questo ritorno al passato, i ricordi si sovrappongono alla realtà, fondendo le stagioni in una sensazione di tempo sospeso.
“Ho avuto la certezza di essere tornato nel passato, grazie a un fenomeno che si potrebbe chiamare l’eterno ritorno, o semplicemente che il tempo per me si fosse fermato in un periodo preciso della mia vita.”
Sugli scaffali ritrova libri appartenuti a un’epoca ormai lontana non solo in linea temporale, che lo riportano in un salotto rosso, con due donne ormai perse di vista.
“mi chiedo come mai certi libri o certi oggetti si ostinano a inseguirti per tutta la vita a tua insaputa, mentre altri, che ti erano cari, li hai persi.”
Anni caratterizzati dal desiderio di fuggire, prima che la vita prendesse una direzione diversa,
“Oggi provo un certo rimorso. Benché io non sia molto incline all’introspezione, vorrei capire perché la fuga fosse, in qualche modo, il mio stile di vita. E la cosa è andata avanti parecchio, direi fino ai ventidue anni.”
Poi la svolta, la fine di una parte della sua esistenza
“Mi faccio qualche scrupolo evocando quei giorni. Sono i giorni piú memorabili e gli ultimi di una parte della mia giovinezza. In seguito niente avrebbe avuto esattamente gli stessi colori”.
Sono immagini in bianco e nero, quelle che scorrono davanti ai nostri occhi, immagini di persone e di una città, di quartieri e strade sconosciuti, filtrate e sovrapposte dallo sguardo appannato della memoria,
“Nei ricordi si mescolano immagini di strade che hai percorso e non sai piú quali territori attraversavano”.
Con lui attraversiamo una Parigi
“disseminata di fantasmi, numerosi quanto le stazioni del metrò e tutti i relativi puntini luminosi che si accendevano quando capitava di premere i tasti sul tabellone dei cambi di linea.”
Brevi incontri, incontri fugaci e amicizie perse negli anni tornano alla sua mente con l’aiuto di foglietti e quaderni in cui aveva annotato date, indirizzi, nomi.
“è sufficiente incrociare una persona o incontrarla due o tre volte, o sentirla parlare in un caffè o nel corridoio di un treno, per cogliere frammenti del suo passato. I miei quaderni sono pieni di pezzetti di frase pronunciati da voci anonime.”
Sono frammenti anche i suoi ricordi, flash nati da una strada ripercorsa dopo tanto tempo, da una stagione, da un incrocio. Ripercorre così gli anni ‘63 e ‘64, quando
“sembrava che il vecchio mondo stesse trattenendo il fiato un’ultima volta prima di crollare, come tutte le case e i palazzi dei sobborghi e della periferia che stavano per essere demoliti”.
In questo ritorno al passato, i ricordi si sovrappongono alla realtà, fondendo le stagioni in una sensazione di tempo sospeso.
“Ho avuto la certezza di essere tornato nel passato, grazie a un fenomeno che si potrebbe chiamare l’eterno ritorno, o semplicemente che il tempo per me si fosse fermato in un periodo preciso della mia vita.”
Sugli scaffali ritrova libri appartenuti a un’epoca ormai lontana non solo in linea temporale, che lo riportano in un salotto rosso, con due donne ormai perse di vista.
“mi chiedo come mai certi libri o certi oggetti si ostinano a inseguirti per tutta la vita a tua insaputa, mentre altri, che ti erano cari, li hai persi.”
Anni caratterizzati dal desiderio di fuggire, prima che la vita prendesse una direzione diversa,
“Oggi provo un certo rimorso. Benché io non sia molto incline all’introspezione, vorrei capire perché la fuga fosse, in qualche modo, il mio stile di vita. E la cosa è andata avanti parecchio, direi fino ai ventidue anni.”
Poi la svolta, la fine di una parte della sua esistenza
“Mi faccio qualche scrupolo evocando quei giorni. Sono i giorni piú memorabili e gli ultimi di una parte della mia giovinezza. In seguito niente avrebbe avuto esattamente gli stessi colori”.
Sono immagini in bianco e nero, quelle che scorrono davanti ai nostri occhi, immagini di persone e di una città, di quartieri e strade sconosciuti, filtrate e sovrapposte dallo sguardo appannato della memoria,
“Nei ricordi si mescolano immagini di strade che hai percorso e non sai piú quali territori attraversavano”.
June 4, 2019
مودیانو خبرهی ساخت فضاست. جریان زمان در راوی، جریان ارتباط شخصیتها، درهمآمیختن جریانها با کلمات و زمان. مودیانو به خوابزدهای میماند که نه صلابتِ نوشته، بلکه رگههای ناب خاطرات «از خواب برخاسته» را باید از او طلب کرد. متن بهانهی اشاراتی شخصی است که همهگیر نیز هست، و عموما ناگفته میماند. نوعی اعتراف به جنونِ در کمین، لمس سمت دیگر سکهی واقعیت. ادراک و اشتراک این «ابتلا» و مسخ آنی واقعیتْ بهانهی نوشتن او و دلیل خواندن ماست.
December 19, 2020
"O momento do dia que preferia era, em Paris, e no inverno, entre as seis e as oito e meia da manhã, quando ainda era noite. Um pequeno descanso antes do nascer do dia. O tempo ficava suspenso e sentíamo-nos mais leves do que habitualmente."
"À medida que os anos passam, acabamos provavelmente por nos livrar de todos os pesos que arrastávamos atrás de nós e de todos os remorsos."
"- Você tem boa memória...
- Sim, muito boa... Mas também tenho memória de pormenores da minha vida, de pessoas que me esforcei por esquecer. Julgava tê-lo conseguido e, sem que o esperasse, após dezenas de anos, voltam à superfície, como afogados, ao virar da esquina de uma rua, a determinadas horas do dia."
"(...) aconteceu cruzar-me várias vezes com as mesmas pessoas, nas ruas de Paris, pessoas que não conhecia. À força de as encontrar no meu caminho, os seus rostos tornavam-se familiares. Creio que me ignoravam e que eu era o único a reparar nesses encontros fortuitos. Caso contrário, ter-nos-íamos cumprimentado ou entabulado uma conversa. O mais perturbador é que me cruzava amiúde com a mesma pessoa, mas em bairros diferentes e afastados entre si, como se o destino - ou o acaso - insistissem em que nos conhecêssemos. E, a cada vez, sentia remorsos por a deixar passar sem nada lhe dizer. Do ponto de encontro partiam inúmeros caminhos e eu ignorara um deles que talvez fosse o bom. Para me consolar, anotava escrupulosamente, nos meus cadernos, os encontros sem futuro, precisando o local exato e o aspeto físico desses anónimos. Paris está constelada assim de pontos nevrálgicos e das múltiplas formas que as nossas vidas poderiam ter tomado."
"Em suma, tínhamo-nos reencontrado, seis anos depois, na mesma rua onde nos conhecêramos, mas não tinha a impressão de que o tempo tivesse passado. Pelo contrário, parara e o nosso primeiro encontro repetia-se com uma variante (...)"
"Nas nossas recordações misturam-se imagens de estradas que seguimos e que já não sabemos que províncias atravessavam."
"À medida que os anos passam, acabamos provavelmente por nos livrar de todos os pesos que arrastávamos atrás de nós e de todos os remorsos."
"- Você tem boa memória...
- Sim, muito boa... Mas também tenho memória de pormenores da minha vida, de pessoas que me esforcei por esquecer. Julgava tê-lo conseguido e, sem que o esperasse, após dezenas de anos, voltam à superfície, como afogados, ao virar da esquina de uma rua, a determinadas horas do dia."
"(...) aconteceu cruzar-me várias vezes com as mesmas pessoas, nas ruas de Paris, pessoas que não conhecia. À força de as encontrar no meu caminho, os seus rostos tornavam-se familiares. Creio que me ignoravam e que eu era o único a reparar nesses encontros fortuitos. Caso contrário, ter-nos-íamos cumprimentado ou entabulado uma conversa. O mais perturbador é que me cruzava amiúde com a mesma pessoa, mas em bairros diferentes e afastados entre si, como se o destino - ou o acaso - insistissem em que nos conhecêssemos. E, a cada vez, sentia remorsos por a deixar passar sem nada lhe dizer. Do ponto de encontro partiam inúmeros caminhos e eu ignorara um deles que talvez fosse o bom. Para me consolar, anotava escrupulosamente, nos meus cadernos, os encontros sem futuro, precisando o local exato e o aspeto físico desses anónimos. Paris está constelada assim de pontos nevrálgicos e das múltiplas formas que as nossas vidas poderiam ter tomado."
"Em suma, tínhamo-nos reencontrado, seis anos depois, na mesma rua onde nos conhecêramos, mas não tinha a impressão de que o tempo tivesse passado. Pelo contrário, parara e o nosso primeiro encontro repetia-se com uma variante (...)"
"Nas nossas recordações misturam-se imagens de estradas que seguimos e que já não sabemos que províncias atravessavam."
June 23, 2020
In my opinion, Modiano's writing can lull the reader into a dream-like trance as relaxing as sleep. This book is both a mystery and the narrator's effort to remember. I really enjoy his style.
June 10, 2018
Ik ben volkomen verslaafd aan Patrick Modiano. Al zijn ruim twintig vertaalde romans las ik ademloos, soms meerdere malen, en toen hij in 2014 de Nobelprijs won juichte ik hevig. Critici zeggen dat hij feitelijk steeds hetzelfde boek schrijft, en zich dus steeds herhaalt, maar ik zit nergens mee: alle boeken hebben dezelfde sfeer, dezelfde weemoed, dezelfde omfloerste melancholie, maar naar mijn smaak ook dezelfde torenhoge kwaliteit. Heel misschien zijn "Zondagen in augustus", "Kleine Bijou", "Het circus gaat voorbij" en "De horizon" wel zijn pieken, maar ook de rest is hooggebergte. Ook "Slapende herinneringen", volgens mij het eerste boek dat Modiano schreef met de Nobelprijs op zak, kocht en las ik dus meteen. En weer met weemoedige vreugde.
Het leuke van weer een Modianootje lezen vind ik aan de ene kant het feest der herkenning en aan de andere kant het feest van het subtiele verschil. Ook bij "Slapende herinneringen" weer. Zoals steeds is de ik-figuur een naamloze schim, die zich laat bezoeken door schimmige herinneringen aan mistige plaatsen, aan mysterieuze gebeurtenissen, en aan spookachtige personages die nauwelijks contour hadden en die nog meer contour verliezen in de schimmige herinnering. Zoals steeds zoekt de ik-figuur, obsessief maar om redenen die voor zijn eigen schimmig gemoed onduidelijk blijven, naar ijkpunten die sommige duistere mysteries kunnen opklaren. Zoals steeds lukt dat Modiano's ik-figuur niet, wat aan de ene kant reden is tot extra weemoed, maar aan de andere kant tot gedempte vreugde, omdat het mysterie daardoor ook zijn mysterieuze karakter houdt en een beloftevolle openheid blijft houden. En ook in "Slapende herinneringen" is er weer die typische Modiano-combinatie van melancholie en verlokkende lichtheid. Melancholie, omdat alles binnen en buiten de ik-figuur spookachtig en ongedefinieerd blijft. Maar ook verlokkende lichtheid, omdat die ongedefinieerdheid - het verstoken blijven van identiteit, vorm, vaste maatschappelijke positie- ook vrijheid betekent, beloftevolle openheid, mysterie dat mysterieus blijft en niet banaal wordt weg verklaard.
Al deze vintage- Modiano elementen zitten dus ook weer in "Slapende herinneringen": feest der herkenning. Tegelijk heeft deze kleine roman zijn eigen accenten: feest van het subtiele verschil. De herinnerde en door de ik-figuur beleefde werkelijkheid heeft bijvoorbeeld, nog iets nadrukkelijker dan in andere Modiano-romans, het karakter van een onwerkelijke droom. De herinneringen krijgen daardoor nog iets meer dan anders het karakter van verdrongen spookbeelden, van voorvallen die de ik-figuur zich niet wil herinneren maar die hem onwillekeurig toch bespoken. De ik-figuur voelt geregeld een ook door hemzelf niet te duiden angst, met name om door de politie opgepakt te worden voor een misdaad die hij zich niet herinnert. En, deels in combinatie daarmee, ook een mysterieus en onbegrepen gevoel van schuld. Ergens in zijn herinneringen speelt - uiteraard zeer indirecte- betrokkenheid met een - uiteraard hoogst mysterieuze- moord een rol, maar dit voorval wordt dermate mistig beschreven dat dit het mysterie van zijn angst en schuld eerder vergroot dan verklaart. Wat nog versterkt wordt door passages als: "Soms voel ik in mijn dromen, en zelfs op het moment dat ik dit schrijf, het gewicht van die koffer in mijn rechterhand, als het litteken van een oude wond dat 's winters of wanneer het regent weer begint te steken. Een oeroud schuldgevoel? Het bleef me achtervolgen, zonder dat de oorzaak me duidelijk werd. Op een dag kreeg ik de ingeving dat die oorzaak dateerde van voor mijn geboorte en dat de wroeging zich voortplantte als door de lont van een ontstekingsmechanisme. Die ingeving bleek even vluchtig als het minuscule vlammetje van een lucifer dat een paar seconden oplicht in de duisternis voordat het weer uitdooft...". Prachtige passage, vind ik. Vooral omdat de heftigheid van de wroeging eerst wordt geëvoceerd met de mooie metafoor van een ontstoken lont, terwijl meteen daarna het volkomen tegengestelde beeld van een in het duister uitdovend vlammetje voelbaar maakt hoe mysterieus en onvatbaar de herkomst van die wroeging is.
Modiano is echt ongeëvenaard in het beschrijven van de ongrijpbaar mysterieuze schaduwen in onze geest. Zijn boekjes laten elke keer weer prachtig zien hoe veel open plekken er zitten in het geheugen en in de beleving van het nu. Fascinatie voor het mysterie, waarbij ook de reden voor die fascinatie mysterieus is, dat staat ook in dit nieuwe Modianootje weer voorop. En ik las ook dit Modianootje weer met gefascineerde vreugde.
Het leuke van weer een Modianootje lezen vind ik aan de ene kant het feest der herkenning en aan de andere kant het feest van het subtiele verschil. Ook bij "Slapende herinneringen" weer. Zoals steeds is de ik-figuur een naamloze schim, die zich laat bezoeken door schimmige herinneringen aan mistige plaatsen, aan mysterieuze gebeurtenissen, en aan spookachtige personages die nauwelijks contour hadden en die nog meer contour verliezen in de schimmige herinnering. Zoals steeds zoekt de ik-figuur, obsessief maar om redenen die voor zijn eigen schimmig gemoed onduidelijk blijven, naar ijkpunten die sommige duistere mysteries kunnen opklaren. Zoals steeds lukt dat Modiano's ik-figuur niet, wat aan de ene kant reden is tot extra weemoed, maar aan de andere kant tot gedempte vreugde, omdat het mysterie daardoor ook zijn mysterieuze karakter houdt en een beloftevolle openheid blijft houden. En ook in "Slapende herinneringen" is er weer die typische Modiano-combinatie van melancholie en verlokkende lichtheid. Melancholie, omdat alles binnen en buiten de ik-figuur spookachtig en ongedefinieerd blijft. Maar ook verlokkende lichtheid, omdat die ongedefinieerdheid - het verstoken blijven van identiteit, vorm, vaste maatschappelijke positie- ook vrijheid betekent, beloftevolle openheid, mysterie dat mysterieus blijft en niet banaal wordt weg verklaard.
Al deze vintage- Modiano elementen zitten dus ook weer in "Slapende herinneringen": feest der herkenning. Tegelijk heeft deze kleine roman zijn eigen accenten: feest van het subtiele verschil. De herinnerde en door de ik-figuur beleefde werkelijkheid heeft bijvoorbeeld, nog iets nadrukkelijker dan in andere Modiano-romans, het karakter van een onwerkelijke droom. De herinneringen krijgen daardoor nog iets meer dan anders het karakter van verdrongen spookbeelden, van voorvallen die de ik-figuur zich niet wil herinneren maar die hem onwillekeurig toch bespoken. De ik-figuur voelt geregeld een ook door hemzelf niet te duiden angst, met name om door de politie opgepakt te worden voor een misdaad die hij zich niet herinnert. En, deels in combinatie daarmee, ook een mysterieus en onbegrepen gevoel van schuld. Ergens in zijn herinneringen speelt - uiteraard zeer indirecte- betrokkenheid met een - uiteraard hoogst mysterieuze- moord een rol, maar dit voorval wordt dermate mistig beschreven dat dit het mysterie van zijn angst en schuld eerder vergroot dan verklaart. Wat nog versterkt wordt door passages als: "Soms voel ik in mijn dromen, en zelfs op het moment dat ik dit schrijf, het gewicht van die koffer in mijn rechterhand, als het litteken van een oude wond dat 's winters of wanneer het regent weer begint te steken. Een oeroud schuldgevoel? Het bleef me achtervolgen, zonder dat de oorzaak me duidelijk werd. Op een dag kreeg ik de ingeving dat die oorzaak dateerde van voor mijn geboorte en dat de wroeging zich voortplantte als door de lont van een ontstekingsmechanisme. Die ingeving bleek even vluchtig als het minuscule vlammetje van een lucifer dat een paar seconden oplicht in de duisternis voordat het weer uitdooft...". Prachtige passage, vind ik. Vooral omdat de heftigheid van de wroeging eerst wordt geëvoceerd met de mooie metafoor van een ontstoken lont, terwijl meteen daarna het volkomen tegengestelde beeld van een in het duister uitdovend vlammetje voelbaar maakt hoe mysterieus en onvatbaar de herkomst van die wroeging is.
Modiano is echt ongeëvenaard in het beschrijven van de ongrijpbaar mysterieuze schaduwen in onze geest. Zijn boekjes laten elke keer weer prachtig zien hoe veel open plekken er zitten in het geheugen en in de beleving van het nu. Fascinatie voor het mysterie, waarbij ook de reden voor die fascinatie mysterieus is, dat staat ook in dit nieuwe Modianootje weer voorop. En ik las ook dit Modianootje weer met gefascineerde vreugde.
July 11, 2022
Patrick Modiano's Sleep of Memory: A Novel is short but extremely sweet. Once again, we are dealing with loneliness and memory overlaid on a map of Paris. The unnamed narrator tells us of women he has met and lost track of:
Ever since I started reading him, I have regarded Modiano as one of my favorite living authors. In at least a dozen books, he has not disappointed me even once.
Not one of them has been in touch these last fifty years. I must have been invisible to them at the time. Or else, quite simply, we live at the mercy of certain silences.These "certain silences" are omnipresent in Modiano's fiction. For this reason, it is probably worthwhile to start reading Modiano's work by starting with Pedigree: A Memoir, which explains in full how the author was raised by parents who essentially did not give him any amount of loving care.
Ever since I started reading him, I have regarded Modiano as one of my favorite living authors. In at least a dozen books, he has not disappointed me even once.
October 3, 2019
This is the authors first novel since he won the Nobel prize (no pressure). I believe I've only read one other work of his. He's a very interesting writer.
Overall this novel is about memories filled with disappearances and escapes, which works because there is a sense that escaping memories and disappearing into them is what we all do. It's interesting what stays with us and what doesn't and what can surface out of nowhere sometimes. Memories are a strange beast.
There were more than a few poignant moments in this novel. It explores the pockets or grand canyons of silences between us and the people we once knew or loved or spent time with.
Each short chapter felt like a bite from a buffet with all sorts of gourmet fare. They all go together, but are their own thing too. Each vignette was a wine aged for decades, dreamlike or otherworldly.
This is a translation of the authors original French. Sometimes translations are hard to weigh as far as the weight and flow of the author's original prose. That apprehension melted away after reading the first paragraph. I was all in from the start. I loved the immediacy of the author fishing his memories and asking out loud how to proceed. As if he were talking to the reader unplanned.
In the first chapter, the author talks of an incident years ago. He ends the chapter with something he isn't saying. This makes you turn the page.
The author asks questions wondering about his father and then lets those questions become lost in answers drowning in the depths of time. This is all of us. There are things about our family, about ourselves, that will become lost in time. Moments that will never be recovered. Even if they are someday excavated, they will never be in their original form, they will always be a little off.
There was a point where I was reading along and I had the feeling of skating over the text and feeling lifted up. It was strange, but enjoyable. There were so many technical things the author did that made this novel work. One of them was how he started every sentence of each chapter. Another is the unusual way he imagined things in the narrative. It was intoxicating as the narrative lifted up and off the page while also diving down deep into the rabbit hole.
The novel is filled with brief encounters, which if you think of it is what so much of life is. As the narrator remembers his youth, it reminded me of the shards of memory any of us might land on when looking back.
About one-third of the way in, there was a shift, things got a little weird. And then the protagonist spoke about people disappearing from his life and his own past penchant for disappearing in his youth. It then got really interesting when he spoke of someone from his past, that only lived in the present, and how impossible it was to talk to such a person about her past. Their past.
The narrator tried to impose some order to his memories by writing down the names of people and things from his past. All done in the hope of these people and things working like magnets to make other memories rise. When the protagonist mentions that half a century later most of the people who witnessed his early years had finally disappeared, it made me think of how as one gets older more and more people do disappear - those that knew you when are lost to nowhere. Does that mean who you used to be is there or nowhere as well?
This novel with its shards of memory dips its toe into thriller or mystery territory toward the end. As I finished this short and elegantly told read, I wondered if much of what I had read had actually taken place in the dream world or if it was some in-between realm with a mixture of both the waking world and that of slumber.
The author mentions at one point that he is trying to solve the mysteries of Paris. That is what it feels like - though one suspects he is trying to solve that mystery to solve the real mystery, himself. And how in discovering this, one might finally shed "all the weights you dragged behind you, and all the regrets."
The novel asks if it's possible to retrace the road less traveled, the one we never took. It's poignant that we all wonder "what if" or maybe it's beautiful that we all do that. But one wonders, as we look back if we can see our past as it really was or is it always a little wrong when muddied with our current view soaked in regret and memories lost.
The novel makes one ask if we should all do a major excavation of every past year as we shed our skin. Life moves so fast that we forget to reflect on where we have been, usually so busy fixated on where we are headed. Maybe that's why as we get older we look back more at the road behind us than the one ahead. Perhaps it's a way to convince ourselves that we haven't wasted our time or maybe it's just all a distraction so we can avoid the inevitable and that is that we are closer to the end of the road.
Overall this novel is about memories filled with disappearances and escapes, which works because there is a sense that escaping memories and disappearing into them is what we all do. It's interesting what stays with us and what doesn't and what can surface out of nowhere sometimes. Memories are a strange beast.
There were more than a few poignant moments in this novel. It explores the pockets or grand canyons of silences between us and the people we once knew or loved or spent time with.
Each short chapter felt like a bite from a buffet with all sorts of gourmet fare. They all go together, but are their own thing too. Each vignette was a wine aged for decades, dreamlike or otherworldly.
This is a translation of the authors original French. Sometimes translations are hard to weigh as far as the weight and flow of the author's original prose. That apprehension melted away after reading the first paragraph. I was all in from the start. I loved the immediacy of the author fishing his memories and asking out loud how to proceed. As if he were talking to the reader unplanned.
In the first chapter, the author talks of an incident years ago. He ends the chapter with something he isn't saying. This makes you turn the page.
The author asks questions wondering about his father and then lets those questions become lost in answers drowning in the depths of time. This is all of us. There are things about our family, about ourselves, that will become lost in time. Moments that will never be recovered. Even if they are someday excavated, they will never be in their original form, they will always be a little off.
There was a point where I was reading along and I had the feeling of skating over the text and feeling lifted up. It was strange, but enjoyable. There were so many technical things the author did that made this novel work. One of them was how he started every sentence of each chapter. Another is the unusual way he imagined things in the narrative. It was intoxicating as the narrative lifted up and off the page while also diving down deep into the rabbit hole.
The novel is filled with brief encounters, which if you think of it is what so much of life is. As the narrator remembers his youth, it reminded me of the shards of memory any of us might land on when looking back.
About one-third of the way in, there was a shift, things got a little weird. And then the protagonist spoke about people disappearing from his life and his own past penchant for disappearing in his youth. It then got really interesting when he spoke of someone from his past, that only lived in the present, and how impossible it was to talk to such a person about her past. Their past.
The narrator tried to impose some order to his memories by writing down the names of people and things from his past. All done in the hope of these people and things working like magnets to make other memories rise. When the protagonist mentions that half a century later most of the people who witnessed his early years had finally disappeared, it made me think of how as one gets older more and more people do disappear - those that knew you when are lost to nowhere. Does that mean who you used to be is there or nowhere as well?
This novel with its shards of memory dips its toe into thriller or mystery territory toward the end. As I finished this short and elegantly told read, I wondered if much of what I had read had actually taken place in the dream world or if it was some in-between realm with a mixture of both the waking world and that of slumber.
The author mentions at one point that he is trying to solve the mysteries of Paris. That is what it feels like - though one suspects he is trying to solve that mystery to solve the real mystery, himself. And how in discovering this, one might finally shed "all the weights you dragged behind you, and all the regrets."
The novel asks if it's possible to retrace the road less traveled, the one we never took. It's poignant that we all wonder "what if" or maybe it's beautiful that we all do that. But one wonders, as we look back if we can see our past as it really was or is it always a little wrong when muddied with our current view soaked in regret and memories lost.
The novel makes one ask if we should all do a major excavation of every past year as we shed our skin. Life moves so fast that we forget to reflect on where we have been, usually so busy fixated on where we are headed. Maybe that's why as we get older we look back more at the road behind us than the one ahead. Perhaps it's a way to convince ourselves that we haven't wasted our time or maybe it's just all a distraction so we can avoid the inevitable and that is that we are closer to the end of the road.
September 4, 2018
Patrick Modiano claims he is writing the same novel over and over again, and I for one can't get enough. This particular installment purports to have elements gleaned from his own experience, but given details, it isn't possible to separate fact from dream. The past forever present. Did they or didn't they, or was it all dream or imagination. Sliding between 1965 to 2017 to 1985. The narrative is slippery and elusive.
But no one presents Paris as well as he does with his encyclopedic familiarity of the streets, terrain and weather, the time of day, the extended night of winter, the memories that hover decades later in the air. He evokes people from the past imagining their life trajectories as connected lines illustrated by Metro maps that illuminate routes using different colors when buttons are pushed between stations. The smells and smokiness, mists and rainfall on cobblestones.
But no one presents Paris as well as he does with his encyclopedic familiarity of the streets, terrain and weather, the time of day, the extended night of winter, the memories that hover decades later in the air. He evokes people from the past imagining their life trajectories as connected lines illustrated by Metro maps that illuminate routes using different colors when buttons are pushed between stations. The smells and smokiness, mists and rainfall on cobblestones.
May 26, 2024
این کتاب را پیش از خواب میخواندم، و از آنجا که معمولا وقتی برای خوابیدن اقدام میکنم که اعضای بدنم در حال گسستن از یکدیگر باشند، فقط بعضی شبها موفق به ��واندن کتاب میشدم و آن موقع هم بیش از ۵ صفحه نمیخواندم. اما در نهایت امروز صبح وقتی بیدار شدم و هنوز کارهایم را شروع نکرده بودم، تصمیم گرفتم کتاب را تمام کنم، و حدود ۳۰ صفحه باقیمانده را یکجا بخوانم.
علت دیگر طولانی شدن خوانش کتاب، تصمیم من برای نوشتن نکات ویراستاری کتاب و ایمیل آن برای دفتر انتشارات بود. نکات را روی کاغذهای کوچکی یادداشت کردم، و امروز بعد از نوشتن نقدی مختصر بر کتاب، آن را تایپ و ارسال خواهم کرد.
نکته: امروز متوجه شدم که داخل جدول مشخصات کتاب، نام اصلی آن به اشتباه «L'Herbe des nuits» ذکر شده، که در واقع متعلق به کتاب «پرسههای شبانه» از همین نویسنده و مترجم است، و من به اشتباه دو نقلقول دیگر را تحت عنوان آن کتاب ثبت کردهام.
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من تا به حال از مودیانو هیچچیز نخوانده بودهام. فقط اسمش چند بار به گوشم خورده، که حتی آنها را هم به یاد نمیآورم. درست انگار که اسمش را لابهلای خاطرات خفته در سرم فقط با صدایی محو و ناشناخته، میان صدها کابوس و رؤیا و حرف و ایده، مثل یک تکه کاغذ نیمسوخته پیدا کرده باشم. همین نوای آشنای ناآشنا هم بود که باعث شد وقتی چند سال پیش مجموعه پنججلدی آثار پاتریک مودیانو را توی سایت دیدم، تصمیم گرفتم آن را بخرم و بخوانم و ببینم توی این نوشتهها، که از این ذهن نامآشنا برآمدهاند، چه خبر است.
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ماجراهای کتاب انگار که توی خواب و بیداری روایت میشوند. خواننده همراه با راوی اولشخص ماجراها در ذهن او شناور میشود، تا خاطرات و رؤیاهای درهمآمیخته او درباره چند زن اثرگذار در زندگیاش را بازیابی کند. «شناور شدن» بهترین تعریف از بخشهای کوتاه و بلند این کتاب است.
حین خواندن مدام حس میکنید سکانسهای فیلم در هم محو میشوند و از دل یکی، دیگری بیرون میآید. انگار که خاطرات خفته با تکهپارههایی از کلمات کمکم بیدار میشوند و شخص را به سوی دیار مهگرفته گذشتهاش میکشند. همین نوع نگارش کتاب هم باعث میشد وقتی شبها وسط کتاب خوابم میبرد، تا صبح حس کنم که چندین صفحه دیگر را خواندهام، اما بعد میفهمیدم که همهاش را خواب دیده بودهام.
اشتباهات تایپی و نگارشی کتاب کم نیستند؛ و بیشترشان هم مربوط به علائم میشوند (با تشکر از حروفچین کتاب، آقای احمد علیپور). اما متن ترجمه هم چندان سادهخوان نیست و بعضی جملات خیلی زمخت ترجمه شدهاند. معمولا چنین مشکلاتی مربوط به کتابهایی میشوند که نمونهخوانی در آنها صورت نگرفته، اما این کتاب دو نمونهخوان داشته (فؤاد قراگوزلو و شبنم بابائی) و توسط دفتر انتشارات نگاه هم ویراستاری شده. نمیدانم مشکل را باید گردن کدامیک انداخت... (به هر حال من یک نمره بابت این مشکلات کم کردهام!)
من کتاب را دوست داشتم، چون بارها برایم پیش آمده که خاطراتم را به همین صورت مرور کنم و تکهپارههایشان را جایی بنویسم. ضمن این موضوع، فضاسازی مودیانو در ماجراها و شرح خیابانها و کوچهها و محلههای فرانسه، حس عجیبی به من میداد. نه تا به حال به آنجا رفته بودم و نه آنها را دیده بودم، حتی خیلی جاها حوصله نداشتم که مغزم را متقاعد کنم که فلان اسم مال محله بوده یا یک خیابان، اما با این حال احساس میکردم که حالا دارم تویشان قدم میزنم، و باید کمکم مثل یک شهروند بشناسمشان.
البته اسامی این مناطق و محلهها در کتاب اصلا به نظرم ساده نبودند. اگر پاورقیها نبودند، شاید بعضیهایشان را اصلا نمیتوانستم بخوانم. هرچند پاورقیها هم به فرانسوی نوشته شدهاند و برای من ناآشنا با فرانسوی چندان راهنمایی به حساب نمیآمدند، اما بهتر از هیچ بود.
معمولا یادآوری خاطرات چندان قابلاطمینان نیستند و گاهی چیدمانشان مثل فیلمهای نولان است، و تازه همه ماجرا را هم تعریف نمیکنند. اما این رشته یادآوری طوری دقیق و پشت هم چیده شده است که اطمینان خواننده را به دست میآورد. اما با این حال شخصیتهای فرعی چندان شناخته نمیشوند، چرا که راوی مدام در حال فرار از دست آنهاست و در کنار هیچیک نمیماند. نمیدانم چهقدر کتاب مورد سانسور قرار گرفته، و با قلم مودیانو هم آشنا نیستم، اما حس میکنم بعضی جاها چیزی کم است.
نتبرداری راوی از خاطراتش و یافتن آن دستنوشتههای قدیمی و بازیابی آدرسهایی که مطمئن نیست اصلا ازشان گذشته یا نه، مرا به یاد خودم میانداخت، که وقتی دفترچههای خاطراتم را مرور میکردم، گاهی از خودم میپرسیدم که چهطور چنین چیزهایی نوشته بودهام. از طرفی هم نوعی امیدواری در من زنده میشد، مبنی بر اینکه میتوان با ساختن یک رشته درست از خاطرات نامتوالی اما نسبتا مرتبط، ماجرایی خواندنی را سر هم کرد.
من سعی میکنم چندان سختگیر نباشم و از هر نوع کتابی با هر موضوعی لذت ببرم و چیزی از آن یاد بگیرم (البته کتابهای مرتبط با موفقیت، مدیریت، کسبوکار، خودیاری، و از این قبیل را حتیالمقدور نمیخوانم و نخواهم خواند!)؛ اما اگر شما دوست دارید کتابی که میخوانید سر و ته مشخصی داشته باشد و با خواندن مؤخرهاش به نوعی پاسخی برای مقدمهاش پیدا شده باشد، این کتاب چندان مناسب شما نخواهد بود. «خاطرات خفته» جز یک مجموعه یادآوری با محوریت «زنان زندگی راوی» نیست. در انت��ا چیز تازهای نسبت به باقی کتاب پیدا نخواهید کرد، و دید تازهای نسیبتان نمیشود. یک جور مواجهه با گذران زندگیست، و قرار نیست هدف خاصی را دنبال کند.
اما میتوانید تغییر سن راوی و نظر و رفتار او نسبت به محیط و آدمهای اطرافش را تا حدودی متوجه شوید: شکل فرارهای او تغییر میکنند، یادآوری خاطراتش کمکم با آدرسها پیوند بیشتری پیدا میکند، کمی همدلی در عین بیخیالی در او پیدا میشود، و وقتی درباره گذشتههای دور فکر میکند رفتار پرسشگرانهتری دارد.
علت دیگر طولانی شدن خوانش کتاب، تصمیم من برای نوشتن نکات ویراستاری کتاب و ایمیل آن برای دفتر انتشارات بود. نکات را روی کاغذهای کوچکی یادداشت کردم، و امروز بعد از نوشتن نقدی مختصر بر کتاب، آن را تایپ و ارسال خواهم کرد.
نکته: امروز متوجه شدم که داخل جدول مشخصات کتاب، نام اصلی آن به اشتباه «L'Herbe des nuits» ذکر شده، که در واقع متعلق به کتاب «پرسههای شبانه» از همین نویسنده و مترجم است، و من به اشتباه دو نقلقول دیگر را تحت عنوان آن کتاب ثبت کردهام.
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من تا به حال از مودیانو هیچچیز نخوانده بودهام. فقط اسمش چند بار به گوشم خورده، که حتی آنها را هم به یاد نمیآورم. درست انگار که اسمش را لابهلای خاطرات خفته در سرم فقط با صدایی محو و ناشناخته، میان صدها کابوس و رؤیا و حرف و ایده، مثل یک تکه کاغذ نیمسوخته پیدا کرده باشم. همین نوای آشنای ناآشنا هم بود که باعث شد وقتی چند سال پیش مجموعه پنججلدی آثار پاتریک مودیانو را توی سایت دیدم، تصمیم گرفتم آن را بخرم و بخوانم و ببینم توی این نوشتهها، که از این ذهن نامآشنا برآمدهاند، چه خبر است.
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ماجراهای کتاب انگار که توی خواب و بیداری روایت میشوند. خواننده همراه با راوی اولشخص ماجراها در ذهن او شناور میشود، تا خاطرات و رؤیاهای درهمآمیخته او درباره چند زن اثرگذار در زندگیاش را بازیابی کند. «شناور شدن» بهترین تعریف از بخشهای کوتاه و بلند این کتاب است.
حین خواندن مدام حس میکنید سکانسهای فیلم در هم محو میشوند و از دل یکی، دیگری بیرون میآید. انگار که خاطرات خفته با تکهپارههایی از کلمات کمکم بیدار میشوند و شخص را به سوی دیار مهگرفته گذشتهاش میکشند. همین نوع نگارش کتاب هم باعث میشد وقتی شبها وسط کتاب خوابم میبرد، تا صبح حس کنم که چندین صفحه دیگر را خواندهام، اما بعد میفهمیدم که همهاش را خواب دیده بودهام.
اشتباهات تایپی و نگارشی کتاب کم نیستند؛ و بیشترشان هم مربوط به علائم میشوند (با تشکر از حروفچین کتاب، آقای احمد علیپور). اما متن ترجمه هم چندان سادهخوان نیست و بعضی جملات خیلی زمخت ترجمه شدهاند. معمولا چنین مشکلاتی مربوط به کتابهایی میشوند که نمونهخوانی در آنها صورت نگرفته، اما این کتاب دو نمونهخوان داشته (فؤاد قراگوزلو و شبنم بابائی) و توسط دفتر انتشارات نگاه هم ویراستاری شده. نمیدانم مشکل را باید گردن کدامیک انداخت... (به هر حال من یک نمره بابت این مشکلات کم کردهام!)
من کتاب را دوست داشتم، چون بارها برایم پیش آمده که خاطراتم را به همین صورت مرور کنم و تکهپارههایشان را جایی بنویسم. ضمن این موضوع، فضاسازی مودیانو در ماجراها و شرح خیابانها و کوچهها و محلههای فرانسه، حس عجیبی به من میداد. نه تا به حال به آنجا رفته بودم و نه آنها را دیده بودم، حتی خیلی جاها حوصله نداشتم که مغزم را متقاعد کنم که فلان اسم مال محله بوده یا یک خیابان، اما با این حال احساس میکردم که حالا دارم تویشان قدم میزنم، و باید کمکم مثل یک شهروند بشناسمشان.
البته اسامی این مناطق و محلهها در کتاب اصلا به نظرم ساده نبودند. اگر پاورقیها نبودند، شاید بعضیهایشان را اصلا نمیتوانستم بخوانم. هرچند پاورقیها هم به فرانسوی نوشته شدهاند و برای من ناآشنا با فرانسوی چندان راهنمایی به حساب نمیآمدند، اما بهتر از هیچ بود.
معمولا یادآوری خاطرات چندان قابلاطمینان نیستند و گاهی چیدمانشان مثل فیلمهای نولان است، و تازه همه ماجرا را هم تعریف نمیکنند. اما این رشته یادآوری طوری دقیق و پشت هم چیده شده است که اطمینان خواننده را به دست میآورد. اما با این حال شخصیتهای فرعی چندان شناخته نمیشوند، چرا که راوی مدام در حال فرار از دست آنهاست و در کنار هیچیک نمیماند. نمیدانم چهقدر کتاب مورد سانسور قرار گرفته، و با قلم مودیانو هم آشنا نیستم، اما حس میکنم بعضی جاها چیزی کم است.
نتبرداری راوی از خاطراتش و یافتن آن دستنوشتههای قدیمی و بازیابی آدرسهایی که مطمئن نیست اصلا ازشان گذشته یا نه، مرا به یاد خودم میانداخت، که وقتی دفترچههای خاطراتم را مرور میکردم، گاهی از خودم میپرسیدم که چهطور چنین چیزهایی نوشته بودهام. از طرفی هم نوعی امیدواری در من زنده میشد، مبنی بر اینکه میتوان با ساختن یک رشته درست از خاطرات نامتوالی اما نسبتا مرتبط، ماجرایی خواندنی را سر هم کرد.
من سعی میکنم چندان سختگیر نباشم و از هر نوع کتابی با هر موضوعی لذت ببرم و چیزی از آن یاد بگیرم (البته کتابهای مرتبط با موفقیت، مدیریت، کسبوکار، خودیاری، و از این قبیل را حتیالمقدور نمیخوانم و نخواهم خواند!)؛ اما اگر شما دوست دارید کتابی که میخوانید سر و ته مشخصی داشته باشد و با خواندن مؤخرهاش به نوعی پاسخی برای مقدمهاش پیدا شده باشد، این کتاب چندان مناسب شما نخواهد بود. «خاطرات خفته» جز یک مجموعه یادآوری با محوریت «زنان زندگی راوی» نیست. در انت��ا چیز تازهای نسبت به باقی کتاب پیدا نخواهید کرد، و دید تازهای نسیبتان نمیشود. یک جور مواجهه با گذران زندگیست، و قرار نیست هدف خاصی را دنبال کند.
اما میتوانید تغییر سن راوی و نظر و رفتار او نسبت به محیط و آدمهای اطرافش را تا حدودی متوجه شوید: شکل فرارهای او تغییر میکنند، یادآوری خاطراتش کمکم با آدرسها پیوند بیشتری پیدا میکند، کمی همدلی در عین بیخیالی در او پیدا میشود، و وقتی درباره گذشتههای دور فکر میکند رفتار پرسشگرانهتری دارد.
September 24, 2018
Thousands and thousands of doubles of yourself follow the thousands of paths that you didn't take at various crossroads in your life, because you thought there was but a single one
Melancholic and fragmentary, Modiano returns to Proust's obsession with memories and the past, and reworks it at the same time, reflecting contemporary concerns that left Proust himself, writing at the start of the C20th, untouched.
This novella is anything but slight, belying its sparse page count: each page is haunted ('for me, Paris was littered with ghosts') both stylistically and with emotive depth. Names and book titles litter the narrative, setting off connections that shimmer without becoming solidified. The image of lines of light, like on the Paris Metro maps, hold things together, illuminating pathways that appear then fade back into darkness.
On the surface, the narrator recalls key moments of his youth, between the ages of 17-22, built around women, not least a mysterious death. But this is just a proxy for a meditation on a life's essential fragmentation, however much we might seek to impose a linear and teleological narrative upon it.
In this sense, what Modiano is writing across his novels is quintessential 'romance' (the term used in its literary sense) where, like Odysseus, he's always travelling, always searching, and even when he reaches a temporary resting place, he leaves it again, perhaps, this time, forever. Nostos is the driver, but as a process and an aesthetic rather than as a desired and achievable final destination.
Many thanks to Yale University Press for an ARC via NetGalley
December 23, 2020
À mesure que passent les années, vous finissez sans doute par vous débarrasser de tous les poids que vous traîniez derrière vous, et de tous les remords.
همینطور که سال ها میگذرند، ما هم به تدریج موفق میشویم از تمام بارهایی که روی شانه هایمان سنگینی میکنند خلاص شویم و همینطور از تمام احساس پشیمانی ها.
پاتریک مودیانو قلم زیبا و روانی دارد و همچنین تبحر در خاطره نویسی
جاهایی از کتاب برایم جالب بود. این که چقدر با جزئیات خاطرات را به یاد می آورد و گاهی نمیدانست در خاطراتش است یا در رویاهایش و مدام کتاب رویاها و راه هایی برای کنترل آنها را به خود یادآوری میکرد.
فکر میکنم برای فرانسوی ها که آشنایی با تمام این مکان ها دارند فضاسازیاش خیلی دلنشین تر باشد.
من ترجمه خانم نازنین عرب را خواندم و با متن اصلی که قیاس کردم شاید جاهایی با ترجمه ایشان موافق نبودم و دلم میخواست بیشتر سبک نویسنده را رعایت میکرد.
همینطور که سال ها میگذرند، ما هم به تدریج موفق میشویم از تمام بارهایی که روی شانه هایمان سنگینی میکنند خلاص شویم و همینطور از تمام احساس پشیمانی ها.
پاتریک مودیانو قلم زیبا و روانی دارد و همچنین تبحر در خاطره نویسی
جاهایی از کتاب برایم جالب بود. این که چقدر با جزئیات خاطرات را به یاد می آورد و گاهی نمیدانست در خاطراتش است یا در رویاهایش و مدام کتاب رویاها و راه هایی برای کنترل آنها را به خود یادآوری میکرد.
فکر میکنم برای فرانسوی ها که آشنایی با تمام این مکان ها دارند فضاسازیاش خیلی دلنشین تر باشد.
من ترجمه خانم نازنین عرب را خواندم و با متن اصلی که قیاس کردم شاید جاهایی با ترجمه ایشان موافق نبودم و دلم میخواست بیشتر سبک نویسنده را رعایت میکرد.
August 3, 2018
Een onvervalste Modiano... Je houdt ervan of niet. Er gebeurt ogenschijnlijk zo weinig, of het wordt op zo'n manier vertelt dat het allemaal zo mistig is, wazig, ongrijpbaar...
En de melancholie niet vergeten... die nestelt zich diep in jou naarmate het verhaal vordert, als je er voor openstaat...
En de melancholie niet vergeten... die nestelt zich diep in jou naarmate het verhaal vordert, als je er voor openstaat...
May 4, 2022
Reading a novel by Patrick Modiano feels like listening to a long-time friend, especially since I’ve now read all Modiano books translated into English. Some friends talk about novels, others about politics or favorite sports teams, still others about their children and grandchildren. Some conversations with old friends may interest me, some may bore me; some may include new topics, some may include topics repeated too many times before. But if it’s a close, old friend, what choice do I have but to listen, bask in the friendship, and try to enjoy being together again?
And so it is with Patrick Modiano. Patrick likes to talk — and talk and talk and talk — about his memories of long-ago friendships, romances, and Paris in the late 1950s and 1960s. Modiano is intensely self-reflective, but seemingly without hint of pride or self-deception. He’s inevitably focused on nostalgically recovering his past, and especially his late teens and early twenties. Modiano’s recollections, or at least the recollections of Modiano’s typically male protagonists, may be impaired by time, by intrusions of other events, by fantasy, or by aging. ”But after half a century, the few people who witnessed your early years have finally disappeared — and anyway, it’s doubtful that many of them would make the connection between what you’ve become and the vague image they’ve retained of the young man whose name they might not even recall.”
Why do I, or you, or a Modiano protagonist select particular memories for recounting to friends, partners, children, or a therapist? Memories important to me or to you or to a Modiano protagonist may seem trivial to anybody but the rememberer: the old man recalling the young woman who sat in front of him in intro psych when he was a college freshman, the short story he never finished three decades ago, the letter sent to a lover that was never answered. ”I’m trying to impose some order on my memories. Every one of them is a piece of the puzzle, but many are missing, and most of them remain isolated. Sometimes I manage to connect three or four, but no more than that. So I jot down bits and pieces that come back to me in no particular order, lists of names or brief phrases. I hope that these names, like magnets, will draw others to the surface, and that those bits of sentences might end up forming sentences and paragraphs that link together.”
As a coeval of Modiano and like him an old man, the remembrances, emotions, and nostalgia of Sleep of Memory are easy for me to imagine, feel, and sympathize with. Modiano’s novels, all brief or briefer, feel increasingly fragmentary to me, with fragmentary plots, fragmentary characters, and especially fragmentary memories. And Sleep of Memory is the most fragmentary of Modiano’s fragmentary novels. Sleep of Memory may not appeal to Modiano novices, but to a well-versed Modiano reader and admirer like me, it’s a special treat. 5 Modiano stars, and I hope that he continues writing through his remaining 70s and well into his 80s. Oh, for an opportunity to actually sit down and reminisce with Patrick Modiano
And so it is with Patrick Modiano. Patrick likes to talk — and talk and talk and talk — about his memories of long-ago friendships, romances, and Paris in the late 1950s and 1960s. Modiano is intensely self-reflective, but seemingly without hint of pride or self-deception. He’s inevitably focused on nostalgically recovering his past, and especially his late teens and early twenties. Modiano’s recollections, or at least the recollections of Modiano’s typically male protagonists, may be impaired by time, by intrusions of other events, by fantasy, or by aging. ”But after half a century, the few people who witnessed your early years have finally disappeared — and anyway, it’s doubtful that many of them would make the connection between what you’ve become and the vague image they’ve retained of the young man whose name they might not even recall.”
Why do I, or you, or a Modiano protagonist select particular memories for recounting to friends, partners, children, or a therapist? Memories important to me or to you or to a Modiano protagonist may seem trivial to anybody but the rememberer: the old man recalling the young woman who sat in front of him in intro psych when he was a college freshman, the short story he never finished three decades ago, the letter sent to a lover that was never answered. ”I’m trying to impose some order on my memories. Every one of them is a piece of the puzzle, but many are missing, and most of them remain isolated. Sometimes I manage to connect three or four, but no more than that. So I jot down bits and pieces that come back to me in no particular order, lists of names or brief phrases. I hope that these names, like magnets, will draw others to the surface, and that those bits of sentences might end up forming sentences and paragraphs that link together.”
As a coeval of Modiano and like him an old man, the remembrances, emotions, and nostalgia of Sleep of Memory are easy for me to imagine, feel, and sympathize with. Modiano’s novels, all brief or briefer, feel increasingly fragmentary to me, with fragmentary plots, fragmentary characters, and especially fragmentary memories. And Sleep of Memory is the most fragmentary of Modiano’s fragmentary novels. Sleep of Memory may not appeal to Modiano novices, but to a well-versed Modiano reader and admirer like me, it’s a special treat. 5 Modiano stars, and I hope that he continues writing through his remaining 70s and well into his 80s. Oh, for an opportunity to actually sit down and reminisce with Patrick Modiano
January 16, 2019
Ω! Patrick μας κακομαθαίνετε! Ακόμη ένα μικρο αριστούργημα από τον μαγο Patrick Modiano. Οι εικόνες του Modiano ξεπηδουν μέσα από τις σελίδες σημειωματάριων, αντζεντών και σκορπιων σημειώσεων. Το Παρισι και πάλι στο επίκεντρο και οι συναντησεις με τυχαια πρόσωπα και κάποια άλλα όχι τόσο τυχαία..Η νιότη, οι αναζητήσεις, η μουσική, το φλερτ, το μυστήριο, το σινεμα, ο χρόνος και το συναίσθημα, συνθέτουν εν μέρει ενα ψυχαναλυτικό παζλ τόσο του ίδιου του συγγραφέα όσο και του αφηγητη των Ναρκωμένων Αναμνήσεων. "Στις αναμνήσεις μας οι εικόνες των δρόμων που ακολουθήσαμε συγχέονται και δεν θυμόμαστε πια από ποιες επαρχίες περνούσαν", λεει στο τέλος ο αφηγητής. Μεγαλώντας κάπως ετσι λειτουργει η ανθρώπινη μνήμη και ο Modiano γνωρίζει πολύ καλά πως να ενεργοποιεί στο κέντρο του εγκεφάλου μας και τις προσωπικες μας αναμνήσεις. ΥΓ Να το διαβασεις γιατι εχει τόσο ομορφο ρυθμο σαν ταινια του Γκονταρ. Να το διαβάσεις αν σου αρεσει το Παρισι και εισαι λάτρης των εικόνων και του μάγου Modiano.
October 16, 2018
Lots of glowing reviews around, but I simply didn’t see the point of this book. An old man looks back and reflects on the relationships he had with a motley collection of women in his younger days. It’s all very fragmentary and inconsequential and why these relationships are of any interest to anyone other than the author eluded me. It’s a narcissistic and self-referential book, a meandering meditation on memory, and I found it extremely tedious.
March 14, 2019
《 Man mano che passano gli anni probabilmente finisci per liberarti di tutti i pesi che ti portavi dietro, e di tutti i rimorsi. 》
rating totale: 4/5
rating totale: 4/5
December 4, 2020
Perfetto! Che bellissima scoperta Modiano!
March 23, 2024
“Quite simply, we live at the mercy of certain silences.”
March 9, 2019
Als sich Marcel Proust an die Erinnerungen seiner gelebten Tage gewagt hatte, da wurde es ein mehrteiliges, Hunderte von Seiten langes Epos. Patrick Modiano, der mit seinen Bücher bereits den Nobelpreis gewonnen hat, hält sich da wahrlich kürzer. "Schlafende Erinnerungen" ist eine Reise in das Paris seiner Jugendjahre, in eine Welt, die zwar unpersönlicher und schmutziger war, aber zugleich unschuldiger und abenteuerlicher. Die Geschichte ist eine entzückende Mischung aus Fiktion und persönlichen Gedanken, ein Buch, in dem sich wirklich erlebte Situationen mit Wunschgedanken und Fantasien vermengen.
Modiano schreibt auf eine fesselnde Weise, bei der sogar die kleinen Dinge zu grossen Gedanken werden. Und als Leser beginnt man plötzlich sein eigenes Leben zu hinterfragen. Wann habe ich mich falsch entschieden, wann war ich zu scheu und wieso verschwinden immer wieder Personen aus dem Leben?
Modiano schreibt auf eine fesselnde Weise, bei der sogar die kleinen Dinge zu grossen Gedanken werden. Und als Leser beginnt man plötzlich sein eigenes Leben zu hinterfragen. Wann habe ich mich falsch entschieden, wann war ich zu scheu und wieso verschwinden immer wieder Personen aus dem Leben?
June 26, 2020
2.5
Io il protagonista di questo libro me lo sono immaginato con la voce un po’ di Pino Locchi (doppiatore italiano di Jean-Paul Belmondo) e un po’ di Beppe Rinaldi (uno delle voci italiane di Yves Montand). Mi ha aiutato a dare una fisionomia almeno sonora a queste memorie, perché, pur provando ad assaporarle con calma, non le ho trovate più di tanto interessanti, soprattutto l’ultima parte. Il tema della memoria è intrigante, però il giudizio finale che ho di questo libro è che voleva essere un bicchiere di vino d’annata e invece mi è risultato essere un sorso di acqua fresca. Dato che Modiano è un premio Nobel, sono comunque curioso di leggere altro.
Io il protagonista di questo libro me lo sono immaginato con la voce un po’ di Pino Locchi (doppiatore italiano di Jean-Paul Belmondo) e un po’ di Beppe Rinaldi (uno delle voci italiane di Yves Montand). Mi ha aiutato a dare una fisionomia almeno sonora a queste memorie, perché, pur provando ad assaporarle con calma, non le ho trovate più di tanto interessanti, soprattutto l’ultima parte. Il tema della memoria è intrigante, però il giudizio finale che ho di questo libro è che voleva essere un bicchiere di vino d’annata e invece mi è risultato essere un sorso di acqua fresca. Dato che Modiano è un premio Nobel, sono comunque curioso di leggere altro.
April 28, 2023
اگه دنبال خط داستانی مشخص میگردید اشتباه آمده اید. مودیانو باور کنید در خواب مینویسد وخوب هم شما را با خوابهایش همراه میکند.
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