Shadows and Pleasures

While Modiano is well known and well admired in France, English translations of his work have been few and hard to come by. No longer. With his Nobel prize in 2014 fanning interest, a number of fine translations are now available. This particular book was first published in 1975, and it is a delight to now have it available in English.

As you may have gathered, "nothing" happens in this book. It is a memory piece, written in the mid 70's by a young man who was eighteen when the events that are recounted, (sometime in the early 60's), occurred. As I recall, when I was eighteen, my life didn't exactly have a plot either. No rising dramatic tension, no defining conflict, no gripping resolution and no touching denouement. Various things just happened. They probably seemed important enough at the time, but I don't remember all of the details.

That is basically also a summary of this book. Modiano seems a master of the sharply defined vague memory. It seems clear and crisp and deeply remembered, but everything is actually very vague, slightly disjointed, and indirect. The effect is like looking through someone's album of summer vacation photos, where there are only cryptic captions, or no captions at all. You have a detailed, sharply focused photo of some people at some place at some time doing something, and you can see their expressions and how they physically relate to each other, but everything else is open to conjecture. Since Modiano's characters are usually mysteries not only to each other but also to themselves, this is perhaps to be expected.

If you like the sound of that, and favor dreamy, pastel colored and gently melancholy writing, then this book could end up as one of your favorites. At a minimum it is a well crafted and subtly ironic work, and that's a fine accomplishment right there.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)