Paris Nocturne in Around the World in 80 Books

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Nov 22, 2015 Steve rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

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

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

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

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

14 likes · Like · see review

Mar 06, 2018 Terri marked it as around-the-world

Shelves: french-fiction, awards-nom-pen

Like

From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

What Members Thought

Around the World in 80 Books