Description
Book SynopsisPatrick Modiano (1945-) has published seventeen novels over the past twenty-seven years and is considered one of France's foremost writers. His first three works, dealing principally with the German occupation of France during World War II, are generally considered to have led to a reconsideration of the Gaullist myth which endured for twenty-five years after the war. Along with Marcel Ophuls's film, The Sorrow and the Pity, Modiano's novels opened French eyes to the more ambiguous role played during the occupation by the average French citizen. His subsequent novels have continued to probe the relationship between history, memory and fiction. This study will be of interest to readers of French fiction and history as it looks at their relation-ship to memory and shows that the three are inextricably linked in a way that enriches our understanding of our past, whether it be collective or personal. Modiano, while seemingly obsessed with his own past, in fact indicates an opening toward the future by attempting to put the past to rest in his fiction.
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION. Memory and Narration. CHAPTER 1: THE ECHOES OF MEMORY. Precarious Memories (Remise de peine). Memory Through the Generations. The Labyrinth of Memory in Modiano's Paris (Fleurs de ruine). Discrete Objects of Desire (Remise de peine). CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGIES. The Play of the Visual: The Role of the Cinema and Modiano's Neo-Realism (Quartier perdu). Repetition as an Agent of Forgetting (Quartier perdu). Remembering to Forget (Rue des boutiques obscures). Modiano's Historical Methodology (Rue des boutiques obscures and Fleurs de ruine). Why Novels? (De si braves garçons). CHAPTER 3: SHEDDING THE PAST. Who is this Man? The Question of the Narrator (Un Cirque passe). L'Entrecroisement de l'Histoire et de la Fiction (Introduction). Historical Ironies (La Place de l'étoile). Historical Ambiguities (La Ronde de nuit and Lacombe Lucien). A la recherche du père (Les Boulevards de ceinture). Rewriting History: The Gaullist Myth. CONCLUSION. Flight toward the Future (Du plus loin de l'oubli). WORKS CITED.
