In the Café of Lost Youth

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And whereas Bowing tries to create 'fixed points' for reference -- "it's almost like a police register or a precinct logbook", one person observes -- Roland had tried to write a text in those days called On Neutral Zones, trying to chart: It turns out Louki was one of those beautiful young women who at 15 looked 20. She never knew her father. Her mother, a dancer at Moulin Rouge, leaves her daughter home alone each night until the wee hours of the morning. At that early age Louki starts going off on her own into the Paris night scene.

En el café de la juventud perdida pretende retratar a una cierta generación de jóvenes en el París de los años sesenta. Para ello, toma como punto de referencia un cierto café Condé donde se reunían una serie de bohemios, la mayoría veinteañeros y algunos adultos que se mezclaban bien con esos jóvenes. Todos tienen en común un afán de vivir y beber el presente. Además del alcohol, algunos consumen drogas. At one point, Modiano's gumshoe takes over. Things seem to gel, a bit. And when police question her we start to get somewhere.

Modiano is a pure original. He has transformed the novel into a laboratory for producing atmospheres, not situations—where everything must be inferred and nothing can be proved.”—Adam Thirwell, The Guardian

The writing is curiously detached. At one point, I was bizarrely reminded of Winnie-the-Pooh when Piglet says he can take part in a Woozle hunt because he has nothing to do until Friday. All the people in this novel seem to be drifting: It’s about creating ties, you see. . . In this life that sometimes seems to be a vast, ill-defined landscape, amid all of the vanishing lines and lost horizons, we hope to find reference points, to draw up some kind of land registry so as to shake the impression that we are navigating by chance.” Louki's escapes started years before as a lonely child left to fend for herself by an unknown father and a mother working long evening hours at a cabaret in Pigalle. She started to walk the night streets alone as a teenager, got in trouble with the police and sought help from a friendly woman casually met on the street, ending in the circle of local drug smugglers from another small cafe. But she also reveals about herself: “I was never really myself when I wasn’t running away. My only memories were memories of flight and escape.” De Vere also gives her a copy of Louise, Sister of the Void, and Louki crosses out the name Louise and replaces it with her own real name, Jacqueline, on the cover of the book. This act would be prescient, as it turns out.

In the case of the student, he seems more concerned about hiding the fact that he is still a student, at the nearby École Supérieure des Mines. goodreads που δεν μας δίνει τη δυνατότητα του μισού αστεριού γιατί ήθελα να βάλω ακριβώς 3,5 αστεράκια. Ούτε 3 ούτε 4. Τελοσπάντων, θα πάει αυτή τη φορά υπέρ του συγγραφέως. Μου άρεσε πολύ αυτή η δεύτερη επαφή με τον Μοντιάνο. Ένα πραγματικά νοσταλγικό αναγνωστικό ταξίδι στο παρελθόν, μια αποθέωση του Παρισιού. Μυρωδιές, εικόνες μιας άλλης εποχής. But no. This book’s an endless, pointless procession of formless wanderers. And Louki, like them, keeps drifting further into the Open Sea. The third part is narrated by Louki herself -- who is actually Jacqueline Choureau, née Delanque, as we learned from Caisley. 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.