In the Café of Lost Youth (New York Review Books Classics)

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His works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have been celebrated in and around France, but most of his novels had not been translated into English before he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Lots of things have been written about Modiano's "little music", and once again it is his little music (a certain way of writing, a unique way of creating a special atmosphere, etc) that holds this novel together and makes its undeniable charms. Nó vừa có thật vừa không thật, những nhân vật đó, chặng đường cuối của họ, mang dáng vẻ tội nghiệp và đẩy đưa theo sự an bài của số phận. The novel, inspired in part by the circle (depicted in the photographs of Ed van der Elsken) of the notorious and charismatic Guy Debord, centers on the enigmatic, waiflike figure of Louki, who catches everyone's attention even as she eludes possession or comprehension. 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".Pour les héros du roman au titre proustien de Patrick Modiano, c’est un peu de tout cela, un effort de reconstituer le passé, en redessinant ses zones neutres que la mémoire a ombragées et qu’ils tentent d’éclairer à l’aide de quelques repères fragiles dans le temps, espace, noms et émotions. Four narrators, a student from a cafe, a private detective hired by an aggrieved husband, the heroine herself and one of her lovers, construct a portrait of Jacqueline Delanque, otherwise known as Louki. Yet, despite the showroom apartment in posh Neuilly and the attentions of her husband, Louki feels imprisoned by the bourgois lifestyle and runs away.

Louki, who had said she was a college student but was really not, was impressed by de Vere, and attended some of his meetings, read some of his work and the work he suggested she read. Tôi đã không muốn đọc quyển sách này, vì tôi cảm giác, nó sẽ rất gần với mình, nó sẽ là lời thủ thỉ về một Paris nào đó đã qua của tác giả với những số phận trôi dạt trong tuổi trẻ của mình, những số phận bất an, buồn, bối rối và lạc lõng. Moreover, the always precise geographical indications in the story, invariably in the (wide) Paris area, arouse an impression of concreteness, but nothing is less true: the story lines fathom an indeterminacy and vagueness, which in turn strengthens the melancholic effect. Both Louki and the PI are rootless with no moorings and, it’s as if their concern for landmarks and neighborhoods of Paris substitute as a way of grounding themselves in something. The daughter of a single mother who works in the Moulin Rouge, Louki grows up in poverty in Montmartre.

Modiano fills his pages with the name of these streets that may sound confusing to a stranger in the city, but are filled with history and romance for the true 'boulevardier'. Second, Louki' s character is rather boring, as well as people who describe her with so little information. The central human character is the young, lost soul of Jacqueline Delanque, nicknamed “Louki” by the cast of regulars at the tacky Café Condé she wanders into one day. The Café of Lost Youth tells of the lives of a group of people who frequented the cafe of the title. I find it necessary to have my well worn Borsch laminated map of Paris on hand whenever I read Modiano.

Step by step though, the author guided me from the tourist view to the disturbing, sad inner landscape of people living at the edge of society – misfits, bohemians, loners – a group of mostly young people who meet at the 'Conde' more to hide from the world than to plan to take it by storm. But it’s as if Young Once was a preliminary sketch or a rough draft for Café of Lost Youth which is much more developed and has much better writing. Louki’s identity, always hazy, takes clearer form as the slender narrative progresses towards a most tragic end. Louki's portrait is sketched by four narrators, each of them in his or her own way a drifter through life who seeks refuge among the friendly and slightly decadent atmosphere of a bar at night.Hmm, maybe I’ll go out for drink and talk to some strangers at that little bar down the street, get to know them, at least a little.

A young woman who one day appears out of nowhere, quickly becoming a regular, she is to become the focal point of the novel, a woman of mystery whom the young narrator can’t help but be fascinated by.

My Francophone hero Georges Simenon often took just ten days to produce a passionate murder case or psychological drama, often steeped in existential pain. Pour Mircea Eliade, c’est la dialectique du sacré par rapport au profane : la répétition infinie des gestes archétypales afin de les maintenir vivants dans la mémoire collective. Young, disaffected students along with the failed and weary are the patrons of the cafe Condé—collectively known as “the lost Youth,” gathering throughout day and night to pass time. In particular, Modiano was fascinated by van der Elsken’s photographs of the circle of Guy Debord, whom he renames Guy de Vere. With this epigraph by Guy Debord I feel ready to dig into my first mystery novel by Patrick Modiano and discover what is so special about his stories to merit a Nobel Prize in literature.