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

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This novella is written in four chapters, each from the first person point of view of four different characters, all of whom have a connection to a 22 year old young woman known as Louki, a name given to her in a baptism or second birth by someone known as Tarzan, or was it Zacharias? The focus is initially on a group of Paris café regulars; men and women, all between the ages of 19 and 25.

In this sense, Modiano reminds me of Cezanne who has been dubbed a ‘painter’s painter’ because his work opened new horizons in art even though it might itself be difficult or less expressive than we might like. In 'In the Cafè of Lost Youth', four narrators (including the protagonist) try to characterise the main character and, in doing so, end up giving the reader some interesting philosophical and psychological novelty to ponder upon. Patrick Modiano was born in the Boulogne-Billancourt suburb of Paris near the end of the Nazi occupation of France.Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940. I was initially attracted to it by the title, a reference drawn from 60's radical and Situationist theorist Guy Debord's "anti-memoirs. If you think that doesn’t quite sound like Modiano-junior, or his alter-ego, you’re spot on, as with the change of sections comes a change of perspective, a new voice. A group of people, mainly but certainly not all, between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, meet there regularly.

Two other real authors who pop up are Maurice Raphaël (link in French), real name Victor Le Page, who wrote under various pseudonyms, and James Jones. I have seen all the characters who might have lost their youth, and those clinging hard to what´s left of it.They long to discover Life's deeper meanings but baulk at forming attachments to those who expect some sort of commitment. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Tôi không muốn đọc nó vì tôi nghĩ tôi sẽ tìm thấy tôi trong đó, tôi của những năm tháng mà Paris giống như một trốn để tôi trốn vào tìm cho mình ý nghĩa của chuyến hành trình của đời mình.

Modiano published his first novel, "La Place de l’Étoile", with Gallimard in 1968, after having read the manuscript to Raymond Queneau. One of the ideas is that in the confusion of a large city, everyone needs to find a few "fixed points" to hold on to, such as a favorite cafe. The theme of extinction comes here only in response to a self-flight, the permanent flight of the one who hides from himself. What distinguishes his work is the palpable sense of loss felt by the narrators, nostalgia so strong it hurts. Al final, el lector es troba caminant sense destí pels carrers de París, potser aturant-se en les zones de transició, les zones de ningú que es toquen amb tot sense fondre’s amb res i que et deixen en eterna suspensió, en el limbo, sense saber exactament d’on ve aquest buit que t’empapa l’ànima però encegat per la llum radiant d’un moment de felicitat fugaç, vist i no vist, un moment de joventut perduda, que mai més tornarà.

Consider Philippe Claudel a far more versatile and passionate author than this accidental or compromise Nobel laureate. Như thể, chính tôi, vào một buổi chiều buồn tháng 10, tôi lên Paris để mình lang thang khắp nơi, xong đến cuối cùng, tôi ngồi trong quán Cafe De Flore và nhận ra rằng, tôi đã không biết mình đã đi đâu, đang ở đâu, làm gì, với chính tuổi trẻ của mình.