Fragments of memory like so many fragments of a shattered mirror, which must be gathered, examined, questioned, rearranged. Patrick Modiano brings out his favorite instruments, the capricious watches that go back in time and the misty compasses, to launch us on the paths of the past of Jean Bosmans, which he unearthed decades later.
Pulling the fuzzy thread of a mysterious house in the Chevreuse valley, in the Paris region, where he witnessed disturbing events in his childhood, he painstakingly rebuilt the house of cards in his memory, rearranging its components one by one, with his ladies (the owner Rose-Marie Krawell), his kings (the evanescent Guy Vincent) and his servants (his friend Camille, known as “Death’s Head”).
Tossed between eras and places, faces and names, Bosmans makes fire of all reminiscence, investigating in particular an apartment where meet, at night, “unsavory” people.
A slow and laborious recomposition that will bring him to the wall – literally. The author of Dora bruder once again demonstrates the brilliance with which he upsets the pendulums of time and scrambles memories to better adjust them progressively, constantly playing with the poles of blur and sharpness.
Modiano aficionados will not fail to note the effects of intertextuality, with names, places and numbers taken from previous works and reemerging here in a ghostly way.
The point of arrival could disappoint some, but ignoring successful literary schemes, Chevreuse rather, is concerned with showing us that the end of the path may not be as important as the flagstones that pave it.
Chevreuse
Patrick modiano
Gallimard
160 pages