Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Degree Zero Voices: The Empty Narrator
- Disorderly Narratives: The Order of Narration
- Unreal Stories: The ‘effet d'irréel’
- Being Serious: Modiano's Use of History
- Being Playful: Parody and Disappointment
- Being Popular: The Modiano Novel
- Notes to Introduction
- Notes to Chapter One
- Notes to Chapter Two
- Notes to Chapter Three
- Notes to Chapter Four
- Notes to Chapter Five
- Notes to Chapter Six
- Bibliography
- Index
Unreal Stories: The ‘effet d'irréel’
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Degree Zero Voices: The Empty Narrator
- Disorderly Narratives: The Order of Narration
- Unreal Stories: The ‘effet d'irréel’
- Being Serious: Modiano's Use of History
- Being Playful: Parody and Disappointment
- Being Popular: The Modiano Novel
- Notes to Introduction
- Notes to Chapter One
- Notes to Chapter Two
- Notes to Chapter Three
- Notes to Chapter Four
- Notes to Chapter Five
- Notes to Chapter Six
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Il y a une quinzaine d'années, je feuilletais le cahier rouge et, découvrant entre les pages la carte de visite du docteur de Meyendorff, je composai son numéro de téléphone, mais celui-ci n'était ‘plus attribué’. Le docteur n'était pas mentionné dans l'annuaire de cette année-lá. Pour en avoir le coeur net, j'allai au 12 rue Ribéra et la concierge me dit qu'elle ne connaissait personne de ce nom-là dans l'immeuble.
Chien de printemps, p. 79It is often assumed that Modiano is a ‘realist’. One reason for this is that his prose is representational, full of small and precise details in the manner of the Barthesian ‘effet de réel’. Many of these facts, moreover, have been discovered to be real; they are precise locations in Paris, or a particular brand of cigarette commonly smoked in France. Their authenticity has convinced some readers that the narrative which contains them must be a mimetic one. Another commonly held reason for considering Modiano a ‘realist’ is the combination of readability and alleged non-experimentation which characterises his novels; in this equation, accessibility is unaccountably linked to realism.
However, critics and reviewers have also been known to remark frequently on the atmosphere of unreality which pervades Modiano's novels. Bersani writes that although a first reading may be a simple ‘lecture réaliste’, it leaves the reader with so many discreetly unanswered questions and thwarted expectations that it is not satisfactory: a second reading becomes necessary, which reveals ‘invraisemblances’ and paradoxes in the narrative that make a realist reading impossible. Coenen- Mennemeier, too, argues against the classification of Modiano as a writer of a verisimilar prose, maintaining that ‘[M]algré la lisibilité de ses récits, Modiano n'est pas un auteur ré aliste’. Clearly the manner in which facts are represented in Modiano's novels is not as straightforward as it may seem, and calls for a closer examination.
NARRATIVE MOOD
The issue of representation in narrative is examined by Genette under the heading of narrative mood, based on the analogy with the grammatical category. The term on the level of narrative may be used to refer to the manner in which information is presented to the reader: ‘cette ré gulation de l'information narrative qu'est le mode’.
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- A Self-Conscious ArtPatrick Modiano’s Postmodern Fictions, pp. 49 - 68Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2000