A review by janettaylor17891
Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue by Patrick Modiano

mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

4.0

1 bought this book a few years ago and Ichose it for the title: 'Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue.' In the cafe of lost youth. I think everyone wishes they had written a book with this title! This was my second read of the book and I enjoyed it much more this time.  It takes you through the streets of Paris in possibly the 1960s with all these odd characters who used to frequent the café Condé. In those days Paris was a different place than it is today with cheap rooms and cafés all over the place, before mass tourism and gentrification took over. Of course the book is French so it has a sad ending.  The writing is a bit dreamlike, the main charcter doomed and aimless possibly from the moment she failed to get into the good lycée (academic sixth form). This early failure seems to bother her as she mentions it  twice in the novel. Modiano has this genius of making this strange little book totally absorbing.