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tonitrap 's review for:
Family Record
by Patrick Modiano
This book is like finding a worn box in an attic full of sepia-toned photos of life gone by. The individual pictures are just snapshots but, taken together, speak volumes of life, history, identity, etc.
Family Record begins with the narrator trying to register his newborn daughter Zenaide with the city. He meets an old friend of his father by chance and asks questions of his father who disappeared when he was a child. but gets little upon his request, other than the knowledge that his parent's marriage was established under false identities. His daughter does get registered - in the nick of time - effectively establishing her identity in the world. So begins the essential theme of the book - identity and history.
The rest of the book carries on in vignettes - about his father, his grandmother, his mother, himself. Some are, perhaps, based in truth and others are clearly based in fantasy, but most are filled with vibrant characters that come off the page through Modiano's sublime descriptive narrative style.
I can't say that the vignette-like style didn't get on my nerves at times it did. My brain wants a linear narrative and had some trouble adapting to this style throughout. But life isn't always so linear (while always being linear, if you know what I mean) so, I stuck it through and it worked for me in the end. Some vignettes were a tad more boring than others. However, Noble prize-winning Modiano is a fantastic writer and it is worth it to take this peek into his creative mind.
Thank you to NetGalley and Yale University Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Family Record begins with the narrator trying to register his newborn daughter Zenaide with the city. He meets an old friend of his father by chance and asks questions of his father who disappeared when he was a child. but gets little upon his request, other than the knowledge that his parent's marriage was established under false identities. His daughter does get registered - in the nick of time - effectively establishing her identity in the world. So begins the essential theme of the book - identity and history.
The rest of the book carries on in vignettes - about his father, his grandmother, his mother, himself. Some are, perhaps, based in truth and others are clearly based in fantasy, but most are filled with vibrant characters that come off the page through Modiano's sublime descriptive narrative style.
I can't say that the vignette-like style didn't get on my nerves at times it did. My brain wants a linear narrative and had some trouble adapting to this style throughout. But life isn't always so linear (while always being linear, if you know what I mean) so, I stuck it through and it worked for me in the end. Some vignettes were a tad more boring than others. However, Noble prize-winning Modiano is a fantastic writer and it is worth it to take this peek into his creative mind.
Thank you to NetGalley and Yale University Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.