Since I have an Ipad, my reading habits have totally changed. It can be said that they now go the same way as movies and TV series. I download and download tons of stories and books from the internet, stash them in a folder, and then when I find time and patience, I pick one out. Mostly in English, sometimes in French. But I miss reading in a physical book, in French - my mother tongue - and that's why last week in Madrid I went to a big bookshop in order to find something to accompany me in this hot Andalusian summer we have this year (like all years). Call me old fashioned, but I find it much more satisfying to browse through the shelves of bookshops than scrolling down Amazon's website.
I settled for Rue des Boutiques Obscures, by Patrick Modiano. You'll be excused if this name does not ring a bell (even in France, he is a kind of writer's writer, not particularly a media beast or a best-seller churner) even if he won the Nobel Prize three years ago - something of a surprise at the time for many people, including me. As good as his novels are, they are not particularly bringing anything revolutionary to literature, but they are a nice and serious exploration about identity. And Rue des Boutiques Obscures is probably the most accessible of all his books, because it is devised like a detective story.
The main character is called Guy Roland, but this is not his real name. He is a detective in a now defunct detective agency and decides to take the opportunity of the closure of the agency to look deeper into his own past/identity. Indeed, Guy Roland lost his memory and does not remember anything about his past life, before to become detective. So, he starts asking around, finds clues, photos, interviews people, and travels all around Europe, and as far as Bora Bora, to discover who he really is... Something quite difficult for the time of course, because it's 1965, and the best technology he can rely on to patch the memories of human beings (something fickle and untrustworthy) are the phone books.
Needless to say that the destination does not import as much as the travel in that book. Who Guy Roland really is does not care so much as who he thinks he could have been, and how everyone remembers about his potential "him". Also, since we are in the 60s, it's worth mentioning that the shadow of the Second World War, with its parade of ghosts from the camps and the armies, are still looming large. Some people don't want to remember, others can't help to forget, making this "research" particularly labyrinthine and distressing. Who is anybody, anyway, seems to be the idea of the whole novel.
With his "matter of fact" writing, Modiano does not try to punch above his weight, however at some point, you might encounter some nugget of a quote which is worth jotting down, like the one right above. And here is my translation:
I think that we can still hear in the halls of buildings the echo of the steps of those who used to cross them, and who, since then, have disappeared. Something still vibrates after their passage, weaker and weaker waves, but which can be felt if one is careful enough. In the end, I may never have been this Pedro McEvoy, I was nothing, but I could feel some waves, sometimes far, sometimes close, and all those echos floating in the air were crystallizing inside me.
Last but not least, the (very poetic) title means in English: "Dark Shops Street", and it's not an invention because there is really a street called like that in Roma, and it has its meaning in the novel: