In the Café of Lost Youth (New York Review Books Classics)

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Our first narrator is studying at the Ecole des Mines but keeps quiet about it, fearing he might be otherwise mocked. En el cafè de la joventut perduda” explora la idea d’un punt de trobada per aquells que deambulen les “zones neutrals” d’una ciutat on el passat, el present i el futur es donen la mà d’una manera inquietant. Nothing much happens, in this story about a mysterious young woman whose portrait emerges through the voices of different men, but, as usual with Modiano, what's important is what's untold and what the reader can sense in between the lines : a world of lost youth, murky pasts, shadows from years gone by, feelings once felt and now slowly fading, memories. A different narrative approach this may be, but In the Café of Lost Youth is still very much a Modiano work.

There are interesting moments, particularly the first section narrated by the young student describing life in the café all the characters habit, but it devolves after the opening chapter into a rather random and clichéd story of male obsession with a troubled, beautiful young woman, invariably ending in her self-destruction. But through flashbacks and other characters – and in one of the four chapters, from Louki herself – we gradually come to understand her troubled and impoverished upbringing. In The Café of Lost Youth is maybe my fifth book by 2014 Nobel winner and Parisian Patrick Modiano, evoking a time in Paris in the fifties, a time of young people in cafes.Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere: with an absent father -- of which he heard troubled stories of dealings with the Vichy regime -- and a Flemish-actress mother who frequently toured. Modiano manages to give birth in this novel to a heroine with a special title, however, a woman who cannot be understood, just because she is constantly fleeing from herself, and from others too. Someone in the Conde tried to keep track for a few years of all the people who came into the café, day and night, and one of the narrators has his hands on that record; it includes names, dates, times, which people sat where and when.

What distinguishes his work is the palpable sense of loss felt by the narrators, nostalgia so strong it hurts.He is a winner of the 1972 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, and the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his novel "Rue des boutiques obscures". Nothing happens, nothing really changes," as Sartre says: "life mirrors death and death mirrors life.

The third narrator is Louki herself, who tells us that her big drama comes precisely from the fact that she never had anyone close to her. In the Café of Lost Youth is a little more plot-driven than most Modiano books I’ve read, and we gradually find out more about poor Louki, a woman we sense will come to a bad end, even if we’re not quite sure how. The only thing I could have done to make this reading experience more French would have been to smoke Gitanes and wear a beret at a rakish angle.The Café of Lost Youth tells of the lives of a group of people who frequented the cafe of the title. Sobre todo, el recurso al alcohol y drogas, que le costaron la vida a algunos de mis amigos y conocidos. A group of people, mainly but certainly not all, between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, meet there regularly. Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940.