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

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Loosely, the story revolves around a mysterious young Bohemian woman, Louki, described from several points of view: a young student who frequents the same café; a private-eye hired by her much-older husband to find her; Roland, her friend and possible lover; and Louki herself. Every area described is also imbued with layers of emotion. . . . Readers are left haunted by the cityscape Modiano paints.”—Henri Astier, The Times Literary Supplement

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. So, Monsieur Modiano, I now have to unfriend you. Unlike you, I have found meaning in my life that I mean to retain. Modiano’s latest novel to be published in English is In the Café of Lost Youth ( New York Review Books), first published in France by Gallimard in 2007. Like most of his novels, In the Café of Lost Youth is short enough to be read in one sitting, and that is exactly how one should read this book, preferably while sitting in the café of one’s choice. In the Café of Lost Youth hovers around the enigmatic young woman known as “Louki,” who wanders in and out of the lives of the novel’s various narrators. When we first encounter Louki we are told that there is nothing habitual about her. In fact, she haunts the narrative like a ghost or an ill-formed presence waiting to join the action, but for whatever reason, is not able to fully engage the other characters. “She wasn’t regular about her visits. You might find her sitting there very early in the morning. Or sometimes she appeared at midnight and stayed until closing time.”

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An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

In the Café of Lost Youth is a kind of suspense story. It is a story about the many facets of a single woman but also, unquestionably, a story about the multiple worlds within Paris, a city that, as much as any individual human being, remains essentially unknowable. It casts a near hypnotic spell." --Douglas Kennedy, L'Express Like W.G. Sebald, another European writer haunted by memory and by the history that took place just before he was born, Modiano combines a detective’s curiosity with an elegist’s melancholy.”—Adam Kirsch, The New Republic At one point, Modiano's gumshoe takes over. Things seem to gel, a bit. And when police question her we start to get somewhere.In the Café of Lost Youth is presented in four parts, each with a different narrator: the second part is recounted by Caisley, who is charged by Louki's husband -- she turns out to be married -- to look into her disappearance, as she had left him two months earlier, "after an unspectacular argument"; it's this search that leads Caisley to the Condé.

The differences are that there are multiple narrators (four to be precise) and that there is a specific theme, as we shall see.And new mystery will always follow upon the heels of old mystery in this book, and to Louki it is all the endless folds of the Eternal Return. We are caught in an endless loop, of times, places and characters. And mysteries. There are four narrators (a student in a cafe, a private detective hired by a husband, the main protagonist herself and one of her lovers) and they take a section each in such a way that the whole novel builds a picture of Jacqueline Delanque (aka Louki). Building you own picture of Louki is perhaps one of the key elements of the story so I won’t include any details here. But Eternal Recurrence is a repeating phrase and several sci-fi books put in multiple appearances. Modiano is a pure original. He has transformed the novel into a laboratory for producing atmospheres, not situations—where everything must be inferred and nothing can be proved.”—Adam Thirwell, The Guardian The style of the book will be familiar to Modiano readers: here again we have a combination of geographical precision and chronological vagueness. (...) In the end, we only have a dim idea of what actually happened and when -- especially as many crucial details are omitted. But none of this feels like an artificial literary device, and readers are left haunted by the cityscape Modiano paints in disjointed but vivid, half-finished strokes." - Henri Astier, Times Literary Supplement

Her stab at marriage, the orbits of the Condé, her relationship with Roland seem like efforts to find a role and place -- but none are sufficient. Rolands/Modianos Chanson triste gilt dem alten Paris, der verlorenen Kindheit, der vergeudeten Jugend, der toten Geliebten Louki. Doch der Zeitfluss lässt sich nicht aufhalten: Nietzsches grosser Mittag und die ewige Wiederkehr bleiben Illusion. Unsterblich ist nur die Kunst." - Ingeborg Waldinger, Neue Zürcher Zeitung Although everyone has their reason for wanting to know more about Louki, and although she has the chance to tell her own story, in a way you have to take her on trust. She could be any softly spoken, alluring and mysterious twenty-something woman, and because Modiano's narrators have a tendency to skate over the salient facts, even as they chase them down, she risks slipping through your fingers -- indeed, she seems designed to do so." - Jonathan Gibbs, The IndependentWhile he was at Henri-IV lycee, he took geometry lessons from writer Raymond Queneau, who was a friend of Modiano's mother. He entered the Sorbonne, but did not complete his studies. The writing is curiously detached. At one point, I was bizarrely reminded of Winnie-the-Pooh when Piglet says he can take part in a Woozle hunt because he has nothing to do until Friday. All the people in this novel seem to be drifting: Bohemis, universitaris, escriptors i filòsofs es troben al “Condé”, un cafè on quatre narradors intenten recordar les seves vides mentre naveguen a la deriva del seu present. Però a diferència de la “recerca” de Proust, el temps i la memoria són irrecuperables, ja que es dissolen juntament amb les llistes de noms, adreces i estacions de metro que intenten, futilment, donar un cert sentit de permanència als vagabunds existencials que habiten aquesta història. I had chosen it to simplify matters, an all-purpose, everyday name, one that could also serve as a last name. She wanted to escape, to run farther and farther away, to break violently with her everyday life, to finally be able to breathe.