2014 Nobel for Literature: Patric Modiano
“For a long time - and this particular time with greater force than usual - summer has been a season that gives me a sense of emptiness and absence, and takes me back to the past.”
By Patrick Modiano
Patric Modiano is chosen for Nobel award 2014 for Literature. Patrick Modiano has been the most favorite writer of France. He has written 25 books and very few have been translated in English. Most of his books have reflections of each other. His theme is always about Paris of 60s or the generation of WWII.
In Modiano’s books we find characters and their emotions so strong that we do not give any heed to the main plot. It needs a Himalayan skill to cast characters so strong and flourish them so well. Modiano’s characters always remember their past incomplete childhood and youth days. They are the product of uncertainty and violence.
He said in his lecture that he belong to a generation where their voices were suppressed. He was not allowed to ask many questions when he was small. When he didn’t get answer to many of his question, he got it over a period of time. There was no body to listen to him. Yes, I am talking about the generation who witnessed Second World War.
Patric Modiano born in Boulogne-Billancourt-Paris in 1945, his father a Jewish business stayed in occupied Paris and did his business. He met his mother during that period. His most of the work is focused upon Nazi occupation of France. Now he will be in league of previous winners like Rudyard Kipling, Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway.
In one of the press conference in Paris, he gave his frank remark, "I wasn't expecting it at all," he said. "It was like I was a bit detached from it all, as if a doppelganger with my name had won."
Peter Englund, the academy's permanent secretary shared his view by saying, "This is someone who has written many books that echo off each other... that are about memory, identity and aspiration, this award is for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".
He studied at Lycee Henri-IV in Paris where his geometry teacher Raymond Queneau gave a great motivation to Patric Modiano. Raymond Queneau’s 1947 book Exercices de style (Exercises in Style) it is collection of 99 stories which are the retailing of the same story but each in a different style.
Raymond Queneau is famous for his cynical humor. He is the one who has witnessed WWI and joined André Breton's Surrealist group, soon he got separated himself. Queneau's novels give an impression of huge impulsiveness; we find every small detail is meticulously conceived in his writing.
Louis Malle a French film director worked upon the book of Raymond Queneau’s book Zazie dans le metro and made a film by the same name in 1960. He also worked with Patric Modiano for his film Lacombe, Lucien (1974). This film is based up on the self experiences of director. This film is co-written by Patric Modiano who is also known from his first book published in 1968 La Place de l'étoile a war time novel.
Modiano's works focus on memory, oblivion, identity and guilt. The city of Paris played vital role in his writing. His stories are built on an autobiographical foundation, or on events that took place during the German occupation.
Truffaut, Modiano and Sirk have crafted fictions designed not to convey ideas or transmit knowledge, although Truffaut has been nailed limited, Modiano repetitive, and Sirk solid. We do not find any prestige or melodrama in their work. However they possess a unique style that reveals hidden perceptual mind and human accounts for the enduring appeal. A biographical element is vital their fictions, portraying the complex amalgam of imagination and experience in the formation of metaphors.
He once made clear his point in lecture by giving the examples of Dickens who always talked about London, Dostoyevsky who wrote about Saint Petersburg, We find Paris in Balzac’s writing, Nagai Kafue often associated with Tokyo and Hjalmar Soderberg’s passion for Stockholm. Today when we look at these masters we never in point why they have used these cities. In fact we develop memories where we live or where we pass by. These memories over a period of time acquire potential role in our emotions. This habit of remembrance of past is gone now. The generation who are born with internet and played with mobile and tablet are cut off from this habit of remembrance. Every year new mobile phone and new gadgets, we are living in a fast lane and connected with social media. There is no chance of getting lost. There is no suspense about anything. Each and every thing of your personal live and social life is on-line. Anybody and everybody is a writer and famous.
Patric Modiano, Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut belong the same generation. We find the similar themes and characters in French Nouvelle Vague films and novels of Patric Modiano. Both represent the time of 60s and 70s of Paris and its political background.
Patric Modiano expressed his curiosity to know today’s generation and today’s writers. As today’s writers also live in city and city has immense potential to offer raw material to them. Patric Modiano pointed a peculiar point of ‘fragmented reality’. Today we live in the world of on-line shopping and social networking; the boundaries of country and religion are blurred but are we truly open or we are just doing it for the sake of publicity.
The real personality of today’s citizen is lost somewhere. The solace which was once found on river bank or in jungle or may be in book rack is altered by social media. The very concept of ‘remembrance of things’ is gone in the days of touch screen reality. The gadgets have altered our life just a click away. We do not need to know or remember. Today it is a big question that is we evolved or devolved? It is the challenge to today’s writers to find an inspiration and to develop patience to observe and pen down an exact character with minute details. The emotional, social and political aura of your character should find a cord with audience.
Patrick Modiano is very positive for today’s generation of writer and curious enough to lend his ears to you. I sum up my Modiano’s sketch with his quotation.
“When was the turning point in my life, after which summers suddenly seemed to me to be different from the ones I had known up to then?”
By Patrick Modiano
“For a long time - and this particular time with greater force than usual - summer has been a season that gives me a sense of emptiness and absence, and takes me back to the past.”
By Patrick Modiano
Patric Modiano is chosen for Nobel award 2014 for Literature. Patrick Modiano has been the most favorite writer of France. He has written 25 books and very few have been translated in English. Most of his books have reflections of each other. His theme is always about Paris of 60s or the generation of WWII.
In Modiano’s books we find characters and their emotions so strong that we do not give any heed to the main plot. It needs a Himalayan skill to cast characters so strong and flourish them so well. Modiano’s characters always remember their past incomplete childhood and youth days. They are the product of uncertainty and violence.
He said in his lecture that he belong to a generation where their voices were suppressed. He was not allowed to ask many questions when he was small. When he didn’t get answer to many of his question, he got it over a period of time. There was no body to listen to him. Yes, I am talking about the generation who witnessed Second World War.
Patric Modiano born in Boulogne-Billancourt-Paris in 1945, his father a Jewish business stayed in occupied Paris and did his business. He met his mother during that period. His most of the work is focused upon Nazi occupation of France. Now he will be in league of previous winners like Rudyard Kipling, Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway.
In one of the press conference in Paris, he gave his frank remark, "I wasn't expecting it at all," he said. "It was like I was a bit detached from it all, as if a doppelganger with my name had won."
Peter Englund, the academy's permanent secretary shared his view by saying, "This is someone who has written many books that echo off each other... that are about memory, identity and aspiration, this award is for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".
He studied at Lycee Henri-IV in Paris where his geometry teacher Raymond Queneau gave a great motivation to Patric Modiano. Raymond Queneau’s 1947 book Exercices de style (Exercises in Style) it is collection of 99 stories which are the retailing of the same story but each in a different style.
Raymond Queneau is famous for his cynical humor. He is the one who has witnessed WWI and joined André Breton's Surrealist group, soon he got separated himself. Queneau's novels give an impression of huge impulsiveness; we find every small detail is meticulously conceived in his writing.
Louis Malle a French film director worked upon the book of Raymond Queneau’s book Zazie dans le metro and made a film by the same name in 1960. He also worked with Patric Modiano for his film Lacombe, Lucien (1974). This film is based up on the self experiences of director. This film is co-written by Patric Modiano who is also known from his first book published in 1968 La Place de l'étoile a war time novel.
Modiano's works focus on memory, oblivion, identity and guilt. The city of Paris played vital role in his writing. His stories are built on an autobiographical foundation, or on events that took place during the German occupation.
Truffaut, Modiano and Sirk have crafted fictions designed not to convey ideas or transmit knowledge, although Truffaut has been nailed limited, Modiano repetitive, and Sirk solid. We do not find any prestige or melodrama in their work. However they possess a unique style that reveals hidden perceptual mind and human accounts for the enduring appeal. A biographical element is vital their fictions, portraying the complex amalgam of imagination and experience in the formation of metaphors.
He once made clear his point in lecture by giving the examples of Dickens who always talked about London, Dostoyevsky who wrote about Saint Petersburg, We find Paris in Balzac’s writing, Nagai Kafue often associated with Tokyo and Hjalmar Soderberg’s passion for Stockholm. Today when we look at these masters we never in point why they have used these cities. In fact we develop memories where we live or where we pass by. These memories over a period of time acquire potential role in our emotions. This habit of remembrance of past is gone now. The generation who are born with internet and played with mobile and tablet are cut off from this habit of remembrance. Every year new mobile phone and new gadgets, we are living in a fast lane and connected with social media. There is no chance of getting lost. There is no suspense about anything. Each and every thing of your personal live and social life is on-line. Anybody and everybody is a writer and famous.
Patric Modiano, Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut belong the same generation. We find the similar themes and characters in French Nouvelle Vague films and novels of Patric Modiano. Both represent the time of 60s and 70s of Paris and its political background.
Patric Modiano expressed his curiosity to know today’s generation and today’s writers. As today’s writers also live in city and city has immense potential to offer raw material to them. Patric Modiano pointed a peculiar point of ‘fragmented reality’. Today we live in the world of on-line shopping and social networking; the boundaries of country and religion are blurred but are we truly open or we are just doing it for the sake of publicity.
The real personality of today’s citizen is lost somewhere. The solace which was once found on river bank or in jungle or may be in book rack is altered by social media. The very concept of ‘remembrance of things’ is gone in the days of touch screen reality. The gadgets have altered our life just a click away. We do not need to know or remember. Today it is a big question that is we evolved or devolved? It is the challenge to today’s writers to find an inspiration and to develop patience to observe and pen down an exact character with minute details. The emotional, social and political aura of your character should find a cord with audience.
Patrick Modiano is very positive for today’s generation of writer and curious enough to lend his ears to you. I sum up my Modiano’s sketch with his quotation.
“When was the turning point in my life, after which summers suddenly seemed to me to be different from the ones I had known up to then?”
By Patrick Modiano
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