The political and historical hue of memory fragments in Patrick Modiano’s novels

Abstract

The atmosphere of distant nostalgia in Patrick Modiano’s novels immerses readers in a world of emotions, leading to the easy conclusion that he is a lyrical writer “imprisoned” by the past. However, intense emotion is not the sole prerequisite for Modiano to be considered as “our generation’s Proust”. We believe that the memory in Modiano’s novels is not merely a nostalgic longing for a bygone era but also a manifestation and the consequence of the political and historical upheavals in France as well as the world during and after World War II. The writer reflects with the reality that memory is no longer a private, personal possession. Instead, the process of modern human memory practices has long been influenced by political and historical discourses, or more simply, power. In other words, to better understand Modiano’s writings, and above all, to understand those vague fragments of memory in them, this article aims to delve deeper into the manifestations of politics and history as subtly reflected through the memory of people – the memories of postwar ghosts. In addition, Modiano also projects memory onto spaces, revealing the no man’s land as a symbolic place of political illusions, thereby showing that Modiano is really serious and devoted his entire literary career to the fight against amnesia and against the forced forgetting by power.