The Black Notebook: A Novel

Paris in 1964. A city far less glamorous than that which we celebrate today, recovering from an extended war of independence with Algeria, tearing down buildings in marginal neighborhoods, and populated by many rootless youths who, lacking employment, engage in illegal activities and/or pass their days drinking in cafes and aimlessly wandering the streets of the capital. Welcome to the same peripatetic world of "flaneurs" who populated Patrick Modiano's "In the Cafe of Lost Youth." In that earlier novel, the plot focused on pinning down the background of the cafe habitue Louki who at the book's end commits suicide. In "The Black Notebook", meanwhile, the life of Dannie is examined by Jean, the book's narrator, who was her occasional lover and a budding author. In this instance, a specific cafe does not act as the locus of activity, and we have instead a fixed group of men tied to Morocco (substituting for Algeria, presumably). At the same time, we are offered little knowledge of Dannie's life in later years.As is common in most Modiano novels, key themes in "The Black Notebook" are the nature of memory and identity, and lyrical language describes visual perception as a metaphor for the clarity of memory. Time also plays a starring role, and this calls to mind Alain Robbe-Grillet. Robbe-Grillet was the co-author and director of the enigmatic film "Last Year at Marienbad" and equally surrealistic novels such as his "The House of Rendezvous." In "The Black Notebook" we have on page 75 the following passage: "They would never know how time throbs, dilates, then falls slack again...." And, at the end of the book, the narrator Jean notes that he "no longer saw a very clear distinction between past and present" and that he 'had done nothing but walk, always in the same streets, to the point where time had become transparent."

Patrick Modiano does a fine job of describing events and the people who the person narrating meets. It is more like a character driven story, nothing much ever happens in his books of any consequence. But they may you think and the writing is easy to follow but the books always to me leave a mark in your brain and make you think.

This is a contemporary masterpiece that is ultimately about the nature of memory and how memory and fiction are inseparable. Very readable, particularly for a work of its depth.

I also read a version in Spanish, and I must say that the translation into English simply didn't flow.

Modiano and modernity, nothing changes and everything changes and when we are not certain what was, we can hardly be certain as to what is. The layers of an onion never stop.

Modiano is a great but seemingly unknown writer here in the US. Recipient of the Noble!

Usual Modiano, but still great. Villa Triste still my favourite.

Found this to be a turgid read totally disjointed random and lacking context. Kept waiting for something to happen. A story about nothing. Save your money

I was debating whether or not to try reading one of the Patrick Modiano books in the original French but decided that it would be better to become acquainted with his work in an English translation. I am glad that I decided to do this because the concept of this novella is so sophisticated. Tempting as the other books may seem, I think that you would need to be fluent to get by and therefore , unless you are confident with your French, the translation is good enough to appreciate why Modiano was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I would have to say that this book was totally gripping. It is immediately apparent that the principle narrator of the story is flirting with the under-World and that the fact that his girlfriend is tied up with something very sinister. This sets the background for the novella and is the basis upon which the lead charcter Jean muses about things. The whole account is told in the form of a recollection and whilst the story is on the face of it about his daliance with characters who have very shady backgrounds and " a very serious incident" , what Modiano is really expressing is the fluidity of memory and how the past is recalled. I can appreciate that this book might not be for everyone but the writer at once conjures upis a noirish image of a part of Paris long since demolished with it's bars full of nefarious characters and long-since disappeared hotels. It is difficult to put your thumb on what is exactly so appealing about this book. The writing is very beautiful and it is not too much of a leap of imagination to envisage this story as a moody, black and white film from the 1960s such as "Lift to the scaffold." I felt that the descriptions and observations that really resonnated with me were sufficient to make this book compelling but this is also something of a mystery and you want to get to the end of the story simply to find out more about the enigmatic girlfriend Dannie. I would recommend this story to anyone who enjoys evocative and effective writing. My only reservation centred on the fact that Jean was an assidious keeper of records (hence the title of the book) yet he seems too infatuated with Dannie to note the reality of what is goin on around him. It is to the credit of Modiano that he maintains your attention throughout the book and despite the absense of any action or violence. I love the way that the author creates a story that maintains a fine balance between reality, perception and recollection. Whilst I think anyone anticipating a blood-thirsty policier, "The black notebook" actually flirts with this concept to produce something more powerful. When I finished this book I kept thinking what a rich source of mateiral this is to make a cracking thriller. I really enjoyed this book.

Modiano’s a very great writer, of that there is no doubt. I always thoroughly enjoy his books, I get right stuck in and read them start to finish pretty quickly, perhaps too quickly, because I never have much recall of the characters or what happened a few weeks later ... This has happened with this one, and I think the fault must be mine. This book maybe repays more close studying than I gave it. I’m left with a kind of haunted feeling, and thinking I will read it again.

Super story. Totally worth it. My faith in Modiano keeps going up and up.

Thanks.