Patrick Modiano is a good choice. In a world "full of sound and fury" most novels tend to reflect this dark vortex. Modiano is atypical. He did not have to force or bang doors, he enters.
Contrary to what is becoming more and more a French malaise today, his oeuvre reminds us more of the paintings of Watteau and Chardin or the music of Satie. One has to open one's ears for the droplets and forget about the splash elsewhere.
My first encounter with Modiano was "Villa Triste , a gem of a novel wherein the situations appear to have been left untouched, merely creased. The writer is not unlike his oeuvre, a man who remains discreet and who has, paradoxically, little connection with expression other than the written word. There is an ambivalence in the man and in his novels which reminds us of Proust and Mallarme. His words are still lifes. They mesmerize most, they are supposed to have a taste of ennui for others. After having met his "Reine des Belges," I was enthralled.
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