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Sundays in August
From beloved storyteller and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, a masterful and gripping crime novel set in picturesque Nice on the French Riviera
Stolen jewels, black markets, hired guns, crossed lovers, unregistered addresses, people gone missing, shadowy figures disappearing in crowds, newspaper stories uncomfortably close and getting closer . . . this ominous novel is Patrick Modiano’s most noirish work to date. Set in Nice—a departure from the author’s more familiar Paris—this novel evokes the bright sun and dark shadow of the Riviera. Modiano’s trademark ability to create a haunting atmosphere is here on full display: readers descend precipitously into a world of mystery, uneasiness, inevitability.
A young couple in hiding keeps close watch over a notorious diamond necklace known as the Southern Cross. Its provenance is murky, its whereabouts known only to our hero and heroine, who find themselves trapped by its potential value—and its ultimate cost. Deftly Modiano reaches further and further into the past, revealing the secret histories of the two even as the pressurized present threatens to overwhelm them.
Stolen jewels, black markets, hired guns, crossed lovers, unregistered addresses, people gone missing, shadowy figures disappearing in crowds, newspaper stories uncomfortably close and getting closer . . . this ominous novel is Patrick Modiano’s most noirish work to date. Set in Nice—a departure from the author’s more familiar Paris—this novel evokes the bright sun and dark shadow of the Riviera. Modiano’s trademark ability to create a haunting atmosphere is here on full display: readers descend precipitously into a world of mystery, uneasiness, inevitability.
A young couple in hiding keeps close watch over a notorious diamond necklace known as the Southern Cross. Its provenance is murky, its whereabouts known only to our hero and heroine, who find themselves trapped by its potential value—and its ultimate cost. Deftly Modiano reaches further and further into the past, revealing the secret histories of the two even as the pressurized present threatens to overwhelm them.
168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Patrick Modiano
140 books2,181 followersPatrick Modiano is a French-language author and playwright and winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He is a winner of the 1972 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, and the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his novel "Rue des boutiques obscures".
Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began a clandestine relationship. Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere: with an absent father -- of which he heard troubled stories of dealings with the Vichy regime -- and a Flemish-actress mother who frequently toured. His younger brother's sudden death also greatly influenced his writings.
While 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.
Queneau, the author of "Zazie dans le métro", introduced Modiano to the literary world via a cocktail party given by publishing house Éditions Gallimard. Modiano published his first novel, "La Place de l’Étoile", with Gallimard in 1968, after having read the manuscript to Raymond Queneau. Starting that year, he did nothing but write.
On September 12, 1970, Modiano married Dominique Zerhfuss. "I have a catastrophic souvenir of the day of our marriage. It rained. A real nightmare. Our groomsmen were Queneau, who had mentored Patrick since his adolescence, and Malraux, a friend of my father. They started to argue about Dubuffet, and it was like we were watching a tennis match! That said, it would have been funny to have some photos, but the only person who had a camera forgot to bring a roll of film. There is only one photo remaining of us, from behind and under an umbrella!" (Interview with Elle, 6 October 2003). From their marriage came two girls, Zina (1974) and Marie (1978).
Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940.
(Arabic: باتريك موديانو)
He is a winner of the 1972 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française, and the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his novel "Rue des boutiques obscures".
Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began a clandestine relationship. Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere: with an absent father -- of which he heard troubled stories of dealings with the Vichy regime -- and a Flemish-actress mother who frequently toured. His younger brother's sudden death also greatly influenced his writings.
While 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.
Queneau, the author of "Zazie dans le métro", introduced Modiano to the literary world via a cocktail party given by publishing house Éditions Gallimard. Modiano published his first novel, "La Place de l’Étoile", with Gallimard in 1968, after having read the manuscript to Raymond Queneau. Starting that year, he did nothing but write.
On September 12, 1970, Modiano married Dominique Zerhfuss. "I have a catastrophic souvenir of the day of our marriage. It rained. A real nightmare. Our groomsmen were Queneau, who had mentored Patrick since his adolescence, and Malraux, a friend of my father. They started to argue about Dubuffet, and it was like we were watching a tennis match! That said, it would have been funny to have some photos, but the only person who had a camera forgot to bring a roll of film. There is only one photo remaining of us, from behind and under an umbrella!" (Interview with Elle, 6 October 2003). From their marriage came two girls, Zina (1974) and Marie (1978).
Modiano has mentioned on Oct 9, 2014, during an interview with La Grande Librairie, that one of the books which had a great impact on his writing life was 'Le cœur est un chasseur solitaire' (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), the first novel published by Carson McCullers in 1940.
(Arabic: باتريك موديانو)
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June 28, 2026
A night-sighted sentinel
The sky was too blue that afternoon, the palm trees too tall, the buildings too pink and too white – a ghost like Villecourt could never withstand the summer colours. They would finish him off. He would vanish into the air with its lingering scent of mimosa.
Despite the brightness of the French Riviera’s colour palette– the blue of the Mediterranean sea and the sky, the ice cream colours of the buildings - Patrick Modiano’s Sundays in August – for a change not set in Paris but largely in Nice - unfurls before my eyes in black and white, like the photographs the narrator Jean takes for his river side beaches photo project, inspired by the photography by W. Venneman of the Côte d'Azur during the 1930s.
Jean, an art photographer finds himself stuck in Nice, lonely, troubled, hiding for ghosts from the past while simultaneously chasing them. Trying to make sense of and figure out what exactly happened to him and Sylvia seven years ago, Jean draws the reader into a puzzle-narrative, rendering the reader equally confused and clueless like himself.
I always go pick up that kind of photograph - traces left by an ephemeral moment when a person was happy , taking an afternoon stroll in the sun. You shouldn't underestimate these sentinels with their cameras on straps, ready to capture you in an instant – these guardians of memory patrolling the streets. I know what I’m talking about I used to be a photographer myself.
The contrast between the glamorous and colourful location at daytime and the nocturnal darkness lurking behind the fatal events enhances the sense of moral ambiguity of the characters entering the scene: Jean and Sylvia, a couple on the run, Villecourt, Sylvia's husband pursuing them, Virgil and Barbara Neal – a shady, all too benevolent and willing American-British couple of diplomats whose twang sometimes suspiciously recalls the argot of Pigalle. Who betrays who, and why? Who is victim and who is perpetrator? Perhaps some of them are both, or are double-dealing?
In this slender noir novel pivoting around the theft of the Southern Cross, a fateful and notorious diamond with a long and bloody history, the city of Nice arises rom the pages as if it was Paris by the sea, reigned by Modiano's familiar key themes – memory, inevitable loss, the search for lost time and people having vanished in murky and mysterious circumstances.
Roaming the streets and the places he had been with Sylvia, his mind drifting backwards and forwards between the past and the present, Jean is living in a state of haziness, brooding in his shabby and spartan room, hanging out at places where other vagrants gather by night.
Everything eventually blurs together. The images of the past blend into a light, transparent haze that thins out, swells up, and takes on the shape of an iridescent balloon about to burst.
Slightly more plot-driven in comparison with some of his later novels, initially I was inclined to think that this time the Second World War and Modiano’s habitual hints to the war, the collaboration and occupied France are less present in this novel than in many of his other novels. This impression was wrong. A second reading and a quick browse through Dans la peau de Patrick Modiano (Littérature Française) again revealed that the novel abounds with allusions to war-related facts, from the villa in Nice where Jean and Sylvia meet the Neals, to the name of the beauty firm of an industrial selling razor cream to the Wehrmacht. Again there are the connections with the persons involved in the ‘gang of the Rue Lauriston’ (a group of criminals who became known as the French Gestapo) and men convicted in absentia to twenty years of forced labour for having collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Published in 1986, Modiano’s signature dreamy, fugitive and atmospheric prose might make the reader forget that every word counts in his agile constructing of the ominous atmosphere of suspense and danger, the potential heft and significance of the single word even more notable when comparing the original with the translations in English and Dutch. The heavy burden encumbering the relationship between Jean and Sylvia first dawned to me when Modiano casually mentions their shadowy bonds:
[It’s striking how the translation of this passage in Dutch seems to reveal more about the relationship between Jean and Sylvia than the translation into English, because in Dutch those shadowy bonds seem to specifically point at those between Jean and Sylvia and don’t seem to imply other people. It is one of those moments, dropped in the story like the crumbs by Thom Thumb, in which Modiano offers the reader a clue that feeds speculation and suspicion about which crimes this couple on the run has committed.]
It was very hot that summer, and we were sure no one would find us there. In the afternoons we would walk along the embankment to the most crowded part of the beach. Then we would walk down the sand looking for a tiny place free where we could lie on our beach towels….We were like everyone else, there was nothing to set us apart from the others, those Sundays in August.
Frozen in time, the melancholy ending evokes achingly what Jean has lost. Left behind with his haunting memories and the burden of both knowing too much and knowing too little, Jean can only regret the ephemerality of happiness. Realising how his illusions have made it impossible to move on with his life, he has turned into a ghost himself.
The sky was too blue that afternoon, the palm trees too tall, the buildings too pink and too white – a ghost like Villecourt could never withstand the summer colours. They would finish him off. He would vanish into the air with its lingering scent of mimosa.
Despite the brightness of the French Riviera’s colour palette– the blue of the Mediterranean sea and the sky, the ice cream colours of the buildings - Patrick Modiano’s Sundays in August – for a change not set in Paris but largely in Nice - unfurls before my eyes in black and white, like the photographs the narrator Jean takes for his river side beaches photo project, inspired by the photography by W. Venneman of the Côte d'Azur during the 1930s.
Jean, an art photographer finds himself stuck in Nice, lonely, troubled, hiding for ghosts from the past while simultaneously chasing them. Trying to make sense of and figure out what exactly happened to him and Sylvia seven years ago, Jean draws the reader into a puzzle-narrative, rendering the reader equally confused and clueless like himself.
I always go pick up that kind of photograph - traces left by an ephemeral moment when a person was happy , taking an afternoon stroll in the sun. You shouldn't underestimate these sentinels with their cameras on straps, ready to capture you in an instant – these guardians of memory patrolling the streets. I know what I’m talking about I used to be a photographer myself.
The contrast between the glamorous and colourful location at daytime and the nocturnal darkness lurking behind the fatal events enhances the sense of moral ambiguity of the characters entering the scene: Jean and Sylvia, a couple on the run, Villecourt, Sylvia's husband pursuing them, Virgil and Barbara Neal – a shady, all too benevolent and willing American-British couple of diplomats whose twang sometimes suspiciously recalls the argot of Pigalle. Who betrays who, and why? Who is victim and who is perpetrator? Perhaps some of them are both, or are double-dealing?
In this slender noir novel pivoting around the theft of the Southern Cross, a fateful and notorious diamond with a long and bloody history, the city of Nice arises rom the pages as if it was Paris by the sea, reigned by Modiano's familiar key themes – memory, inevitable loss, the search for lost time and people having vanished in murky and mysterious circumstances.
Roaming the streets and the places he had been with Sylvia, his mind drifting backwards and forwards between the past and the present, Jean is living in a state of haziness, brooding in his shabby and spartan room, hanging out at places where other vagrants gather by night.
Everything eventually blurs together. The images of the past blend into a light, transparent haze that thins out, swells up, and takes on the shape of an iridescent balloon about to burst.
Slightly more plot-driven in comparison with some of his later novels, initially I was inclined to think that this time the Second World War and Modiano’s habitual hints to the war, the collaboration and occupied France are less present in this novel than in many of his other novels. This impression was wrong. A second reading and a quick browse through Dans la peau de Patrick Modiano (Littérature Française) again revealed that the novel abounds with allusions to war-related facts, from the villa in Nice where Jean and Sylvia meet the Neals, to the name of the beauty firm of an industrial selling razor cream to the Wehrmacht. Again there are the connections with the persons involved in the ‘gang of the Rue Lauriston’ (a group of criminals who became known as the French Gestapo) and men convicted in absentia to twenty years of forced labour for having collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Published in 1986, Modiano’s signature dreamy, fugitive and atmospheric prose might make the reader forget that every word counts in his agile constructing of the ominous atmosphere of suspense and danger, the potential heft and significance of the single word even more notable when comparing the original with the translations in English and Dutch. The heavy burden encumbering the relationship between Jean and Sylvia first dawned to me when Modiano casually mentions their shadowy bonds:
The first time I’d been in that room, the smell of mould had almost suffocated me. I had opened both window to air out the room, but it hadn’t helped. The odour had seeped into the walls, the leather chair, the wool bedspread. I curled up to her and soon her perfume was stronger than the smell in the room, a heavy perfume I can’t forget, something soft and shadowy, like the bonds that connect us to another person.
Je me suis rapproché d'elle et bientôt son parfum était plus fort que l'odeur de la chambre, un parfum lourd dont je ne pouvais plus me passer, quelque chose de doux et de ténébreux, comme les liens qui nous attachaient l'un à l'autre.
[It’s striking how the translation of this passage in Dutch seems to reveal more about the relationship between Jean and Sylvia than the translation into English, because in Dutch those shadowy bonds seem to specifically point at those between Jean and Sylvia and don’t seem to imply other people. It is one of those moments, dropped in the story like the crumbs by Thom Thumb, in which Modiano offers the reader a clue that feeds speculation and suspicion about which crimes this couple on the run has committed.]
It was very hot that summer, and we were sure no one would find us there. In the afternoons we would walk along the embankment to the most crowded part of the beach. Then we would walk down the sand looking for a tiny place free where we could lie on our beach towels….We were like everyone else, there was nothing to set us apart from the others, those Sundays in August.
Frozen in time, the melancholy ending evokes achingly what Jean has lost. Left behind with his haunting memories and the burden of both knowing too much and knowing too little, Jean can only regret the ephemerality of happiness. Realising how his illusions have made it impossible to move on with his life, he has turned into a ghost himself.
November 9, 2017
Whenever I pick up a book by this author, before I even open and start reading the first page, I am already thinking, film noir. Shadowy figures, low lighted, foggy streets, cafes and imagining everything in black and white. Two figures, either two men, or a man snd woman, something in their past that has blended into their future, something discovered, lost or unfinished. An atmosphere that lends itself to suspense, but not the kind that shouts at you, the kind that is subtle, but leaving one with the sense that there is more to be uncovered.
So it is with this novel, starts in the present, two men who were aquaintinted in the past, concerning a woman, but how are they acquainted and who is the women? We travel to the past where step by step the story is told. A story that includes an infamous necklace from the distant past, and a mystery that was never solved.
Madiano has a way with words, words to create an atmosphere that is enticing, a even a bit forboding. It is never just the story, but the whole experience, the whole package, like scenes in a movie. One can just picture them when reading his books, and I always enjoy them just enough.
So it is with this novel, starts in the present, two men who were aquaintinted in the past, concerning a woman, but how are they acquainted and who is the women? We travel to the past where step by step the story is told. A story that includes an infamous necklace from the distant past, and a mystery that was never solved.
Madiano has a way with words, words to create an atmosphere that is enticing, a even a bit forboding. It is never just the story, but the whole experience, the whole package, like scenes in a movie. One can just picture them when reading his books, and I always enjoy them just enough.
March 30, 2018
Patrick Modiano’s Sundays in August is a wonderfully dark and ambiguous novel, set in a melancholy and atmospheric French city. But here, Modiano explores Nice and not Paris. As in Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows, in Sundays in August, everybody’s a grifter, everybody’s amoral, everybody’s shady, and everybody’s guilty, but of what? And what happened to Sylvia?: Did she abscond with the diamond?; did she die in an automobile accident?; was she robbed and killed? And what are the right words for robbing a robber and swindling a swindler?
What stands out about Sundays in August is not only its moral ambuiguity, but also its emotional ambiguity. Does Frédéric Villecourt love Sylvia? How about Jean? Is Paul Alessandri actually married to the woman masquerading as Mrs. Neal? And does Jean really mourn Sylvia, or are his emotions about her loss limited to nostalgia for his lost youth and its “pretensions”?
Do you enjoy unresolved endings? Do you enjoy wondering about what happened after you’ve read the last page and finished a novel? If so, then Sundays in August is perfect for you. But if you need resolution and clarity in a novel, then stay away.
Patrick Modiano is among my favorite novelists and his novels are sui generis. 4.5 stars for Sundays in August, knowing that it’s not everybody’s cuppa.
What stands out about Sundays in August is not only its moral ambuiguity, but also its emotional ambiguity. Does Frédéric Villecourt love Sylvia? How about Jean? Is Paul Alessandri actually married to the woman masquerading as Mrs. Neal? And does Jean really mourn Sylvia, or are his emotions about her loss limited to nostalgia for his lost youth and its “pretensions”?
Do you enjoy unresolved endings? Do you enjoy wondering about what happened after you’ve read the last page and finished a novel? If so, then Sundays in August is perfect for you. But if you need resolution and clarity in a novel, then stay away.
Patrick Modiano is among my favorite novelists and his novels are sui generis. 4.5 stars for Sundays in August, knowing that it’s not everybody’s cuppa.
June 10, 2016
بعد (30) عام يتكرم علينا مترجم عربي
ليترجم لنا رواية
آحاد أغسطس- Dimanches d'août
للفرنسي النوبلي لـ(باتريك موديانو - Patrick Modiano)
فور الشورع في القراءة تذكرت ديوان غازي القصيبي .. العودة للأماكن القديمة
لارابط غير المسمى والذاكرة.
موديانو تستفزه المدن التي يزورها فتعيده للماضي من خلال ذاكرة المكان التي تصطدم بذاكرته الشخصية في قالب ليس له من الأسلوب البوليسي غير الحبكة وأظنه أعتمدها بغية التشويق لأجل كمية الألغاز التي تحملها الرواية لكنها رواية رومنسية في المقام الأول بعيد كل البعد عن بوليسيات كريستي.
يخبرنا موديانو عن طريق الراوي العليم بتلك الذكريات التي يعود إليها للماضي بقصته المعقدة.. أقول معقدة خصوصًا في الجزء الأخير من الرواية. حيث تكون البادية لأجل عقد وتتطور الأحداث ونسبة التشويق التي تتصاعد وتيرة خلال سير الرواية بسبب عقد / جوهرة يسعى لها الزوجان .. العاشقان .. إمرأة أخرى وتتداخل عدة شخصيات تظهر وتختفي تظهر وتختفي.
تمنيت لو قلت الألغاز والحبكة البوليسية بعض الشيء لأن المل يبدأ شيئًا فشيء في الولوج إلى القارئ لأن المؤلف – وجهة نظري – افتعل الغموض بوضوح لينجح العمل من كل الجوانب. أعتقد وفق المترجم بكل ما أمكنته أدواته لكن طبيعة العمل معقدة وليس أفضل أعمال موديانو على الإطلاق.
ليترجم لنا رواية
آحاد أغسطس- Dimanches d'août
للفرنسي النوبلي لـ(باتريك موديانو - Patrick Modiano)
فور الشورع في القراءة تذكرت ديوان غازي القصيبي .. العودة للأماكن القديمة
لارابط غير المسمى والذاكرة.
موديانو تستفزه المدن التي يزورها فتعيده للماضي من خلال ذاكرة المكان التي تصطدم بذاكرته الشخصية في قالب ليس له من الأسلوب البوليسي غير الحبكة وأظنه أعتمدها بغية التشويق لأجل كمية الألغاز التي تحملها الرواية لكنها رواية رومنسية في المقام الأول بعيد كل البعد عن بوليسيات كريستي.
يخبرنا موديانو عن طريق الراوي العليم بتلك الذكريات التي يعود إليها للماضي بقصته المعقدة.. أقول معقدة خصوصًا في الجزء الأخير من الرواية. حيث تكون البادية لأجل عقد وتتطور الأحداث ونسبة التشويق التي تتصاعد وتيرة خلال سير الرواية بسبب عقد / جوهرة يسعى لها الزوجان .. العاشقان .. إمرأة أخرى وتتداخل عدة شخصيات تظهر وتختفي تظهر وتختفي.
تمنيت لو قلت الألغاز والحبكة البوليسية بعض الشيء لأن المل يبدأ شيئًا فشيء في الولوج إلى القارئ لأن المؤلف – وجهة نظري – افتعل الغموض بوضوح لينجح العمل من كل الجوانب. أعتقد وفق المترجم بكل ما أمكنته أدواته لكن طبيعة العمل معقدة وليس أفضل أعمال موديانو على الإطلاق.
June 17, 2025
I always go pick up that photograph – traces left by an ephemeral moment when a person was happy, taking an afternoon stroll in the sun ...
Patrick Modiano writes the way Alain Resnais makes movies.
Echoes of L’annee derniere a Marienbad can be heard on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where a young man named Jean is looking for traces of his long lost love, a woman named Sylvie who for him will always represent hot summer days and lazy afternoons making love in a cheap hotel room.
Then she disappears and the man is trapped in Nice, a stranger in a strange town, lost in time and in memories of a season of Sundays even as winter rains come down on the promenade.
All around me men and women, stiff as mummies, drank their tea in silence, eyes fixed on the Promenade des Anglais. Maybe they, too, were on the lookout for silhouettes from their past amid this crowd passing before their eyes.
And those notes from the piano, always the same ones ... It was raining on the Promenade des Anglais.
“Great atmosphere they’ve got here,” Neal remarked.
This is a crime novel, but the casual reader, one unfamiliar with the French nouveau vague in arthouse cinema, could be excused for wondering into what kind of weird space he has stepped, like Alice through her looking glass? Emotion trumps exposition and time is circular, delimiting a prison for a soul lost inside a labyrinth of his own making.
French critics call this une histoire fantome , one of the hallmarks of Patrick Modiano that make his novels instantly recognisable by the habitual reader who has strolled before down these rainy, misty and dark landscapes of a past that is irretrievably lost.
Les romans de Patrick Modiano sont traversés par le thème de l'absence, de « la survie des personnes disparues, l’espoir de retrouver un jour ceux qu'on a perdus dans le passé », avec le goût de l'enfance trop vite effacée.
For Jean, a young photographer who once planned to publish a book about the abandoned swimming pools in the environs of Paris, the lost innocence is linked with La Varenne, near the river Marne, the place where in another summer, in another time, he has met the mysterious Sylvie, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage.
After a torrid illicit affair, the lovers eventually arrive in Nice, where they live as outlaws, in hiding from the woman’s husband, who might be motivated by more than jalousie in the hunt for his runaway wife. La Croix du Sud is a huge and priceless diamond that Sylvie was wearing around her neck. The stone had a long history of misfortune for its owners but for the lovers it represents not a curse but their only chance to escape and to make a future together.
I was fooling myself. I didn’t know yet that this city was a morass, that I was getting stuck in it, little by little.
All of these details will be eventually revealed in the book’s non-linear plot that starts with a casual meeting years after the events of the summer of love, when a drifting Jean comes across the former husband of Sylvie who is as clueless about the present whereabouts of the missing woman as himself. Yet this meeting from the first chapter is the catalyst that brings the past into sudden focus once again for Jean.
“A case of revenants.”
“Revenants?”
“Yes, back from the dead. You’ll see.”
Is Sylvie dead then? Or has she betrayed her lover and run away with the precious stone? What role did the wealthy American expatriates that befriended them in a restaurant played in the disappearance? These questions have held Jean captive for years in the bright city on the French Riviera, the last place where Sylvie was a burning reality in his arms. He is not any closer to an answer in the current rainy season. Maybe there is no answer and he has become just another mummy or automaton, drinking his tea devoid of any sort of thrill on the Promenade des Anglais, hoping against hope that a familiar silhouette will once again pass by his table.
“Don’t you feel like this is all a dream?”
She smiled at me but looked nervous.
“And you’re afraid that at some point we’ll wake up?” she asked me.
Some unkind reader might call this style of storytelling the triumph of style over substance. I’m in the opposite camp: I like to work at the mystery, to try to fit the pieces of the puzzle into something that makes sense instead of being led by the hand and having everything spelled out to me by the author.
Modiano leaves behind enough clues about what is going on. He just dislikes linear narration and prefers a game of shadows and of cryptic utterances to shining a bright analytical light on his criminal cases.
“Nice is a dangerous town,” he said. “You meet some bad people here ...”
A big part of Jean’s amateur detective efforts are focused on the identity of Virgil Neale, an American living in a luxury villa and claiming embassy connections. Neale and his wife insinuate themselves into the lives of the secretive young lovers and eventually promise to arrange a buyer for the cursed diamond.
Sylvie was in the Neales company when last seen.
The only physical proof that Jean has to demonstrate that the Neales are real and not a figment of his imagination is a candid photo taken by a street photographer. Yet physical evidence is apparently not enough to pull Jean back from his dream world and into the present time. His own ideas about photography as art are seen as a sort of premonitory warning of his impending doom. La Varenne, despite its summer sunshine, is the place where he lost his youth, his innocence, his love. And all because of a cursed illusion of wealth.
“I can tell you are a sensitive young man who picks up on the atmosphere of a place, and that you understand what I’m saying. Make your photographs as black as possible.”
“I’ll try.”
Others before us had fought for it, others to come would wear it around their neck for a time, or on their finger, and it would traverse the centuries, hard and indifferent to the passing of time and the deaths of those it would leave behind. No, our anxiety didn’t come from our contact with that cold stone with glints of blue – it doubtless came from life itself.
You can probably tell from my review that I am a fan of Patrick Modiano and of his ability to imply more with less words than many a crime or fiction writer. I hope to move more of his books from the TBR to the ‘finished’ shelf.
Patrick Modiano writes the way Alain Resnais makes movies.
Echoes of L’annee derniere a Marienbad can be heard on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where a young man named Jean is looking for traces of his long lost love, a woman named Sylvie who for him will always represent hot summer days and lazy afternoons making love in a cheap hotel room.
Then she disappears and the man is trapped in Nice, a stranger in a strange town, lost in time and in memories of a season of Sundays even as winter rains come down on the promenade.
All around me men and women, stiff as mummies, drank their tea in silence, eyes fixed on the Promenade des Anglais. Maybe they, too, were on the lookout for silhouettes from their past amid this crowd passing before their eyes.
And those notes from the piano, always the same ones ... It was raining on the Promenade des Anglais.
“Great atmosphere they’ve got here,” Neal remarked.
This is a crime novel, but the casual reader, one unfamiliar with the French nouveau vague in arthouse cinema, could be excused for wondering into what kind of weird space he has stepped, like Alice through her looking glass? Emotion trumps exposition and time is circular, delimiting a prison for a soul lost inside a labyrinth of his own making.
French critics call this une histoire fantome , one of the hallmarks of Patrick Modiano that make his novels instantly recognisable by the habitual reader who has strolled before down these rainy, misty and dark landscapes of a past that is irretrievably lost.
Les romans de Patrick Modiano sont traversés par le thème de l'absence, de « la survie des personnes disparues, l’espoir de retrouver un jour ceux qu'on a perdus dans le passé », avec le goût de l'enfance trop vite effacée.
For Jean, a young photographer who once planned to publish a book about the abandoned swimming pools in the environs of Paris, the lost innocence is linked with La Varenne, near the river Marne, the place where in another summer, in another time, he has met the mysterious Sylvie, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage.
After a torrid illicit affair, the lovers eventually arrive in Nice, where they live as outlaws, in hiding from the woman’s husband, who might be motivated by more than jalousie in the hunt for his runaway wife. La Croix du Sud is a huge and priceless diamond that Sylvie was wearing around her neck. The stone had a long history of misfortune for its owners but for the lovers it represents not a curse but their only chance to escape and to make a future together.
I was fooling myself. I didn’t know yet that this city was a morass, that I was getting stuck in it, little by little.
All of these details will be eventually revealed in the book’s non-linear plot that starts with a casual meeting years after the events of the summer of love, when a drifting Jean comes across the former husband of Sylvie who is as clueless about the present whereabouts of the missing woman as himself. Yet this meeting from the first chapter is the catalyst that brings the past into sudden focus once again for Jean.
“A case of revenants.”
“Revenants?”
“Yes, back from the dead. You’ll see.”
Is Sylvie dead then? Or has she betrayed her lover and run away with the precious stone? What role did the wealthy American expatriates that befriended them in a restaurant played in the disappearance? These questions have held Jean captive for years in the bright city on the French Riviera, the last place where Sylvie was a burning reality in his arms. He is not any closer to an answer in the current rainy season. Maybe there is no answer and he has become just another mummy or automaton, drinking his tea devoid of any sort of thrill on the Promenade des Anglais, hoping against hope that a familiar silhouette will once again pass by his table.
“Don’t you feel like this is all a dream?”
She smiled at me but looked nervous.
“And you’re afraid that at some point we’ll wake up?” she asked me.
Some unkind reader might call this style of storytelling the triumph of style over substance. I’m in the opposite camp: I like to work at the mystery, to try to fit the pieces of the puzzle into something that makes sense instead of being led by the hand and having everything spelled out to me by the author.
Modiano leaves behind enough clues about what is going on. He just dislikes linear narration and prefers a game of shadows and of cryptic utterances to shining a bright analytical light on his criminal cases.
“Nice is a dangerous town,” he said. “You meet some bad people here ...”
A big part of Jean’s amateur detective efforts are focused on the identity of Virgil Neale, an American living in a luxury villa and claiming embassy connections. Neale and his wife insinuate themselves into the lives of the secretive young lovers and eventually promise to arrange a buyer for the cursed diamond.
Sylvie was in the Neales company when last seen.
The only physical proof that Jean has to demonstrate that the Neales are real and not a figment of his imagination is a candid photo taken by a street photographer. Yet physical evidence is apparently not enough to pull Jean back from his dream world and into the present time. His own ideas about photography as art are seen as a sort of premonitory warning of his impending doom. La Varenne, despite its summer sunshine, is the place where he lost his youth, his innocence, his love. And all because of a cursed illusion of wealth.
“I can tell you are a sensitive young man who picks up on the atmosphere of a place, and that you understand what I’m saying. Make your photographs as black as possible.”
“I’ll try.”
Others before us had fought for it, others to come would wear it around their neck for a time, or on their finger, and it would traverse the centuries, hard and indifferent to the passing of time and the deaths of those it would leave behind. No, our anxiety didn’t come from our contact with that cold stone with glints of blue – it doubtless came from life itself.
You can probably tell from my review that I am a fan of Patrick Modiano and of his ability to imply more with less words than many a crime or fiction writer. I hope to move more of his books from the TBR to the ‘finished’ shelf.
June 16, 2025
Când împrumuți o carte de la bibliotecã, ești oarecum constrâns sã o și citeṣti. Zis ṣi fãcut. Câteva ore, gustãri rapide, ațipealã ca de moarte, ploaie rãcoritoare ṣi 140 de pagini pline de melacolie ṣi mister marca Modiano. Nu mã așteptam sã fie totul lãmurit la final (*știu cã așa scrie Modiano), dar acum enigma a rãmas total nedesluṣitã ṣi nici o ṣansã sã fiu pe aproape cu rezolvarea întrebãrilor. Nici traducerea nu a ajutat mai mult, expresii ca "sã înghit o înghițiturã" sau " vezi sã nu cazi de pe marginea marginii stâncii" mi-au iritat ochii ṣi neuronii. Aṣtept cu nerãbdare duminicile mele de august.
January 6, 2024
Há qualquer coisa de difuso e melancólico nos livros deste autor. Algo como o nevoeiro ou a neblina da manhã. O jovem casal, ele e ela, ambos ingénuos, ambos perdidos em busca de um sentido, tolamente românticos, tolamente crentes na vida. Não sei porquê, mas grande parte do livro decorreu em preto e branco na minha cabeça (apesar da história se passar em Nice que até é uma cidade bastante luminosa).
February 2, 2025
Patrick Modiano – Prémio Nobel da Literatura, 2014
pela arte da memória com a qual ele evocou os destinos humanos mais inatingíveis e descobriu a vida do mundo da ocupação [alemã]
Patrick Modiano é um escritor francês nascido a 30 de julho de 1945, em Boulogne-Billancourt, nos arredores de Paris. Ganhou reconhecimento pelo seu estilo único, marcado por temas como a memória, a identidade e a passagem do tempo. A sua obra é frequentemente ambientada em Paris, com personagens que parecem viver num estado de busca e incerteza.
Um mistério construído através de silêncios e omissões, e que nos desafiam a preencher as lacunas da história. A ausência de explicações directas torna a leitura intrigante, mas também labiríntica, o que pode gerar alguma frustração.
Resumindo: começamos com um mistério e terminamos sem certezas absolutas, apenas com fragmentos do puzzle.
November 17, 2015
I NEED SOME ANSWERS, I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING WITH THIS BOOK! WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED IN ALL THESE PAGES?
September 29, 2017
A slight but compelling trawl through the rootless, post-World War II French demi-monde that readers of Modiano's other work will be very familiar with.
April 15, 2026
«Неділі в серпні» прочитала із «Всесвіту» (№2, 1989) у перекладі Ярослава Коваля та Вадима Карпенка.
Модіано точно вартий уваги, оскільки він лауреат Ґонкурівської премії (1978) та Нобелівської премії (2014). Автор кількох десятків текстів (романів, оповідань, сценаріїв й всі — невеликого обсягу), щоправда українською перекладено небагато.
У випадку Модіано важливо не про що він пише, а як. Оскільки Нобелівський комітет завжди дає нам речення-опору, формулювання, на яке ми можемо спиратися, міркуючи про творчість письменника, узагальнюючи доробок, то і варто цим скористатися: у центрі — «мистецтво пам’яті». Модіано має свою схему розповіді й користується нею в кожному з текстів: є історія, насправді не надто глобальна чи глибока, але відразу незрозуміла. Автор закидає гачок, а потім розрізає історію, ніби піцу, на слайси. А читач снує колами разом із персонажами, які розповідають фрагменти цієї історії, та проковтує по шматочку. Хронотоп — неважливий, наповнення — теж, значення має лише колекціонування подекуди деталей, а часом частинок історії та власне складання пазлу наприкінці.
У романі «Неділі в серпні» є кохання оповідача та Сільвії, подружжя Нілів, з якими вони випадково знайомляться і зустрічаються за дивних обставин, колишній чоловік Сільвії, загадковий діамамант на шиї, втеча і переслідування, Лазуровий берег і минуле. Історія дрібного шахрайства та зради, її можна переказати у трьох реченнях, вона дрібна і дрібʼязкова, але те, як Модіано її подрібнив, у якій послідовності та як виклав перед нами, як йому вдається до кінця тримати напругу, про що говорять його персонажі, як працює їхня памʼять (а точніше «мистецтво памʼяті»), що вона видає — те, куди має бути спрямовано фокус читацької уваги. Це роман-спогад про одну інтижку. Це була любов чи короткочасне заходження? Скільки тривали ці стосунки — кілька неділь чи кілька років? Чи стосунки є головними, а може відчуття себе у пастці нерозуміння?
«У кімнаті, як завжди, стояв запах вогкості й цвілі. Часто ми, повернувшись сюди ввечері після довгого й марного дня, відчували самотність, і волога ніби заповзала нам під шкіру. Ми лежали в ліжку з рипучими пружинами, і нам починало здаватися, наче просякаємо тим запахом до самих кісток».
«Мені часто спадає на памʼять ота подерта давня кіноафіша на паркані, де написано «Спогади не продаються».
«У ті серпневі дні ми були, як і всі, й нічим не відрізнялися від решти людей».
Модіано точно вартий уваги, оскільки він лауреат Ґонкурівської премії (1978) та Нобелівської премії (2014). Автор кількох десятків текстів (романів, оповідань, сценаріїв й всі — невеликого обсягу), щоправда українською перекладено небагато.
У випадку Модіано важливо не про що він пише, а як. Оскільки Нобелівський комітет завжди дає нам речення-опору, формулювання, на яке ми можемо спиратися, міркуючи про творчість письменника, узагальнюючи доробок, то і варто цим скористатися: у центрі — «мистецтво пам’яті». Модіано має свою схему розповіді й користується нею в кожному з текстів: є історія, насправді не надто глобальна чи глибока, але відразу незрозуміла. Автор закидає гачок, а потім розрізає історію, ніби піцу, на слайси. А читач снує колами разом із персонажами, які розповідають фрагменти цієї історії, та проковтує по шматочку. Хронотоп — неважливий, наповнення — теж, значення має лише колекціонування подекуди деталей, а часом частинок історії та власне складання пазлу наприкінці.
У романі «Неділі в серпні» є кохання оповідача та Сільвії, подружжя Нілів, з якими вони випадково знайомляться і зустрічаються за дивних обставин, колишній чоловік Сільвії, загадковий діамамант на шиї, втеча і переслідування, Лазуровий берег і минуле. Історія дрібного шахрайства та зради, її можна переказати у трьох реченнях, вона дрібна і дрібʼязкова, але те, як Модіано її подрібнив, у якій послідовності та як виклав перед нами, як йому вдається до кінця тримати напругу, про що говорять його персонажі, як працює їхня памʼять (а точніше «мистецтво памʼяті»), що вона видає — те, куди має бути спрямовано фокус читацької уваги. Це роман-спогад про одну інтижку. Це була любов чи короткочасне заходження? Скільки тривали ці стосунки — кілька неділь чи кілька років? Чи стосунки є головними, а може відчуття себе у пастці нерозуміння?
«У кімнаті, як завжди, стояв запах вогкості й цвілі. Часто ми, повернувшись сюди ввечері після довгого й марного дня, відчували самотність, і волога ніби заповзала нам під шкіру. Ми лежали в ліжку з рипучими пружинами, і нам починало здаватися, наче просякаємо тим запахом до самих кісток».
«Мені часто спадає на памʼять ота подерта давня кіноафіша на паркані, де написано «Спогади не продаються».
«У ті серпневі дні ми були, як і всі, й нічим не відрізнялися від решти людей».
September 14, 2018
Αυτό είναι μόλις το δεύτερο βιβλίο του Νομπελίστα συγγραφέα Πατρίκ Μοντιανό που διαβάζω, μετά το πολύ καλό και ιδιαίτερο "Η μικρή Μπιζού", που διάβασα τον Σεπτέμβριο του 2016 (κοίτα να δεις σύμπτωση!). Λοιπόν, το "Κυριακές του Αυγούστου" είναι λιγότερο γνωστό από εκείνο το βιβλίο, αλλά προσωπικά μου φάνηκε ένα κλικ πιο πάνω. Βασικά προτερήματα του βιβλίου αυτού είναι η απίστευτα μελαγχολική και πιο-νουάρ-πεθαίνεις ατμόσφαιρα, καθώς και οι λιτές και ουσιαστικές περιγραφές των χαρακτήρων και των διαφόρων σκηνικών. Ο συγγραφέας κατάφερε με περισσή ευκολία να με μεταφέρει στην πανέμορφη Νίκαια, πραγματικά ήταν σαν να περπατούσα και 'γω μαζί με τον πρωταγωνιστή στους δρόμους της πόλης και να βλέπω με τα ίδια μου τα μάτια τα κτίρια και τα τοπία. Επίσης μου άρεσε αρκετά ο τρόπος αφήγησης, με τα μπρος-πίσω στον χρόνο (γενικά ο συγγραφέας αρέσκεται στο να παίζει λίγο με τις μνήμες και τις αναμνήσεις των χαρακτήρων του), όπως φυσικά και η όλη αίσθηση μυστηρίου που διαπνέει την πλοκή, η οποία κατάφερε να μου κρατήσει το ενδιαφέρον μέχρι το τέλος. Όσον αφορά το τέλος, κάποια πράγματα μπαίνουν στη θέση τους, ίσως κάποια ερωτήματα να μένουν αναπάντητα, θεωρώ πάντως ότι η ιστορία κλείνει ωραία και ικανοποιητικά. Γενικά, πρόκειται για ένα εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένο και ατμοσφαιρικό μυθιστόρημα, ό,τι πρέπει για λίγες ώρες αναγνωστικής απόλαυσης.
January 26, 2025
In the beginning, it was nothing but a matter of atmosphere, scenery ...
Ghosts never die. Their windows are always lit, like the windows in all the ochre and white buildings around me, their façades half hidden by the umbrella pines on the square.
We were like everyone else, there was nothing to set us apart from the others, those Sundays in August.
Original title Dimanches d'août (1986), translated from French to English by Damion Searls [Publisher Margellos World Republic of Letters, 2017].
This slim novella is all about vibes and atmosphere, but Modiano also excels with the melancholic looking back in blurred memory.
Everything eventually blurs together. The images of the past blend into a light, transparent haze that thins out, swells up, and takes on the shape of an iridescent balloon about to burst.
Ghosts never die. Their windows are always lit, like the windows in all the ochre and white buildings around me, their façades half hidden by the umbrella pines on the square.
We were like everyone else, there was nothing to set us apart from the others, those Sundays in August.
Original title Dimanches d'août (1986), translated from French to English by Damion Searls [Publisher Margellos World Republic of Letters, 2017].
This slim novella is all about vibes and atmosphere, but Modiano also excels with the melancholic looking back in blurred memory.
Everything eventually blurs together. The images of the past blend into a light, transparent haze that thins out, swells up, and takes on the shape of an iridescent balloon about to burst.
August 26, 2016
من الأفضل تسمية الرواية بدليل باريس السياحي وضواحيها
الاسهاب في ذكر أسماء الشوارع والجادات والفنادق كان مزعجاً جداَ
أحداث الرواية كانت رتيبة مملة والحوار بارداَ يدعوا للسأم
هذه الرواية لم تكن رواية بمعناها الدقيق على قدر ما كان محشواً بالاسماء
يكاد لا يخلو سطر الا وذكر فيه عدة فنادق وجادات وقرى ومناطق وشواطئ و هلمّ جراَ
كان الكاتب مشتتاً لم أجد أي حلقة وصل بين كل فقرة عن سابقتها او الذي يليها كأنما الكاتب حلّت عليه لعنة التيه في روايته أربعين خريفاً
بالنسبة للرواية أردت إكمالها فحسب لا لشيء مميز بها لكنني بشكل أو آخر أرغمت نفسي على إكمالها .
لم تكن مشجعه أبداً و أحداثها رغم قلتها كانت مضجرة ومشتتة .
الاسهاب في ذكر أسماء الشوارع والجادات والفنادق كان مزعجاً جداَ
أحداث الرواية كانت رتيبة مملة والحوار بارداَ يدعوا للسأم
هذه الرواية لم تكن رواية بمعناها الدقيق على قدر ما كان محشواً بالاسماء
يكاد لا يخلو سطر الا وذكر فيه عدة فنادق وجادات وقرى ومناطق وشواطئ و هلمّ جراَ
كان الكاتب مشتتاً لم أجد أي حلقة وصل بين كل فقرة عن سابقتها او الذي يليها كأنما الكاتب حلّت عليه لعنة التيه في روايته أربعين خريفاً
بالنسبة للرواية أردت إكمالها فحسب لا لشيء مميز بها لكنني بشكل أو آخر أرغمت نفسي على إكمالها .
لم تكن مشجعه أبداً و أحداثها رغم قلتها كانت مضجرة ومشتتة .
July 15, 2016
Leer Domingos de agosto es como tratar de armar un rompecabezas que quedó a la intemperie durante varias horas en un día húmedo y lluvioso. Las piezas están deformadas, difusas, la tinta se ha corrido y los dibujos no se ven. Y para colmo, no se tiene la imagen original del rompecabezas. Pero luego, cuando por fin podemos resolverlo, no podemos evitar tener una sensación de satisfacción por el hecho de haber lidiado con algo que, en un principio, parecía muy confuso, casi sin sentido; pero que luego, por fin, sí cobra sentido cerrando un círculo perfecto.
Modiano crea un libro, a priori, que no se puede encasillar en un género específico. Después, a medida que va avanzando la lectura, se podría decir que es de amor, de misterio, policíaco, etc. El francés es un autor al que hay que encontrarle la vuelta, entender su estilo. Puede ser que al principio (de hecho a mí me pasó), cueste entenderlo. Pero sólo cuando uno se acostumbra a cómo escribe es cuando realmente se puede disfrutar de sus formas. No por nada se le ha adjudicado el Premio Nobel de Literatura en 2014.
Domingos de agosto es una novela que confunde. No sólo por el estilo del autor, sino porque este crea unos personajes casi fantasmagóricos, enigmáticos. Y estos personajes están en un contexto similar; son dos factores que se retroalimentan. La atmósfera es sombría, misteriosa. Todos estos factores se juntan para constituir un libro en el que nada está claro, en el que el lector (y la trama en sí) se va formulando un montón de preguntas, cuyas respuestas siempre siguen el tono habitual de la novela de Modiano: ese aura de confusión, de engaño.
El autor va tirando pistas, indicios de lo que pasa pero nunca nos confirma nada; deja que el lector interprete. Y para colaborar más con esta atmósfera tan particular juega mucho con los cambios temporales, con evadir la cronología. Y es tarea del lector recomponer estos datos para, ahora sí, hacer una línea temporal en la que cada dato desencadene otro. Y ahí está lo que, creo yo, es la esencia de la novela: el hecho de que nunca sepamos qué es lo que en realidad pasa, no porque el autor se pase páginas y páginas hablando de cosas sin sentido, sino porque crea, con maestría, una trama que intriga, que genera incertidumbre, de la cual nosotros, los lectores, somos tan participativos como los propios personajes.
En conclusión, esta es una novela muy interesante, que tiene elementos que deben ser procesados y analizados bien para entenderlos y disfrutarlos. Seguramente Domingos de agosto sirve para empezar a leer a Modiano, para interiorizarnos en cómo escribe y cuál es la forma que le da a su estilo y a sus historias.
Modiano crea un libro, a priori, que no se puede encasillar en un género específico. Después, a medida que va avanzando la lectura, se podría decir que es de amor, de misterio, policíaco, etc. El francés es un autor al que hay que encontrarle la vuelta, entender su estilo. Puede ser que al principio (de hecho a mí me pasó), cueste entenderlo. Pero sólo cuando uno se acostumbra a cómo escribe es cuando realmente se puede disfrutar de sus formas. No por nada se le ha adjudicado el Premio Nobel de Literatura en 2014.
Domingos de agosto es una novela que confunde. No sólo por el estilo del autor, sino porque este crea unos personajes casi fantasmagóricos, enigmáticos. Y estos personajes están en un contexto similar; son dos factores que se retroalimentan. La atmósfera es sombría, misteriosa. Todos estos factores se juntan para constituir un libro en el que nada está claro, en el que el lector (y la trama en sí) se va formulando un montón de preguntas, cuyas respuestas siempre siguen el tono habitual de la novela de Modiano: ese aura de confusión, de engaño.
El autor va tirando pistas, indicios de lo que pasa pero nunca nos confirma nada; deja que el lector interprete. Y para colaborar más con esta atmósfera tan particular juega mucho con los cambios temporales, con evadir la cronología. Y es tarea del lector recomponer estos datos para, ahora sí, hacer una línea temporal en la que cada dato desencadene otro. Y ahí está lo que, creo yo, es la esencia de la novela: el hecho de que nunca sepamos qué es lo que en realidad pasa, no porque el autor se pase páginas y páginas hablando de cosas sin sentido, sino porque crea, con maestría, una trama que intriga, que genera incertidumbre, de la cual nosotros, los lectores, somos tan participativos como los propios personajes.
En conclusión, esta es una novela muy interesante, que tiene elementos que deben ser procesados y analizados bien para entenderlos y disfrutarlos. Seguramente Domingos de agosto sirve para empezar a leer a Modiano, para interiorizarnos en cómo escribe y cuál es la forma que le da a su estilo y a sus historias.
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August 24, 2024надворі серпень, завтра неділя, наче все сходиться.
це мій перший Модіано за останні два роки, але він такий самісінький, як і попередні: меланхолійний, lowkey детективний, органічно заплутаний. ну, майже такий: дії відбуваються в Ніцці замість Парижу, але в цілому все по-старому: фрагментарний сюжет, на цей раз про викрадення коштовностей, і знову наприкінці тексту запитань залишиться більше ніж відповідей. ну, просто як у житті: пам’ять ненадійна, пазл не завжди складається, третій сезон “Справжнього детектива” — найкращий. а ще тут Сильвія пішла, це ж тоді виходить інтертекст до іншої Сильвії, котра пішла ще 130 з гаком років тому, і в процесі так само прудко стрибала між таймлайнами, чи пам’ять мене знову зраджує? та ні, бути такого не може.
божечки, що ж я буду робити, коли закінчаться всі укр. переклади Модіано? питання риторичне.
🖤
це мій перший Модіано за останні два роки, але він такий самісінький, як і попередні: меланхолійний, lowkey детективний, органічно заплутаний. ну, майже такий: дії відбуваються в Ніцці замість Парижу, але в цілому все по-старому: фрагментарний сюжет, на цей раз про викрадення коштовностей, і знову наприкінці тексту запитань залишиться більше ніж відповідей. ну, просто як у житті: пам’ять ненадійна, пазл не завжди складається, третій сезон “Справжнього детектива” — найкращий. а ще тут Сильвія пішла, це ж тоді виходить інтертекст до іншої Сильвії, котра пішла ще 130 з гаком років тому, і в процесі так само прудко стрибала між таймлайнами, чи пам’ять мене знову зраджує? та ні, бути такого не може.
божечки, що ж я буду робити, коли закінчаться всі укр. переклади Модіано? питання риторичне.
🖤
April 25, 2022
Lovely. Modiano starts off by dropping us into a disorientating scene -- our narrator bumps into an old acquaintance of some sort, we don't know how they know each other, but the man keeps bothering the narrator about a common acquaintance, a woman. From there, Modiano weaves the plot mostly backwards, gradually allowing a more discernible plot to emerge from the haze of faded memories and several ambiguous scenes. As much as the outlines of the backstory become clearer the further along he takes us, the fog of uncertainty never completely leaves the story. An offbeat noir.
February 7, 2017
رواية تافهة جداً لا تستحق قيمة الترجمة والطباعة.
February 14, 2017
و يبقى السؤال : طيب و بعدين ؟؟
May 16, 2024
Here I am again, trying to review a Patrick Modiano after finishing it months ago. What a tricky thing it is as I have elaborated before. This time should have been easier too as the setting is one he barely features – Nice on the French Riviera. I also don’t remember ever having encountered before in a Modiano novel – two men, the narrator and Frederic Villecourt who circle each other like lions. Two men who are obviously morally ambiguous and often working on the wrong side of the law.
Usually there is a young innocent, male or female meeting such a person but not two on equal footing. The tension is palpable in the opening scenes as our narrator meets Villecourt, a man he once knew and obviously doesn’t want to speak to again, yet he agrees to a drink. There is mention of Val-de-Marne and a woman called Sylvia. And later the narrator remembers the priceless necklace called the Southern Cross that Sylvia always wore. And then the reader is back on a journey into the past with some marvellous scenes but no real resolution. I really loved the run-down swimming baths on the banks of the Marne called Le Beach and the scene where Sylvia and the narrator leave it.
“She smiled at me. We left Le Beach and walked down the middle of the La Varenne road parallel to the Marne. There were no cars. No one. Everything was silent and calm in the sunlight, and all the colours were soft: the blue of the sky, the pale green of the poplars and weeping willows. The waters of the Marne, usually murky and stagnant, was light that day, reflecting the clouds, trees, and the sky.”
And then we have the mysterious Mr and Mrs Neal who seem to want to spend a lot of time with the couple. Back in the present the narrator tries to track down the Neals. He visits their mansion in Nice, now deserted and run down and being looked after by a caretaker. A Mr and Mrs Neal lived there many years ago but too long ago to be the couple that were particularly interested in Sylvia and her necklace. They are ghosts like so many of Modiano’s characters.
“Ghosts never die. Their windows are always lit, like the windows in all the ochre and white buildings around me, their facades half hidden by the umbrella pines on the square. I stood up. I walked down Boulevard Victor-Hugo, involuntarily counting the plane trees.”
I am still haunted by one sentence near the end which threw me into confusion. Had I missed something or was Modiano just letting this important fact out now? And so it goes.....
Usually there is a young innocent, male or female meeting such a person but not two on equal footing. The tension is palpable in the opening scenes as our narrator meets Villecourt, a man he once knew and obviously doesn’t want to speak to again, yet he agrees to a drink. There is mention of Val-de-Marne and a woman called Sylvia. And later the narrator remembers the priceless necklace called the Southern Cross that Sylvia always wore. And then the reader is back on a journey into the past with some marvellous scenes but no real resolution. I really loved the run-down swimming baths on the banks of the Marne called Le Beach and the scene where Sylvia and the narrator leave it.
“She smiled at me. We left Le Beach and walked down the middle of the La Varenne road parallel to the Marne. There were no cars. No one. Everything was silent and calm in the sunlight, and all the colours were soft: the blue of the sky, the pale green of the poplars and weeping willows. The waters of the Marne, usually murky and stagnant, was light that day, reflecting the clouds, trees, and the sky.”
And then we have the mysterious Mr and Mrs Neal who seem to want to spend a lot of time with the couple. Back in the present the narrator tries to track down the Neals. He visits their mansion in Nice, now deserted and run down and being looked after by a caretaker. A Mr and Mrs Neal lived there many years ago but too long ago to be the couple that were particularly interested in Sylvia and her necklace. They are ghosts like so many of Modiano’s characters.
“Ghosts never die. Their windows are always lit, like the windows in all the ochre and white buildings around me, their facades half hidden by the umbrella pines on the square. I stood up. I walked down Boulevard Victor-Hugo, involuntarily counting the plane trees.”
I am still haunted by one sentence near the end which threw me into confusion. Had I missed something or was Modiano just letting this important fact out now? And so it goes.....
July 13, 2018
In Dimanches d'août / Sundays in August Patrick Modiano departs from his regular recipe in two ways. The first is that he situates the events in Nice rather than Paris. Of greater importance is that he tells the reader much more about the characters and the events. At the end of the novel, one feels that one indeed understands the protagonist. One knows what type of a person he is, what was the real nature of the crisis he confronted and what his true failings where. There are still many unexplained points but in this novel Modiano in fact does reveal the essentials to the reader.
The degree of revelation might disturb some of Modiano's committed fans. They may also be upset that there is a cursed piece of jewellry in it. This is a device that has been employed to great effect by many authors such as Tolkein (Lord of the Rings), Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone) or Richard Wagner (The Ring of the Nibelungen). I am not so sure however that Modiano's followers will be pleased.
Perhaps because I felt that I knew about what had happened in order to be able to judge, I liked Dimanches d'août much more than any of the other novels that I had read by Modiano. The point that several of Modiano's fans have made that one will come enjoy Modiano one reads enough of him now seems valid. It has been a slog but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the next Modiano novel that I read will be an absolute delight.
The degree of revelation might disturb some of Modiano's committed fans. They may also be upset that there is a cursed piece of jewellry in it. This is a device that has been employed to great effect by many authors such as Tolkein (Lord of the Rings), Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone) or Richard Wagner (The Ring of the Nibelungen). I am not so sure however that Modiano's followers will be pleased.
Perhaps because I felt that I knew about what had happened in order to be able to judge, I liked Dimanches d'août much more than any of the other novels that I had read by Modiano. The point that several of Modiano's fans have made that one will come enjoy Modiano one reads enough of him now seems valid. It has been a slog but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the next Modiano novel that I read will be an absolute delight.
September 9, 2019
أول ملاحظة هي أن موديانو صاحب قلم سلس أو باﻷحرى قلم متمكن للحد الذي يجعلك تظن أن كتابته لهذه الرواية لم تستنفده كبير جهد كما لم تأخذ من القاريء جهدا أكثر مما يتطلبه اﻹستغراق في متعة ما! بعد أن تنهي الرواية ستجد أنه لديك بعض التساؤﻻت عن مصائر شخصياتها أو كيف أصبح مصير فيلكور مثلا في بداية الرواية(الزمن الحاضر) إلى ما هو عليه كبائع جوال بعد أن كان ميسورا في نهاية الرواية(زمن ماض مسترجع)! لكن كل التساؤﻻت تبدو لي جزءا من الشكل الروائي الذي أراده موديانو، إذ قصد إلى اﻹلغاز منذ اعتمد(الفلاش باك) كتقنية لقصته التي نعتها بعض أصحاب المقاﻻت بالبوليسية-رومانسية، لكني أراها دراما سينمائية مشاهدية بدرجة كبيرة حتى وأنت تقرأ النص تكاد ترى سمات هذا الفيلم الرائع(تخيلته من أفلام السبعينات والثمانينات الفرنسية الساحرة على ساحل الريفييرا) والذي ﻻحظت بعد ختام الرواية وعلى غلافها الخلفي أنها أنتجت سينمائيا..آحاد أغسطس رواية بنكهة سينمائية
October 5, 2017
I loved SUNDAYS IN AUGUST by Patrick Modiano, the French writer who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature. As my readers know, I like place and setting in a novel. While most of Modiano's fiction is set in Paris this book is set in Nice where I live part of the year. So all the sites are familiar. They are the streets I walk again and again. This story is also different from most of Modiano in that it is a mystery of sorts which centers on the great diamond, the Southern Cross.Such a large stone can only lead to misery as it does here. I strongly recommend this novel as well as Modiano as a writer. I have read many of his books.
December 2, 2015
Patrick Modiano conta-nos uma história pseudo-policial, que perde algum do seu fulgor pela construção frágil da sua linha cronológica. É uma pequena leitura agradável, mas que não mostra grande engenho para um autor laureado com tantas honrarias (e Nobel da Literatura incluído).
September 14, 2025
La lectura de “Domingos de Agosto” de Patrick Modiano, escogida de la forma que más me gusta (al azar), ha significado para mí ser una auténtica sorpresa y disfrute. Ha sido como estar viendo una película de cine negro, de esas que se centran alrededor de una femme fatale, en un lugar urbano y repleto de claroscuros. Ha sido mi primera vez junto al autor y la experiencia ha sido muy positiva y satisfactoria.
Me han gustado mucho varias cosas; una ese lado sombrío y cargado de melancolía que gira entorno a la historia, algo que se presume entre las calles despobladas y lluviosas de una ciudad como Niza, en esos cafés vacíos y tenebrosos que bien pueden ejemplificar esa soledad, tristeza y desespero dentro de las secuencias de la trama. Otro punto destacado está en la puerta del antiguo y conocido Hotel Majestic, allí donde el autor nos presenta una historia que se empieza a fraguar en el presente y lo hace para llevarnos hasta el pasado de dos de sus protagonistas, ambos involucrados en su relación personal con Sylvia, una mujer casada y que acarrea consigo un anillo con una piedra de mucho valor y que contiene un enorme misterio.
Aunque he de reconocer que no son libros que suela leer habitualmente, al igual que ese tipo de cine más asociado al gánster o a las películas en blanco y negro, típicas de mediados del Siglo XX, es un libro que me ha atrapado y me ha tenido totalmente vibrando entre sus páginas. Son muchos los secretos que hay por descubrir, muchas las preguntas que el autor hace que, nosotros, los lectores, lleguemos a plantearnos. ¿Quiénes son realmente los personajes? ¿Son como se muestran en realidad? ¿Qué esconden bajo esa apariencia? Misterio, suspense, ganadores y perdedores, todo muy típico de ese tipo de dramaturgia.
En líneas generales es un libro que recomiendo mucho para todos aquellos a los que les guste leer este tipo de lecturas centradas en temas de misterio y suspense, con detectives e intereses de por medio, con una intriga sutil y enigmática que te atrapará, estoy seguro. Modiano nos propone un viaje a la Costa Azul francesa, concretamente a Niza, un pueblo de playas y climas preciosos, muy de noches y de arte, ofreciéndonos una historia de amor prohibido, y de persecución, con un talante evocador del autor y una narrativa poderosa y envolvente, en la que además, con sus palabras, también nos regala fotografías y escenarios, y un libro magistral, por supuesto.
"Éramos como todo el mundo, nada nos diferenciaba de los demás en aquellos domingos de agosto."
NOTA FINAL: 9/10
Me han gustado mucho varias cosas; una ese lado sombrío y cargado de melancolía que gira entorno a la historia, algo que se presume entre las calles despobladas y lluviosas de una ciudad como Niza, en esos cafés vacíos y tenebrosos que bien pueden ejemplificar esa soledad, tristeza y desespero dentro de las secuencias de la trama. Otro punto destacado está en la puerta del antiguo y conocido Hotel Majestic, allí donde el autor nos presenta una historia que se empieza a fraguar en el presente y lo hace para llevarnos hasta el pasado de dos de sus protagonistas, ambos involucrados en su relación personal con Sylvia, una mujer casada y que acarrea consigo un anillo con una piedra de mucho valor y que contiene un enorme misterio.
Aunque he de reconocer que no son libros que suela leer habitualmente, al igual que ese tipo de cine más asociado al gánster o a las películas en blanco y negro, típicas de mediados del Siglo XX, es un libro que me ha atrapado y me ha tenido totalmente vibrando entre sus páginas. Son muchos los secretos que hay por descubrir, muchas las preguntas que el autor hace que, nosotros, los lectores, lleguemos a plantearnos. ¿Quiénes son realmente los personajes? ¿Son como se muestran en realidad? ¿Qué esconden bajo esa apariencia? Misterio, suspense, ganadores y perdedores, todo muy típico de ese tipo de dramaturgia.
En líneas generales es un libro que recomiendo mucho para todos aquellos a los que les guste leer este tipo de lecturas centradas en temas de misterio y suspense, con detectives e intereses de por medio, con una intriga sutil y enigmática que te atrapará, estoy seguro. Modiano nos propone un viaje a la Costa Azul francesa, concretamente a Niza, un pueblo de playas y climas preciosos, muy de noches y de arte, ofreciéndonos una historia de amor prohibido, y de persecución, con un talante evocador del autor y una narrativa poderosa y envolvente, en la que además, con sus palabras, también nos regala fotografías y escenarios, y un libro magistral, por supuesto.
"Éramos como todo el mundo, nada nos diferenciaba de los demás en aquellos domingos de agosto."
NOTA FINAL: 9/10
August 10, 2021
لا أحب التنقيص من جهد المترجمين، لكنّ الترجمة الحرفية لاتصل للقارىء واستيعابه كما يجب:)
September 15, 2016
ربما أعود لأكتب عن هذه الرواية التي تلخصها قصيدة " المدينة" لكفافيس :
أنت قلت 'سأذهب إلى بلد آخر، إلى بحر آخر، إلى مدينة أخرى أحسن من تلك التي أعيش فيها
هنا كل ما أفعله مصيره الفشل
وقلبي ميت ومدفون مثل جثه
كم ستعاني روحي هنا؟
أينما توجهت، أينما نظرت
أري خرائب محترقة من حياتي هنا
حيث قضيت زمنا طويلا لا أفعل شيئا'
أنت لن تجد أرضا جديدة ولا بحرا جديدا
ستلاحقك هذه المدينة دوما
ستسكن في نفس الشوارع،
ويشيب شعر رأسِك في نفسِ المنازل.
سوف تنتهي هنا دائما
إنس أي مكان آخر.
فأنت لا تملك سفينة ولا طريق
والحياة التي ضيعتها هنا
ضيعتها في أيٌ مكاني آخر.
*
أغسطس 1894
أنت قلت 'سأذهب إلى بلد آخر، إلى بحر آخر، إلى مدينة أخرى أحسن من تلك التي أعيش فيها
هنا كل ما أفعله مصيره الفشل
وقلبي ميت ومدفون مثل جثه
كم ستعاني روحي هنا؟
أينما توجهت، أينما نظرت
أري خرائب محترقة من حياتي هنا
حيث قضيت زمنا طويلا لا أفعل شيئا'
أنت لن تجد أرضا جديدة ولا بحرا جديدا
ستلاحقك هذه المدينة دوما
ستسكن في نفس الشوارع،
ويشيب شعر رأسِك في نفسِ المنازل.
سوف تنتهي هنا دائما
إنس أي مكان آخر.
فأنت لا تملك سفينة ولا طريق
والحياة التي ضيعتها هنا
ضيعتها في أيٌ مكاني آخر.
*
أغسطس 1894
January 24, 2018
رواية متعبة جداً ، يتضح أن المترجم قد حاول بذل أقصى ما في وسعه لكن أسلوب الكاتب معقد جداً و سرد طويل وممل جداً جداً لأسماء الشوارع و الأماكن ربما إن اخرجت كل الأسماء من الرواية لتبقى 50 صفحة فقط من الأحداث ، و طريقة الحكيّ مشتتة جداً يبدأ من أخر القصة و يتنقل بين المنتصف و النهاية و البداية في كل فصل مما جعلني تائهة ، بدأت قراءة الرواية في يوليو 2017 و انهيتها ف يناير 2018 ، هذه أطول مدة أقضيها في رواية مهما طالت ، و آحاد اغسطس هذه رغم قصرها إلا أنها مملة جدا كنت كثيراً ما أتركها جانباً لأقرأ شيئاً أخر ، بإنتهائها أشعر أنني خرجت من سجن مظلم .
August 3, 2015
All Modiano's books take place in two times: a present so immediate as to seem hallucinated & a past so compelling it cannot be escaped. Likewise there are always two identities: the one you're trying to flee and the one you hoped would hide you. This is, so far, for me one of the most exquisite of his works...
May 17, 2024
Sundays in August is a dark novel set in shadows and melancholy.
It tells the story of two lovers in hiding with a diamond necklace. Although the events leading to their hiding and the necklace's provenance are murky, and the ending is unresolved, Modiano traps the reader with his atmospheric and poetic narrative. I liked the way he created his story with faded memories…
It tells the story of two lovers in hiding with a diamond necklace. Although the events leading to their hiding and the necklace's provenance are murky, and the ending is unresolved, Modiano traps the reader with his atmospheric and poetic narrative. I liked the way he created his story with faded memories…
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