À Modiano

Patrick Modiano is my idol, so I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. (And sort of pissed: partly for not having betted, partly for not having had a media strategy to follow up on this – since we appointed him this morning, three hours before the Swedish Academy did!)

You will have to wait, then, for my long-ass analysis of how Modiano's complex relationship to the past (and, most importantly, memory as our access to it) in many ways is linked to Bergman's work in, say, Wild Strawberries, Sunday's Children or Saraband.

Which, by the way, makes him the second Frenchman in a short while with a special rapport with Bergman. But where J-M G Le Clézio's cinephilia in general and admiration for Bergman in particular is plain to see, Modiano's relationship with Bergman seems more like an illicit affair, best not mentioned. (Well, that Modiano is a cinephile is fairly obvious.)

I would be surprised, though, if he wouldn't mention Bergman when in Stockholm to accept the award. (If nothing else, he'll be forced to by the Swedish press.)

So maybe I'll be back with more. For the time being, here's the archival object of the day, this time accompanied.

No, I wasn't dreaming. The proof is a scribbled black notebook which I still have. In this haze I need the exact words, so I consult my dictionary: 'Note: short, written text to support memory.' On the pages of the notebook there are names, phone numbers, appointments and even short passages which may have something to do with literature. But to what category do they belong? Journal? Fragments of memory?

(L'herbe des nuits, Paris: Gallimard, 2012.)