Author: Patrick Modiano, Jean-Jacques Sempe (Illustrator)
Translator: Se-wook Lee
Publisher: Yeollinchaekdeul
107 pages.
| Important! Please read before you order! |
| >>>This book is written in Korean only. |
About This Book
From Publishers Weekly
In this novella, ensconced in a roomy picture-book format with
feather-light illustrations, a dancer reminisces on her childhood in the 10th
arrondissement in Paris. Catherine Certitude remembers living with her French
father, a dreamer whose storefront "package business" may have been a smuggling
operation. Her father tolerates a pedantic partner who once saved him "from the
clutches of the law"; an old shipping manifest lists "30 Bouteilles de Rhum."
She recalls her American mother's letters from the States ("Sometimes Mama made
spelling mistakes"), her ballet lessons with a tragic woman who feigns a Russian
accent and her father's humiliation at a society party where he pathetically
pretends to be rich ("His brown suit clashed with everyone else's light, summery
clothes"). Modiano deals in ambiguity; even Catherine's firm surname is an
immigration officer's conception. She also says she and her father escaped the
"world as it was" by removing their glasses: "Everything around us became soft
and fuzzy. Time stopped. We felt fine." New Yorker illustrator Semp‚ suggests
intangible memories with a wispy ink line and filmy watercolor tints. He
pictures Catherine as a slender child with blonde braids, striking comically
graceful dance poses and sharing her father's wistful smile. This lovely book
suggests the delicacy and strength of an eggshell. It demands a nuanced
understanding of the past ("We always stay the same, and the people we have been
in the past go on living until the end of time," muses Catherine) and human
foibles.
About the Author
Patrick Modiano is one of the most celebrated French novelists of his
generation. He has collaborated with Louis Malle on the film Lacombe Lucien and
has written over fifteen novels.
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