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"Who was Louki? Did anyone really know? She made her mark on all of us in different ways. We all remember her, some of us more than others, but did any of us truly know her? Can anyone honestly say they know another person? In the Cafe of Lost Youth is vintage Patrick Modiano, an absorbing evocation of a particular Paris of the 1950s, shadowy and shady, a secret world of writers, criminals, drinkers, and drifters. The novel, which includes vignettes of a number of historical figures and is inspired in part by the circle (depicted in the photographs of Ed van der Elsken) of the notorious and charismatic Guy Debord, centers on the enigmatic, waiflike figure of Louki, who catches everyone's attention even as she eludes possession or comprehension. Through the eyes of four very different narrators, we contemplate Louki's character and her fate, while Modiano explores the themes of identity, memory, time, and forgetting that are at the heart of his hypnotic and deeply moving art"--… (more)
User reviews
Told obliquely by different characters, including Louki herself, this highly evocative tale captures a certain wistful bohemian existence which may not be accessible to us now. This is Modiano at his best, just beyond the edge of narrative. The kind of writing that, if the “events” of the story were lined up in linear order, the entire sense would be lost. I was transfixed.
Definitely recommended.
The changes of point of view were remarkable and helped to move the story along but it is a thin story, more insinuating than really telling and the overall result
Louki is the poor daughter of a single mother and she has lost out on the only real opportunity in her life. She drifts through her life in 1950's Paris, meeting people, but never really knowing them, while they never
It's a story seeped in Paris alienation and loss. Such a good story. Such a sad story.