Een stamboek

This brief memoir by Modiano, the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, concerns the first 21 years of his life, after he was born to an indifferent Flemish actress and a ne'er-do-well Jewish man in Paris who met during the Occupation. He was the unmarried couple's only surviving

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child, and he was passed on to relatives and friends like an unwanted pet for most of his early years. Although his parents appear to be colorful, if irresponsible, characters and his childhood would seem to have been a chaotically unique and potentially interesting one, Modiano chooses to list the people that entered and exited his life in a droll chronological matter, without analysis or reflection, as if he was filling out a lengthy school entrance or government form about his past, which made this book a mind numbingly dull read. Fortunately it was a short book, but it was worth about 1/100th of the $25 I paid for it.

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Are you new to Modiano? Because this is tedious in the extreme: a list of names, streets, and very occasional events, which would be of interest had I read most of his other work, but having read only a few novellas before this one, is of very little interest at all. Which is to say: don't start

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here. Start, but don't start here.

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