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| The Space of Paris in Modiano’s Writings |
| Shi Yeting |
| School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China |
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Abstract Paris is inexhaustibly depicted in the writings of the French writer Patrick Modiano during World War Ⅱ and in the 1960s. It is different from the real Paris and also different from that in the imagination and description displayed by others, presenting, at the same time, a combination of precision of reality and poetic symbolism, which is typical of Modiano’s style. The writer substitutes the fragmented and mosaic time for the linear one in his narration, and endows time with the spatial dimension to make it rich and diversified. Time and space are closely related and interdependent, which is a major feature of Modiano’s creation. In the second half of the Twentieth Century, the spatial criticism received increasing attention, and became a more innovative theoretical perspective. To literature, space is not only a place or a background of the story, but an element that is closely related to human activities. Time is no longer the only reference to tracing memories. Modiano’s writing is not only wandering through time but also advancing in space. Compared with time which has been studied more frequently, space has been proved to be more innovative and have more possible theoretical perspectives; therefore, it deserves more profound researches and explorations. Studying Modiano’s Paris is a way to discover the writer’s art of writing. Henri Lefebvre divides space into three categories: physical space including nature and the universe as a whole; spiritual space covering logical abstraction and inner emotion; and social space encompassing power symbol and social relationship. The richness and uniqueness of Modiano’s Paris can be considered from the three different levels of Lefebvre’s theory.Modiano describes Paris, as a physical space, with an authentic division of its urban area, a series of precise addresses, and a faithful and meticulous description of space, which helps give the writer’s literary space a strong sense of historical reality. Besides, when describing the space, Modiano excels in using a cinema-like perspective: a “pan shot” perspective or “deep-focus shot” perspective, in that it presents the visual reality in front of the reader. The perspective of “standing by the window”, furthermore, connects authenticity with imagination, reality with emotion, landscape with thinking, and finally upgrades Modiano’s Paris from a physical level to a spiritual level. Modiano divides Paris into the inner and outer ring roads, the left and right side of the Seine River at a spiritual level: rejection or affection, integrity or betrayal. Characters’ emotions, thoughts, and daily activities all correspond to the city’s subdivision. This is the human value of the space that Gaston Bachelard pays attention to: The imagination enables Paris, as a literary space, to transcend its physical attributes and become an entity of human experience, perception and reflection. Every district of Paris has a different atmosphere, which has a significant impact on the emotions, psychology and ways of thinking of the characters, becoming thus poetic in the eyes of the characters. Modiano’s Paris is therefore poetic and fanciful. From the social perspective, it becomes a space containing the confrontation of power relations: the ruler and the ruled, the strong and the weak. In this world, the strong dominate the weak, and the weak respond in their own way. The characters have changed the social relationship and the balance of power in the form of loss, escape, rebellion and search, which constantly reacts to the space and shapes it. Paris is described and summarized by some more abstract spatial concepts: a “neutral zone” in which everything is unresolved, an “escape line”, the concept of Gilles Deleuze, and a “horizon” representing hope for the future. It has a richer and multi-level interaction with human destiny and memory. Paris in Modiano’s writing, as a specific kind of “realms of memory”, stays in an open, non-binary state of eternal change. Thus, Modiano’s Paris embodies, in turn, a characteristic of richness, profundity and uniqueness.
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Received: 29 September 2019
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2021, Vol. 51 
