"In The Café of Lost Youth" by Patrick Modiano - Translated by Chris Clarke (NYRB)

ISBN 978-1-59017-953-6 NYRB

"In The Café of Lost Youth" by Patrick Modiano / Translated by Chris Clarke (NYRB)

As much as possible, I try to read every book - fiction and non-fiction on the city of Paris, especially if it took place in the 1950s.  Of my interest, the post-war years are the most interesting to me.  Great films, wonderful music and really interesting figures emerge from Paris during that time.  I suspect that Patrick Modiano feels the same way about Paris, because "In The Café of Lost Youth" is very much a love letter (or love novel) to Paris - especially the nighttime of Paris.  Where the characters wander around various neighborhoods and cafés and occasionally listen to lectures.  I do not even know for sure, but I suspect that the novel is based on Ed van der Elsken's book of photos "Love on the Left Bank" that tells a tale of a girl who wanders into the world of the Letterists/Situationists. There is likewise a character that is based on Guy Debord, but not overly him, but an "ideal" version of Debord. 

I like the novel for all the above reasons, but it is not as good as Michèle Bernstein's novel "All The King's Horses" or "The Night."   She was married to Debord, and her fiction can be read as 'maybe' a memoir.  Nevertheless, Modiano is sort of the after-effect of such literature by Bernstein.  His, is a very romantic narrative - and there are at least four running narratives on the same girl, "Lluki" who is both a wanderer as well as a bohemian adventurer in the night life of Paris.  If nothing else, it makes one wish to purchase an one-way ticket to Paris. 

"Paris!, Photos 1950-1954" by Ed Van Der Elsken

A very personal book on city life by the great photographer Ed Van Der Elsken.  i first discovered his book "Love on the Left Bank" some years ago, when I first got interested in Situationists/Letterists and every other movement that came from St. Germain des Prés (Hello Boris Vian!).

What i find striking is that as the Beat Era was happening, so was the urge to find a better creative life as well in Paris.  Boho culture is Boho culture, and it goes beyond national, international or via a very readable sense of time-line history.  When you look at these images from the early 1950's, you think you are looking at Punk era 1977.  Its amazing how history repeats itself in such mysterious ways.   Beautiful book "Paris! Photos 1950-1954" and its great that I found it at my local used bookstore (Alias East on Glendale).

All images down below are from "Paris! Photos 1950-1954."

Photo by Ed Van Der Elsken

Photo by Ed Van Der Elsken

Self-Portrait by Ed Van Der Elsken

photo by Ed Van Der Elsken

Photo by Ed Van Der Elsken

Photo by Ed Van Der Elsken