Suspended Sentences

Hello Gentle Reader

When I was younger, crime was both abhorrent and repugnant as it was to a degree romantic. Bank robberies and homicide were disgusting acts. Atrocities beyond my childhood capabilities of comprehension – and yet they were soon out done, by far more extraordinary acts of nihilistic human cruelty. The capacity it seems at times to do horrible acts of violence, against one another, would almost lead anyone to believe that human beings are inherently evil. Yet human beings are not inherent in any moral direction – be it altruistic or evil. The age old perspectives – and the black and white theory, that human beings sway on a pendulum, in the divided moral world; is out dated and archaic. It’s not relevant nor is it revelatory. The archaic term ‘sin,’ and everyone being tempted to ‘sin,’ or by ‘sin,’ is also in dire need of being filed in the waste bin. For that concept is merely rubbish. Human beings are not ripped from the womb, with any predetermined concept of their inherent nature, in regards to morality or immorality. Human beings are inherently amoral. They lack morals, in the beginning. Children are naïve and ignorant. Why else would they require guidance and lessons on being polite and doing ‘the right things,’? There is no child born who decides from that first breath to their last, that they will be a murderer, that they will be a bank robber, or a tyrant. These predilections are developed over time; through environment, through development and upbringing.

To my younger self though – some crimes were slightly romantic. What young man did not dream of being an international spy like James Bond? Martini’s shaken and not stirred. Licenses to kill. A life of luxury and opulence; with the dangers and adventures associated with espionage. This was the beginning of my understanding of how some professions, and some trades were morally ambiguous – or in fact amoral period; but were justified in long winded reports, and oratory inquiries in which the shadows in which these people operated, was that: the curtains and the faded world beneath our feet, and behind our walls, in which daily existence was threatened. They had to be as ambiguous and as obscure in ‘moral justifications,’ as were the people, they were working towards stopping. Still, it was the glitz and the glamour. The diamonds, the money, the gentlemen like air and appearance – yet beneath that posh exterior, their existed an individual lost in a world of shifting shades, and dimming light. It was a world of midnight dashes; after hour meetings, and a perpetual game of cat and mouse, and always running and looking behind oneself. Their glamour soon faded. Martinis ran out. No friends to call. No associates to contact. That poor figure would find himself, standing in the rain, beneath a street light, looking for that flicker in a shadow to go back to that place, which has now become home.

The only other underworld escapade that I could even envision then, and still half believe today with those romantic inclinations – is that of the paradoxical ‘gentleman thief.’ Those dashing gentlemen, with their charisma and charm, took what they wanted. These were thieves who could not be bothered with the mundane and the monotonous. They were not bank robbers, like Bonnie and Clyde, with a Thompson submachine gun in hand, taking cash by force and threat. No these men were dressed in suits and ties; they articulated their speech to an art form of eloquence. They knew when to speak; and when to observe. These were devilish men; but in a welcoming way. They made everyone feel that they were on top of the world in some manner or another. A falsified belief; perpetrated by such a con man. And yet in some way, it is still an admirable quality. That ability to let anyone think that at that moment, they are the only one in that world, and at that moment, and that moment alone, that they have finally come to realize their own moment of grandeur. If only in the end to realize it was a charade, and a lie. An act in which, the individual who had guided them and led them to that understanding, had merely done so, only in the best interest themselves: that charming con man. Yet how quickly they change from welcomed dinner party guest to; to thief is a bewildering one. The suit is abandoned for black slacks and black turtlenecks – an, attire that I associate with artists and jewel thief’s or art heists. These men were far more attracted to the terms priceless or jewel or art. They were not petty enough to waste time with money and paper – false commodities that offer illusions of wealth. They were after status and culture. Yet even these men, lock themselves into a world of paranoia. Their walls adorned by art, their safes sparkling with jewels. And yet a void exists. It skirts around the walls; peeking through windows – it’s a romantic life of charm and status; but filled with the emptiness of alienation deprived of social connections on any level of actual depth or intimacy.

Such is the world that the, two-thousand and fourteen Nobel Laureate in Literature, Patrick Modiano writes about. The world of Modiano is coloured in sepia tones, as well as black and white. The streets of Paris in his works are not over crowded; but are abandoned and deserted. It is because of the absence of people that the streets of Paris in Modian’s books become intimate in their own way. Yet this is a Paris that is lost, to the modern day city of love and lights. Modiano’s Paris is haunted by the occupation; by cowardice, and is inhabited by turn coats, and traitors. It is this Paris that Modiano writes of: a Paris of curfews, of foreign men in its city with power; and foreign laws discriminating against the locals of Paris itself, and France as an entire nation. Patrick Modiano’s life has been haunted by the occupation; a dark time in the history of not only the city but also France; and has been quickly jotted down in the history books, and left in such a state of memory. It is best to leave it on plaques and in text books, and chapters in books, as not to dwell on it.

Yet for Modiano it is a time in history that lurks in the streets of modern day Paris. It lies beneath the streets like the catacombs. Each and every day the streets are walked upon, and not once do those same streets insinuate the recent past. Yet those that lived in the city at that time know full well of the dangers that those streets possessed, and had watched as those dangers befell those unfortunate enough to have found it released upon them. These people casually watched from their balconies, and their windows, as people are detained, questioned and humiliated by the occupying forces. Some of these people may have even participated in the black market dealings of the time. For at the time they had though that it was the right move at the right time; only to have found themselves answering for those crimes at later dates. These crimes would be answered for. The criminals purged. The era reconciled. And so some would say begins the healing process.

This is what Modiano’s work is all about. It is the continual remembrance of a time now past; yet a time that has scarred many individuals, and weights heavily on their minds. The narrators of these three novella’s are often at times outside looking into, the memories of others, via happenstance and circumstances. It starts with chance encounters. Those small insignificant moments of chance and fate. Such as meeting a photographer in a café, who casually takes a picture, and from there a friendship in the loosest of terms is formed. From there small fragments are shared of one’s life to another. The details are however myopic. They are small and do not implicate the greater or larger part of the memory being shared; or how such a small memory has any connection to the greater chain of memories that forms a human beings life. Yet in the case of Francis Jansen from “Afterimage,” it is easy to see how that chain has its choke hold on his life, and slowly has tightened over the years. Yet Modiano’s narrators continually search for answers, which are often evaded. The individuals holding such answers often abruptly leave, without saying a word. Those that have implicated their departure; often state they will send a postcard. But one would always wait in vain; as such a final gift that rekindles their presence, in a world of their absence; never arrives.

Patrick Modiano’s books have been cited as: acquired tastes. His style is bare bones and bleached – but not by any means simplistic. Characterization is not heavily introduced into his works of fiction. The settings are there; but spoken of as if they are known and are intimately set with passing glimpses and references. It is not necessarily his characters, or his depicted landscapes that make Modiano’s writing so fascinating; it is the atmosphere that in a few words, and after a few short pages, he is able to capture and release onto the written page. Patrick Modiano takes the guise of crime fiction for his novels, but never follows the rules of the genre itself. Rather Modiano uses the form and genre slightly to create, a sense of menace, from what is left unspoken and the abrupt departures, and presences of people entering and exiting ones lives.

It is easy to see why many readers, advise emerging acquaintances to Patrick Modiano’s novels, to read more than just one of his books – but rather read many of his works. Modiano is the kind of author who rehashes and reuses many similar parts of his books; but offers changes to keep them interesting and not to give the understanding that he is recycling his work over and over again. He has turned the Occupation of France – and Paris, into that lingering ghost of many people’s lives, where the horrors of the world, had not only invaded their lives, but occupied it. It is these characters – detached, dejected and evasive; are often the subject of curiosity by the narrators who are removed from these characters, and yet seek to understand, without receiving any real answers. There is a sense with these three novella’s that makeup and engross “Suspended Sentences,” that they are part memoir and autobiography; but also part exorcism and investigation at the same time.

The three novellas’s presented here, are elegiac and discuss how compliance can become criminal and as illicit as perpetrating the crimes themselves. The novellas discuss another time; another world; a place quickly placed into history and left there. Yet for Modiano it is a well – or a spring; that continually is a reminder of the traumas of a period not yet bleached from history; but often overlooked – and so Modiano in his writings does not forget, and through turning writing in to the ‘art of memory,’ he continually grapples with a past that grows less tangible, the more time marches forward. Modiano does not bare witness to history in this case; but evaluates it and analyses it as if it were patient that has walked into his office, ready to divulge its crimes and its secrets. Yet in the case of Modiano’s work it is not openly revealed. Many doors are open; but none are closed; and those that are open only walls can be found. No answers are ever given; but questions linger and haunt afterwards.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

M. Mary