Christine's Reviews > Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

It’s sad but I hadn’t heard of Patrick Modiano until he won the Nobel. Honestly, my first reaction was “who is that”.

Yeah, American press doesn’t do too well when it comes to books that require translation.

In terms of style, at least in these three novellas, a reader can see why Modiano won the Nobel Prize. There is a beauty in the simple sentences that are not over loaded with unnecessary words or description. It isn’t so much the simple setting of the stories in Paris that bring the city to mind, it is Modiano’s writing. I can’t really describe what aspect of his writing does this, but there is something of Paris in the style (or at least how the style is translated).

But in terms of plot, at some points the point felt a little loose and a little lost at times. This is particularly true of the last story, “Ruined Flowers”, and far less true of the middle story, the title story itself. This story is about a young boy, his brother, and his mysterious guardians. The first story, “Afterimage” is stronger than the last story and almost as gripping as the second. It concerns a photographer as viewed though the memories of man who himself is reaching the photographer’s age. It doesn’t have the mystery that “Suspended Sentences” does. IT is more melancholy, and yet, strangely, slight more hopeful.

In many ways, the stories are shadows, constantly shifting, murky, like night in the city of lights.