Missing Person -

Patrick Modiano

David R. Godine Publisher

2004

168 páginas

5h 36m

ISBN-10: 1567922813

Winner of the Prix Goncourt
In this strange, elegant novel, winner of France's premier literary prize, Patrick Modiano portrays a man in pursuit of the identity he lost in the murky days of the Paris Occupation, the black hole of French memory.
For ten years Guy Roland has lived without a past. His current life and name were given to him by his recently retired boss, Hutte, who welcomed him, a onetime client, into his detective agency. Guy makes full use of Hutte's files – directories, yearbooks, and papers of all kinds going back half a century – but his leads are few. Could he really be the person in that photograph, a young man remembered by some as a South American attaché? Or was he someone else, perhaps the disappeared scion of a prominent local family? He interviews strangers and is tantalized by half-clues until, at last, he grasps a thread that leads him through the maze of his own repressed experience.
On one level Missing Person is a detective thriller, a 1950s film noir mix of smoky cafés, illegal passports, and insubstantial figures crossing bridges in the fog. On another level, it is also a haunting meditation on the nature of the self. Modiano's sparce, hypnotic prose, superbly translated by Daniel Weissbort, draws his readers into the intoxication of a rare literary experience.

Resenhas (13)

3.5 (Bom)

Uma rua de Roma

Estava sentindo falta de ler um clássico da literatura e amei ter encontrado esse. Recomendo a leitura. Aqui temos a história de um homem que está em busca de reencontrar sua identidade tendo perdido todos os traços de lembrança a respeito de si mesmo. É interessante acompanhá-lo nessa jornada a procura de quem ele foi, em uma época em que não havia a tecnologia de hoje. Sua busca nos jornais, por cartas e indo pessoalmente até as pessoas que poderiam ter feito parte de seu passado nos transportam exatamente até o passado. A história prende e nos faz ansiar pelo encontro das respostas junto com o personagem. O final é capaz de nos deixar contemplativos em relação a vida e às coisas que nós mesmos buscamos.