Chevreuse de Patrick Modiano, ou la quête mémorielle d’un passé insaisissable
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Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Werset
Abstract
C’est un topique des écrits de Patrick Modiano que de partir sur les traces d’existences disparues. Mettant en scène un personnage qui tente de se ressaisir de son propre passé menacé par l’oubli, Chevreuse se comprend comme une variation sur thème. Il est toutefois singulier que la modalité de cette quête mémorielle soit introspective. Aussi s’agit-il d’explorer la manière dont la narration élabore une tension entre l’apparente lâcheté de l’intrigue qui se fait mimétique de l’expérience même de remémoration, et la tentative d’élaborer par l’écriture un réseau permettant aux souvenirs de faire sens les uns par rapport aux autres. Dans cette perspective, nous étudierons les deux valences de l’écriture qui embrasse les circonvolutions d’une mémoire lacunaire autant qu’elle se mue en instrument herméneutique ; puis nous montrerons qu’en dernière instance, cet ars memoriae se dote d’une poétique du rêve et de l’imagination afin de dépasser cette ambivalence et de procéder à la recréation mentale d’un monde disparu.
Following in the footsteps of vanished existences is one of the motifs of Patrick Modiano’s writings. Chevreuse is a variation on this theme, featuring a character who tries to recover his past, threatened by oblivion. It is, however, singular that the modality of this memorial quest is introspective. This article will explore how the narrative navigates the tension between the apparent looseness of the plot, which becomes mimetic of the experience of remembering itself, and the attempt to create, by means of writing, a network allowing the memories to make sense of one another. From this perspective, we will study the two valences of the writing which embrace the convolutions of a lacunar memory on its becoming a hermeneutic instrument; then we will demonstrate that this ars memoriae endows itself with a poetics of dream and imagination to overcome this ambivalence and to proceed to the mental recreation of a disappeared world.
Following in the footsteps of vanished existences is one of the motifs of Patrick Modiano’s writings. Chevreuse is a variation on this theme, featuring a character who tries to recover his past, threatened by oblivion. It is, however, singular that the modality of this memorial quest is introspective. This article will explore how the narrative navigates the tension between the apparent looseness of the plot, which becomes mimetic of the experience of remembering itself, and the attempt to create, by means of writing, a network allowing the memories to make sense of one another. From this perspective, we will study the two valences of the writing which embrace the convolutions of a lacunar memory on its becoming a hermeneutic instrument; then we will demonstrate that this ars memoriae endows itself with a poetics of dream and imagination to overcome this ambivalence and to proceed to the mental recreation of a disappeared world.
Description
Keywords
Patrick Modiano, mémoire, introspection, mise en abyme, écriture, memory, writing
Citation
"Quêtes littéraires" 2022, nº 12, s. 234=245