PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Patrick Modiano's remarkably short novels keep their distance from major, more extensive forms such as the grand narrative (or grand recit) of the French occupation. The theme of his approximately 30 hooks is the occupation under Vichy and the process of memory that, rather than painting a grand tableau or panorama of French collaboration, resistance, anti-Semitism, and persecution, proceeds metonymically from traces. However, his novels suggest seriality through their common vanishing point, the interrelationship of their references, and the recurring presence of detective narrators which is promoted by interference, iteration and name identities. This has led critics to read Modiano's many novels as one single great novel. This article explores Modiano's skepticism toward large narrative forms and examines the extent to which his poetic interest is focused on the surplus of grand narratives.