After the Circus: A Novel

by Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (Translator)

Overview

A classic novel from recent Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, now available to English-language readers in a superb new translation

One of the hallmarks of French author Patrick Modiano’s writing is a singular ability to revisit particular motifs and episodes, infusing each telling with new detail and emotional nuance. In this evocative novel the internationally acclaimed author takes up one of his most compelling themes: a love affair with a woman who disappears, and a narrator grappling with the mystery of a relationship stopped short.
 
Set in mid-sixties Paris, After the Circus traces the relationship between the narrator, a young man not quite of legal age, and the slightly older, enigmatic woman he first glimpses at a police interrogation. The two lovers make their uncertain way into each other’s hearts, but the narrator soon finds himself in the unsettling, ominous presence of others. Who are these people? Are they real, or simply evoked? Part romance, part detective story, this mesmerizing book fully demonstrates Modiano’s signature use of atmosphere and suggestion as he investigates the perils and the exhilaration of young love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300215892
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Series:	Margellos World Republic of Letters Series
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	1,261,152
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature and an internationally beloved novelist, has been honored with an array of prizes, including the 2010 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca by the Institut de France for lifetime achievement and the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti has translated more than forty books from the French and is director of the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Editorial Reviews

"The world of Pedigree is the demi-monde of shady deals, aliases, informers and men on the run. It is equally a world in which Raymond Queneau befriends the aspiring author. . . . Quite a pedigree has this ever-more-fascinating Nobel Prize-winner."—Times Literary Supplement

"Mr Modiano’s novels are pervaded by a sexual and moral ambivalence and by social and political ambiguity. Improbable aristocrats, likeable eccentrics, would-be actresses, circus performers and cabaret workers—no one is ever who they appear to be. And Paris features as a character in her own right, refusing to surrender the secrets of her past."—The Economist

"A timely glimpse at [Modiano’s] fixations . . . In Mark Polizzotti’s spare and elegant translation, the writing conveys a sense of dreamy unease in which the real, the hypothesized, and the half-forgotten blend into a shimmering vagueness."—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"Elegant . . . quietly unpretentious, approachable . . . Though enigmatic and open-ended, Modiano’s remembrances of things past and his probings of personal identity are presented with a surprisingly light touch. He is, all in all, quite an endearing Nobelist."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"Mr. Modiano writes clear, languid, and urbane sentences in Mr. Polizzotti’s agile translation . . . these novellas have a mood. They cast a spell."—Dwight Garner, New York Times

"[After the Circus] transposes Modiano’s favorite themes into a taut, hard-boiled crime story. . . . Modiano is writing metaphysical mystery stories, in which the search for answers is never afforded an easy solution. The more of Modiano’s work you read, the more familiar and inevitable his peculiar set of obsessions starts to feel—which is one sign of a major writer."—Adam Kirsch, Daily Beast

"This brief, polished, ultimately poignant story is classic Modiano . . . superbly lean . . . moody, even noir . . . smart and strangely moving . . . Modiano at his best."—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (starred review)

"After the Circus is a little masterpiece in the French minimalist and ironic noir tradition, reminiscent of Godard’s Breathless or Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player."—Colin Nettelbeck, Australian Book Review

"Like W. G. Sebald, another European writer haunted by memory and by the history that took place just before he was born, Modiano combines a detective’s curiosity with an elegist’s melancholy."—Adam Kirsch, New Republic

"Powerful,"—Michael Autrey, Booklist

"The sense of menace is masterfully managed by Modiano in this expertly-paced novel. . . . The love story, too, is beautifully done. . . . After the Circus is, ultimately, a bona fide—and first rate—thriller. Completely low-key and understated . . . yet so effectively creepy, perfectly devastating—and heartbreaking."—M.A. Orthofer, Complete Review

"[After the Circus] is at once elliptical and concise, diffuse in possibility and economical in facts . . . we gather feeling, moments of being, in the Woolfian sense, intimations of life’s essential sadness, which is sometimes gentle and sometimes furious."—Yevgeniya Traps, Forward

From the Publisher

“After the Circus is a little masterpiece in the French minimalist and ironic noir tradition, reminiscent of Godard’s Breathless or Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player.”—Colin Nettelbeck, Australian Book Review

Australian Book Review - Colin Nettelbeck

“[After the Circus] is at once elliptical and concise, diffuse in possibility and economical in facts . . . we gather feeling, moments of being, in the Woolfian sense, intimations of life’s essential sadness, which is sometimes gentle and sometimes furious.”—Yevgeniya Traps, Forward

Forward - Yevgeniya Traps

“At its opaque centre, this is the story of two lovers pitting themselves against the world in the vein of Faulkner’s The Wild Palms or Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms … In keeping with the territory, Modiano’s syntax is closer to Hemingway than Faulkner. A simple sentence can hold a beautiful heaviness… the overall effect is like staring through the shutters of a gambling den and watching a seedy mystery unfold.”—Nick Major, The Glasgow Herald

The Glasgow Herald - Nick Major

“The sense of menace is masterfully managed by Modiano in this expertly-paced novel. . . . The love story, too, is beautifully done. . . . After the Circus is, ultimately, a bona fide—and first rate—thriller. Completely low-key and understated . . . yet so effectively creepy, perfectly devastating—and heartbreaking.”—M.A. Orthofer, Complete Review

Complete Review - M.A. Orthofer

“[After the Circus] transposes Modiano’s favorite themes into a taut, hard-boiled crime story. . . . Modiano is writing metaphysical mystery stories, in which the search for answers is never afforded an easy solution. The more of Modiano’s work you read, the more familiar and inevitable his peculiar set of obsessions starts to feel—which is one sign of a major writer.”—Adam Kirsch, Daily Beast

Daily Beast - Adam Kirsch

“Powerful”—Michael Autrey, Booklist

Booklist - Michael Autrey

★ 09/01/2015
Published in 1992, this brief, polished, ultimately poignant story is classic Modiano: the superbly lean, undemonstrative style withholds as much as it tells; the characters leave much unsaid; the atmosphere is moody, even noir; a troubling ambiguity leads to creeping unease; and the present and past are enfolded sentence by sentence, just as the past is never really shaken out of our lives, even if it sometimes gets submerged. Just 18, rooming with the lascivious friend of his absent father, and preparing to go to Rome for work, the callow protagonist meets the somewhat older Gisèle when they are both interrogated by the police for unclear reasons. He ends up bringing Gisèle to his apartment, where she stashes a suitcase, then meets some shady friends of hers, one of whom agrees to lend them his car if they do him a small favor. The favor starts looking questionable, and as Gisèle's possibly unsavory past starts unwinding (we can't be sure the details are true), our hero wonders what he's gotten himself into—yet commits to Gisèle wholeheartedly, ever worried that she will vanish. VERDICT Not for readers who like answers but smart and strangely moving and an excellent representation of Modiano at his best.—BH

Library Journal

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