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the complete review - fiction

Ring Roads

by
Patrick Modiano

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : effective depiction of creepy milieu and characters

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "(H)ere the paternal pretenders of John le Carré, with their toxic legacy of masks and lies, may come to mind." - Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
  
  
• "Ring Roadsreprises this climate of apathy and disillusionment, parodying and further condemning the shameless opportunists who thrive in the shameful world of Vichy Paris." - Kaiama L. Glover, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Patrick Modiano had a notoriously complicated relationship with his parents, a frequent subject in his books, and Ring Roads is a novel of a son trying to understand who his father is.
       "I met him for the first time when I was seventeen", the narrator recounts. He describes some of the dubious money-making schemes he was pulled into, and, typically, the Modiano-stand-in narrator finds his talent in the literary field -- albeit in the briefest jottings: faked dedications from famous authors to one another in their books, to enhance the value of these. This initial father-son time together is limited -- a phase, of a few limited episodes -- with most of Ring Roads describing events ten years later, when their paths cross again.
       After a decade of not having seen his father, the narrator introduces himself into his father's dubious circle as a young novelist. The father is such a distant figure that he apparently doesn't even recognize his son -- yet (or rather: in other words) he's exactly the man he always used to be: "You haven't changed much", the narrator observes (to himself -- he doesn't confront his father directly), and later: "Nothing has changed. Ten years later, here you are the same as always".
       The narrator is invited to write for the magazine they put out -- C'est la vie --, invited with the telling words: " So you're willing to get your hands dirty ?" They're a dubious lot, the undertaking questionable.
       The narrator briefly sketches the various figures -- noting about unscrupulous editor Murraille, for example:

'Troubled times' had made it possible for him to realise his dream. He had exploited the chaos and the murk. He felt perfectly at home in this world which seemed hell bent on destruction.

I take no pleasure in setting down their life stories. Nor am I doing it for the sake of the story, having no imagination. I focus on these misfits, these outsiders, so that, through them, I can catch the fleeting image of my father. About him, I know almost nothing. But I will think something up.

- M.A.Orthofer, 18 September 2015

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Links:

• Bloomsbury publicity page
• Bloomsbury USA publicity page
• Folio publicity page
• Suhrkamp publicity page
• Bompiani publicity page
• Anagrama publicity page

• Luthién Arnatuilë
• Le blog des diagonales du temps (French)
• Cincuentopía (Spanish)
• Deccan Herald
• Evening Standard
• Financial Times
• GraphoMania (Italian)
• The Independent
• Indian Express
• Kirkus Reviews
• The Los Angeles Times
• The Millions
• The Modern Novel
• Revista de Letras (Spanish)
• The Telegraph

• Nobel Prize in Literature, 2014
• Patrick Modiano at books and writers

• After the Circus
• Afterimage
• Flowers of Ruin
• Honeymoon
• In the Café of Lost Youth
• La Place de l'Étoile
• Little Jewel
• The Night Watch
• The Occupation Trilogy: see also La Place de l'Étoile and The Night Watch
• Paris Nocturne
• Pedigree
• Sleep of Memory
• So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood
• Sundays in August
• Suspended Sentences

• See Index of French literature
• See Index of Books by Nobel laureates under review

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About the Author:

       French author Patrick Modiano was born in 1945. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2014.

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© 2015-2021 the complete review

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