Elle & Lui (2015)

 

Author: Marc Levy

This may be only the third French book I've read from cover to cover, but I've already noticed some similarities that modern Francophonic authors share. The ease and directness of the story are what makes these novels stand out from the rest of the pack, and accordingly, win the hearts of numerous book lovers. The author doesn't go too deep into the complexities of the characters and their emotions, yet he gives the readers enough to feel what the protogonists feel and to try to guess what their next moves might be. Likewise, the book is easy to read, and structured in a way (many short sub-chapters) that keeps you going and reading further. It's difficult to say, however, if the above-mentioned features are a good thing, especially if you're a fastidious reader and prefer classics.

Dora Bruder (1997)

Author: Patrick Modiano

Before I even began to read "Dora Bruder", I knew that this book would be something special. Partly because the author had won a Nobel Prize a year ago (and that means something), but mainly due to the fact that it would be my first novel in French that I would read entirely, from start to finish.

The novel is told by Modiano himself. In the late 80s, the author finds an old ad from 1941 saying that some young Jewish girl named Dora Bruder is missing. From that time on, Modiano tries to obtain as much information as possible to understand: a) why the girl went missing; b) what happened with the girl afterwards. It is a story that tells about yet another person whose life was destroyed because of one simple fact - she was a Jew during the time when being one was the biggest crime you could ever imagine. And as far as I understand this is not a fiction; all the characters are real and they actually lived during the twentieth century, which makes the story even more appealing.