​Dora Bruder (1997) by Patrick Modiano

Second reading; an odd combination of biography, personal memoir, and detective story. (Modiano works often in a similar mode and writes a lot of detective stories that investigate the past—one of his best novels is Missing Person.)
 
Modiano, writing in first person, one day reads the following in a Paris Soir that dates to December 31, 1941:
 
“Paris: We are searching for a young girl, Dora Bruder, 15 years old, 1m 55 in height, oval face, grey-brown eyes… Please report all signs to Mr. and Mrs. Bruder, on 41 Ornano boulevard, Paris.”
 
From there Modiano begins his search for the traces of Dora Bruder’s life. His search brings him into confrontation with his own past, that of his father, and into confrontation with that of France under the Vichy regime. Modiano, in his excavation of the past, reveals Paris’ shameful secret, hidden by the passing of time in its grey buildings and its unassuming streets. (Reminded me of Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog.)
 
Some other notes:
 
Does Modiano, in his patient pursuit of Dora Bruder, redeem Dora Bruder from the obscurities of history, from the excesses of tragedy? Before Modiano encountered Dora, her stories, along with the stories of millions of other victims, were swallowed up into macro-historical narratives as a data point. Through Modiano’s pen, Dora Bruder recovers herself as an individual. However, Modiano is a careful and respectful and does not strip Dora bare in front of the reading public (i.e., the last paragraph in the novel).
 
In The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber observes that “almost all great literature on the subject [of bureaucracy] takes the form of horror-comedy” due to its “mazelike, senseless form.” In Dora Bruder, there is the feeling of horror without the comedy. Modiano encounters bureaucracy everywhere throughout the novel, as he peruses state documents to recreate Dora’s life. It becomes clear to the reader that the same state apparatus that created this evidence was used for the purposes of senseless violence. Through bureaucracy, states name subjects under various categories, imparting the mark of death (i.e., Jewish badge).
 
While investigating Dora Bruder’s flight, Modiano demonstrates empathy and a constant striving to try to understand Dora, relating the circumstances of her departure to his own past, walking in empty Parisian streets to catch the echoes of Dora Bruder’s footsteps, visiting the remnants of her Paris—is this a novelist’s compassion toward people, toward their characters?

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