Invisible Ink by Patrick Modiano Translated by Mark Polizotti

 Beautiful, fantastic book this one by Patrick Modiano,

Invisible Ink. His last book, published by Yale Press and translated by Mark Polizzotti from french, isveonderful

You won't put it down till the end, trust me!

Vividly great, when you will start to read it, you'll be guided by the intense narration of the main character, Jean Eyben; he decided to write down this book for telling the strange case of Noelle Lefebvre, a case at first, he started officially to follow without success more than 30 years ago.

As it happens most of the time, the disappearance of a person has a lot of meanings: and although Jean tries all his best, his researches are fruitless. He discovers a sort of notebook where he can't find anything important written by Noelle; he understood that Noelle lived with someone in Paris. That there was a weird work, but that Noelle developed also a good friendship in particular with a lady. No one is in grade of telling where Noelle is and why she disappeared. 

Some people imagine that maybe she has been killed, but, substantially, what emerges from these investigations is a sort of phantom without a precise existence, that remains undefined, and that, at a certain point, simply, disappears, vanishing as a cloud, vanishing as if never existed and without to be spasmodically searched by a potential companion or beloved friends; Noelle, simply entered in that black hole of missing people, where, existences, destinies, human stories are deleted forever, or when optimical, swallowed by memory. 

Time passes by and investigations, officially, ends. Of course Jean, during the decades tries to resolve the story of this missing person, and that's why the title of the book. Invisible Ink. After all, Jean discovers that maybe he didn't understand the most of what written, because, simply, Noelle used an invisible ink for putting sensitive material in her notebook. Jean experienced an important misunderstanding with a last name... I found the first part simply spectacular; the second one is written taking in consideration Noelle and her personal choices...

I found beautiful  without spoiling too much, the description of Rome. I hadn't never thought at our capital in that way, but... it is true: Rome dilatates memory, calming down people, adding joy in the existence and, huggin, of a very warm and cordial hug, every person and visitor.

A wonderful, short book, written with great ability!

You'll love it.

Highly recommended

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori