Perec, Modiano, Raczymow: la génération d'après et la mémoire de la Shoah (review)

Most Holocaust studies are American, while those in French or about France, despite increasing numbers since 1995, are still relatively rare. Focusing on theme and technique, Schulte Nordholt's study presents interesting comparisons of forgetting, the devoir de mémoire, and the work of memory. The lack of an index is unfortunate, but a useful foreword provides a guide to the author's approach, starting by situating her study in a theoretical context (Marianne Hirsch, Susan Rubin Suleiman, and so on). She discusses the coming to writing in the 1970s and 1980s of survivor children of the war, or the children of survivors, such as Patrick Modiano and Henri Raczymow, who, she argues, are also part of 'la génération d'après' (although Robert Bober included only survivor children in his 1971 film of that title). For her, Georges Perec resembles the other two writers as he is a 'témoin absent' (p. 60): the young age at which he experienced the trauma of the war meant that he could not properly assimilate the event. Raczymow's work is discussed partly through examination of the folktale tradition, his poetic litanies of Jewish names, his notion of 'effacement' (linked to Perec's 'disparition'), la mémoire trouée, and feelings of shame in being denied the right to write. Crucial to this study are the postmodern and modern sensibilities of the three figures (whether via Oulipo or the nouveau roman). While Raczymow's wordiness in La Saisie seems to seek to fill a void and Perec's Un homme qui dort is traversed by a death wish, Schulte Nordholt interestingly links the notion of absence not only with traumatized or absent memory, but also with a specifically French notion of modernity, citing Flaubert's 'livre sur rien' (p. 18). Her examination of the thematization of writing and the difficulty of bearing witness to what one has not lived through (for example, in Raczymow) is a potentially useful idea for Modiano studies, where writers figure prominently. The discussion of Un homme qui dort extends some ideas by Claude Burgelin, Bernard Magné, and Manet van Montfrans, and there is an interesting section on Perec's writings on the rue Vilin, incorporating Philippe Lejeune's idea of 'la mémoire oblique'. Also important are Proustian echoes, especially for the importance of the mother (p. 64) and the notion of the 'roman-cimetière' (p. 15 5), although Proustian memory is shown as happier and more spontaneous (p. 193). Place is also foregrounded, through Schulte Nordholt's notion of the 'paradoxe des lieux' (pp. 161-63), which involves an absence of place (lost places of origin/distance from places of extermination) coexisting with a surdetermination of place. However, Modiano's father is confusingly presented as being 'originaire de Salonique' (p. 183) rather than Parisian. The theme of walking is highlighted. The discussion of Modiano's Accident nocturne is striking, as is the interesting presentation of his Rue des boutiques obscures as being partly about the disappearance of a mother. Several fruitful links are made between that text and Perec's W ou le souvenir d'enfance. Some other key texts discussed include Modiano's Dora Bruder, La Place de l'Étoile, and Paris tendresse, Perec's Récits d'Ellis Island, and Raczymow's Reliques (the last three for the notion of photography/photo albums).