It is often assumed that Modiano is a ‘realist’. One reason for this is that his prose is representational, full of small and precise details in the manner of the Barthesian ‘effet de réel’. Many of these facts, moreover, have been discovered to be real; they are precise locations in Paris, or a particular brand of cigarette commonly smoked in France. Their authenticity has convinced some readers that the narrative which contains them must be a mimetic one. Another commonly held reason for considering Modiano a ‘realist’ is the combination of readability and alleged non-experimentation which characterises his novels; in this equation, accessibility is unaccountably linked to realism.

However, critics and reviewers have also been known to remark frequently on the atmosphere of unreality which pervades Modiano's novels. Bersani writes that although a first reading may be a simple ‘lecture réaliste’, it leaves the reader with so many discreetly unanswered questions and thwarted expectations that it is not satisfactory: a second reading becomes necessary, which reveals ‘invraisemblances’ and paradoxes in the narrative that make a realist reading impossible. Coenen- Mennemeier, too, argues against the classification of Modiano as a writer of a verisimilar prose, maintaining that ‘[M]algré la lisibilité de ses récits, Modiano n'est pas un auteur ré aliste’. Clearly the manner in which facts are represented in Modiano's novels is not as straightforward as it may seem, and calls for a closer examination.

NARRATIVE MOOD

The issue of representation in narrative is examined by Genette under the heading of narrative mood, based on the analogy with the grammatical category. The term on the level of narrative may be used to refer to the manner in which information is presented to the reader: ‘cette ré gulation de l'information narrative qu'est le mode’.