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| Connection Between Modiano’s Novels and Le-Tan’s Book Cover Illustrations: An Iconological Reflection of Memory Writing |
| Shi Yeting |
| School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China |
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Abstract The French writer and Nobel Laureate in Literature Patrick Modiano consistently delves into the elusive realm of human memory within his novels, weaving a tapestry of vague and evocative textual landscapes. His close friend, Pierre Le-Tan, an illustrator for The New Yorker magazine, created the folio reissue covers for most of Modiano’s early works. The writer and painter express memory through different artistic media, with words and images transcending the simple correspondence between them, presenting readers (audiences) with a deep mutual reflection between text and image. Memory, as the depicted object, is not an invisible force controlling humans but a medium to reenact sensory experience by reconstructing story experience of the temporal and spatial order. Therefore, we focus on examining the temporal and spatial systems of Modiano’s novels and Le-Tan’s paintings, taking the temporal and spatial order as axes, and attempt to analyze the expressive effects of novels with cover illustrations as integrated artistic works in the writing of memory, in order to understand the underlying reasons for the compatible mood and style between Modiano’s texts and Le-Tan’s paintings. The analysis is conducted based on the theory of iconology, especially the “Image X Text” model proposed by W. J. T. Mitchell. From a temporal dimension, when the text loses its conventional temporal structure, the cover, which should have served as the “meta-image” of the novel, can only seek optimal expression within “temporal fragments”. The images presented on Le-Tan’s covers encompass both horizontal and vertical time, integrating a sense of era (vertical) and storytelling (horizontal). They are no longer merely the capture and presentation of a specific moment of importance in the storyline. Instead, image narration takes on a hazy feeling of being lost in time, being a particular moment yet not quite. The images contain stories yet cannot correspond to a specific plot. Like Modiano’s texts, they achieve the effect of eternity in memory through ambiguity. The inherent meanings of the text and images are thus highly consistent. Spatially, the text employs philosophical symbols such as “escape lines” and “neutral zones” to portray space and its sensory impact, also depicting spaces in memory through distortion and illusion, which are difficult to represent with specific images. Le-Tan uses symbols interacting with space to envelop the entire image in an atmosphere of mystery, uncertainty, and the unknown. The text and image construct a combined virtual and real, open and inclusive multi-space in different ways. When superimposed, they place readers/viewers under multiple senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, textual symbols, concrete images, etc., making the production of meaning a comprehensive and complex process that enriches the reading/viewing experience. As Mitchell’s “Image X Text” structure suggests, the middle ground occupied by “X” is the unknown area composed of symbols and senses, presenting an open, inclusive, mysterious, and diverse state that ultimately points to the production of meaning. Modiano’s texts and Le-Tan’s paintings reflect and interpret each other, demonstrating the inclusiveness and openness of cross-media expression on the same subject, more properly conveying those ineffable feelings and emotions related to human memory. Literature itself becomes more diverse and enriched due to the influence and intervention of other arts; literary criticism also expands its research subjects, broadens its research horizons, and updates its evaluation concepts, becoming more interdisciplinary under the influence of new theories, perspectives, and methods.
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Received: 12 April 2024
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2025, Vol. 55 
