Conversations with the Father in Elisabeth Plessen’s Mitteilung an den Adel, Bernward Vesper’s Die Reise, and Patrick Modiano’s Les Boulevards de ceinture

This chapter focuses on questions of familial and generational memories. It provides a detailed analysis of constructions of familial and intergenerational dialogue in the works of three authors: Bernward Vesper, Elisabeth Plessen and Patrick Modiano, counted among the initiators of the literary trends of mode of retro and Vaterliteratur in 1970s France and West Germany. Critics have argued that either Vesper or Plessen, or both, began the trend of writing Elternbucher or Vaterliteratur, and Modiano has been consistently portrayed as the trailblazer of the moderetro. The chapter examines the ways in which the portrayal of the father figure epitomizes the representation of the periods of National Socialism and the French Occupation. It investigates the question of whether conversations between generations are defined solely by a dichotomy of silence or conflict in Vesper's Die Reise, Plessen's Mitteilung an den Adel and Modiano's Les Boulevards de ceinture.