Used book – A Pedigree, Patrick Modiano

"I write these pages as one would draw up a report or a resume, for documentary purposes and no doubt to put an end to a life that was not my own. The events I will describe up to my twenty-first year, I experienced them in transparency - that technique which consists of having landscapes scroll in the background, while the actors remain motionless on a studio set. I would like to convey this feeling that many others have felt before me: everything scrolled in transparency and I could not yet live my life."