Even before its publication in France, Mona’s eyes, the first novel by art historian Thomas Schlesser, was being translated in around twenty countries. Today, two weeks after its appearance on the shelves of booksellers in France, 31 foreign publishers have come forward to acquire the rights.
So what is so extraordinary about this novel? We would be tempted to say that it simply does good. In addition to praising the beauty of the world as magnified by the greatest artists in history, it highlights the best that humanity can still maintain: curiosity, generosity, humility and intelligence.
“At the origin of this book, there is an ordeal that was difficult for me: that of the non-birth of a child,” says Thomas Schlesser, contacted in Paris by The duty. To overcome and sublimate this ordeal, I wanted to invent an ideal little girl, a little girl to whom the worst is promised and in whom this fate brings out all that is best. It took me ten years to accomplish this great literary adventure. »
Love and transmission
This little girl is Mona, a ten-year-old girl who, one winter evening, suddenly loses her sight; an ordeal that will last a few hours. While health professionals multiply medical tests, in a hurry to find the source of the problem and avoid any recurrence, Henri, Mona’s grandfather, is determined to offer her all the beauty in the world so that it is forever inscribed in the depths of his heart and his mind.
For fifty-two weeks, every Wednesday after school, Henri drags his granddaughter to the museums of Paris to introduce her to a new work. Together, they travel through the Louvre, Orsay and Beaubourg, and borrow the views of Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco de Goya, Gustave Courbet, Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat to learn about doubt, melancholy, revolt or love.
“What I understand from the comments received from foreign publishers is that this solar relationship, the importance of the relationship between a grandfather and his granddaughter, affects all cultures on the planet. There are probably many other factors that escape me, but it is this aspect which seems to arouse the most enthusiasm,” says the writer.
However, if the book goes off the beaten track, it is rather through its unique artistic proposition. Here, each of the 52 chapters is devoted to a work of art which benefits from a description as detailed as it is poetic, as well as from teaching given to Mona by her grandfather. Of Venus and the three Graces by Botticelli, from the 15the century, until Painting 200 x 220 cm dated April 22, 2022 by Pierre Soulages, the novel paints a formidable panorama of the history of Western art, with an intention that one could lazily compare to the introduction to philosophy offered by Jostein Gaarder in Sophie’s world (Threshold, 1991).
Instinct and constraints
But how do we choose the 52 masterpieces which will explain the evolution of artistic trends, lifestyles and ways of thinking while serving the reader, or, more stupidly, the plot?
“When I started writing the book, in the summer of 2013, I first put hundreds of names of artists and works on a sheet of paper, a bit on instinct. Certain works, including the black cross on a white background by Kasimir Malevitch, seemed essential to me, for different reasons. The others were dictated to me by the character of Henri, by the stories woven into the novel and by the reflections he shares with Mona. The writing unfolded by staging its selection process. Henri was also dependent on some of my discoveries — like when the Louvre acquired the very beautiful painting The interesting student by Marguerite Gérard — as well as my desire to move beyond the obvious common heritage and to make room for those forgotten by History, particularly women. »
To add to the difficulty, Thomas Schlesser also set a certain number of literary constraints in the form of complex and rigorous systems which are repeated throughout the novel. For example, every lesson Henry teaches his granddaughter is implemented in the next chapter. In addition, each chapter contains a paragraph about the chosen work, in italics, written in the manner of a hypotyposis; a description so detailed that it reveals that it becomes almost hallucinatory.
“As this book touches on the theme of blindness, I wanted there to be passages at a descriptive level that could arouse the emotion and imagination of a visually impaired person. I had the ambition — I’m not saying that I succeeded — to talk about visual art and to be understood even by those who cannot see. »
Finally, Mona, through a linguistic peculiarity whose reasons are only revealed at the very end of the story, never proceeds with a negative formula. Thus, all his dialogues are written in an affirmative or interrogative form. “It was very restrictive,” says the author, amused. It’s also quite a headache for the 31 countries that are translating the book. »
Narrative feats, historical review, novel of emancipation… Mona’s eyes has more than one ambition. However, under these formal pretexts, Thomas Schlesser had only one real objective: to write a book on the history of art, in the service of life. “I really like this phrase from Robert Filliou: “Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” I wanted to show that art and its history are not things closed in on themselves, they are elements of a journey that can really help us live better. Behind artistic trends and visions lie the big and small issues of everyday life, and artists have a thousand and one astonishing and fascinating things to tell us. ” Simple and efficient.