Mona's eyes

Art historian Schlesser's vibrant English-language debut frames a survey of classical Western art with the story of a Parisian man supporting his 10-year-old granddaughter after her sudden bout of temporary blindness. Mona's doctor, unable to explain the cause or predict whether it will recur, refers her to a psychiatrist. Instead, her grandfather surreptitiously takes her to one of the city's museums each week for a year, under the ruse that he's delivering her to the psych appointments and out of the hope that should Mona's blindness return permanently, the artwork she sees will enrich her visual memory. Each week, they look closely at a single work, including such legendary paintings as the Mona Lisa, which Mona considers sad because of its dark and empty background, and less-famous pieces like Rosa Bonheur's Plowing in the Nivernais, which Schlesser evocatively describes ("The work, of panoramic scope, depicted furrows cut by plowshares across its entire width. The sky, with its blended shades of blue fading perfectly to convey the subtle light of a chill morning, took up half of the canvas"). Schlesser seamlessly interweaves the art lessons with Mona's story, which concludes with an explanation for the cause of her blindness. Readers of Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World will love this. (Aug.)

A French art historian's English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art. One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader's benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser's favorite works of art--some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois--the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don't have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can't be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course. A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.