It was one of the events of the last Freshness of the Frankfurt Book, in October: Albin Michel ceded the rights ofAlice in the land of ideas of Roger-Pol right in around twenty countries. One year later Mona’s eyes From Thomas Schlesser, sold in more than 300,000 copies, will the publisher have known the same success by replacing the history of art with that of philosophy? Already author of Philosophy explained to my daughter And Ethics explained to everyonethis recognized pedagogue thus presents the heroine of her first novel: “She is a young girl today, anxious of the fate of the planet, of the survival of animal species, noise of war. She wonders how Live in this world, what to do with her existence. And he specifies his project: “I have always convinced that the most serious questions can be addressed with joy. Award is not necessary to think.”
Cross Alice in Wonderland And Sophie’s world of Jostein Gaarder, Roger-Pol right confronts his Alice with some facetious characters (the objection, the wise mouse, the crazy mouse and a funny kangaroo) who embark on a parallel world called the country of ideas, where she will interview In turn, the greatest philosophers in world history-and it is one of the qualities of the book to be stupidly European-centered and to take us also in India, China and Persia.
As Mona’s eyes,, Alice in the land of ideas Can be read from the first to the last page or in disorder, by drawing according to 40 meetings at the top that Alice does. This veinardus has the privilege of crossing Socrates and then being locked in the cave with Plato, before chatting with Confucius, Avicenne, Montaigne, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Voltaire, Hegel … in successful chapters, she lunch with Kant in Königsberg in 1790 , took tea with Marx at British Museum in 1858, walks with Nietzsche in Sils-Maria in 1887, talks with Freud in his Viennese cabinet in 1910. Which of them will be able to impress him more ? The author of this sentence: “Our souls have corrupted as our sciences and our arts have advanced to perfection.” We will have recognized Rousseau, in his Speech on science and arts (1750). In Geneva, Alice Dance Le Menuet with “Jean-Jacques”. The author of a Dissertation on modern music Then gets to the harpsichord, then unrolls her thought: “Alice’s cheeks are on fire. What a disorder, what an emotion! This Jean-Jacques is not like the other philosophers. She feels in him a fiery, a momentum that sounds differently. ” She “applauds both hands” and “puts a kiss on Jean-Jacques’ mouth”. Until the end of his adventures, he will remain his great man …
“Without friends, no one would choose to live”
It is the game with this kind of book: to deplore certain absences. If Roger-Pol right has had the good taste to include thinkers as Dissemblable as Diogene and Marc Aurèle in his fable, we can be surprised that adults such as Saint Augustine, Leibniz or Kierkegaard do not exist in his country Ideas. Pascal, who remains one of the greatest geniuses in our literary heritage all kinds, is swept out on page 89 because of a quote: “If all men knew what one of the others said, there would not be Four friends around the world. ” Alice finds that he “exaggerates”, preferring this word of Aristotle in Ethics in Nicomaque : “Without friends, no one would choose to live.”
Obviously, the lucidity of the 17th century moralists is not soluble in the general public literature of the XXI … further on, Heidegger, “who passes to be a major philosopher” (the least we can say! ), is briefly executed because of the anti -Semitism of its Black notebooks which leaves Alice “dismayed”. Certainly, Heidegger has heavy pans, but from there to Blacklister Be and time,, Paths that do not lead anywhere Or Routing to speech… Here again, a certain angelism reaches its limits, especially since Rousseau itself, the most insincère of our autobiographers, was not a little saint. These reservations should not come to the spirit of readership targeted by the book, and we are curious to see, in the coming weeks, which path will take Alice in the ranking of the best sales. Will he lead it to first place?
Alice in the land of ideas. By Roger-Pol right. Albin Michel, 431 p., € 22.90.