Rébus d’art

Honoré is well known for his successful literary puzzles. Here is a competitor – though posthumous. Pierre Garcette passed away in 2003 at the age of 63. He celebrated his favorite artists through invigorating assemblages of images and letters. Once they are deciphered they reveal the names of Dali, Hans Hartung or Modigliani. The book will not be presented at the Frankfurt book fair as it is simply impossible to translate! Unless some genius succeeds in doing the same exploit as with Disparition by Pérec, a novel without the letter “e”, that became A Void in English). Thus – if we take a try at it in English - a cane, allow (let) and direction (to) become Canaletto, a call and a lot become Jacques Callot. The objective is not to reach perfect phonetics as you may have guessed, the eye and the spirit simply demand a touch of folly and weird associations of ideas. Walt Disney becomes a question (what), this with a Latin accent (dis) and the negative in old English (ney), and Gainsborough, who enjoyed placing the Andrews spouses in the country side, becomes an investor (gains) that is not too interesting (bore). This could keep more than one person busy over the long winter evenings!

• Rébus d’art by Pierre Garcette, Editions de La Martinière, 2013, 144 p., €12