The Hymn of Truth: a literary symphony in 6 movements
At the age of twenty, Éric Monin left his native Alps for the Toulouse Veterinary School. Far from his mountains, in an unknown land, he plunged more deeply into his two consuming passions: music and writing. The biography of Beethoven and the symphonies of Brahms and Mahler became his refuge. But his gaze also turned to a darker world: that of the sects proliferating in France in the 1990s. These influences shape a quest for understanding that is full of contrasts.
Impossible love and the beginning of an obsession
An impossible love affair triggers his literary impulse. A life-changing encounter with Sophie kick-started her compulsive writing. And the cerulean-blue drawer of her dresser welcomes a first novel nourished by mountains and tunnels, a universe straight out of her dreams: “revality”. But inspiration disappears along with love… The first volume is barely finished, the second unfinished.
Twenty-five years later
The novel lay dormant for over two decades. When the author returned to this forgotten world, he rewrote the first volume, completed the second, and sketched out a third in a matter of weeks.
A meeting and a challenge
With an ally along the way, he deconstructs and reconstructs his text. Every word is weighed, every intuition confronted, Eric is pushed to his limits, but he emerges stronger and more creative than ever.
A final isolation for The Hymn of Truth
Éric isolates himself in a chalet overlooking Grenoble, and for ten days, he reinvents. The words seem to carry the weight of the years, but also liberation, resilience and catharsis. And in January 2025, the dream becomes reality: The Hymn of Truth will be published by La Petite Barque. A dystopia born of impossible love, an undiminished passion for music and decisive perseverance.
Excerpts from the dystopia The Hymn of Truth
Daniel de Tastel looked around him: the woods surrounding Karl Marx Park were a model of natural beauty. His only regret on that first summer’s day in 1994 was that Sophie hadn’t been able to accompany him. He crossed an abundantly flowered meadow and walked for about thirty minutes along the path that skirted the rock face. Finally, he reached some kind of clearing. He couldn’t get the image of his girlfriend out of his mind. He sat down against a rock. The warmth of the sun’s rays made him suddenly tired, and without realizing it, he dozed off.
Source, 1, p. 5
So Daniel militated for a clear-cut dichotomy, a sharp cut between his people and the rest of the world, between Creation and Destruction, Innovation and Conservatism. The Creators are a nuisance, and logic dictates that they should be eliminated under the growing and crushing weight of the People. We’re back to the eternal battle between two rival families, each seeking to appropriate the other’s property. But with one difference: the Creators have no desire for the possessions of the People, since the People possess nothing, quite simply; their bodies have no soul, their bodies have no heart, their species knows no freedom – of body and mind.
Inherited, 5, p. 48
You are my river, my ocean, the one that will receive tears of happiness and sadness from me. The notes of my Music are within reach of your hands, the shroud of snow that covers my heart understands all about life, and if bubbles burst, if my blood crystallizes when my skin brushes yours, it’s because the bow has emptied its contents on the union of the natural and the supernatural. Nonsense becomes logic, white and black no longer mix to form gray but to elaborate a ray of transparency, of translucence that joins the sun; that’s why I don’t see it but I feel it, in the depths of my being, all the time. This little flame will never go out, unless a violent wind starts blowing.
Human, 2, pp. 99-100
You are my river, my ocean, the one that will receive tears of happiness and sadness from me. The notes of my Music are within reach of your hands, the shroud of snow that covers my heart understands all about life, and if bubbles burst, if my blood crystallizes when my skin brushes yours, it’s because the bow has emptied its contents on the union of the natural and the supernatural. Nonsense becomes logic, white and black no longer mix to form gray but to elaborate a ray of transparency, of translucence that joins the sun; that’s why I don’t see it but I feel it, in the depths of my being, all the time. This little flame will never go out, unless a violent wind starts blowing.
You are my river, my ocean, the one that will receive tears of happiness and sadness from me. The notes of my Music are within reach of your hands, the shroud of snow that covers my heart understands all about life, and if bubbles burst, if my blood crystallizes when my skin brushes yours, it’s because the bow has emptied its contents on the union of the natural and the supernatural. Nonsense becomes logic, white and black no longer mix to form gray but to elaborate a ray of transparency, of translucence that joins the sun; that’s why I don’t see it but I feel it, in the depths of my being, all the time. This little flame will never go out, unless a violent wind starts blowing.
Human, 3, p. 110
I’d like to look at you, but I have to content myself with thinking of you; I’d like to touch you, but I have to content myself with imagining you – I’d so much like to meet your gaze one last time, to plunge my eyes into yours. Whenever I’ve looked at you in the past, I’ve always thought you were made for me. These last few days, every time I’ve wanted to touch your skin, I’ve imagined what you once meant to me.
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