Island of the Dead

The various characters who inhabit Paris's Jardin des Plantes share their researches and knowledge with one another, just as they share petty jealousies, admirations, and dislikes of each other. Through the eye of the unnamed narrator, Frémon creates a world of what often seems like random bits of knowledge, but is, in fact, an interconnecting skein of ideas—philosophical, scientific, religious, and literary—that questions and searches out the meaning of everyday life and, just as importantly, how each of us experiences it. Or, do we experience it? Are we each lost in our own conception of things? With wit, humor and profound sense of intellectual curiosity, Frémon explores just these issues.

Jean Frémon is the author of numerous works, including Le jardin botanique (The Botanical Garden), La Vraie nature des ombres, Le Singe mendiant, L'Exhibition-nisme et sa pudeur, and, in English, Painting (1999).