The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Island of the Dead, by Jean Fremon
reviewed by Allen Hibbard

Jean Frémon. Island of the Dead. Trans. Cole Swenson. Green Integer, 2003. 281 pp. Paper: $12.95.

This book is about resemblances and differences, modeling, imitating, shadows, and doubles. It is about lines between one species or genus and another. In particular it is about interactions and distinctions between humans and animals. It is about the process of giving form to the inchoate, seeing patterns in seemingly shapeless phenomena. “What is resemblance?” the narrator asks at one point. “What is imitation?” Like a rebus, this novel invites the reader to see and create connections between the numerous short, apparently disjointed sections that comprise it. We overhear conversations and meditations about bats’ and elephants’ penises, Chinese ghosts, the Balinese cockfight, the extent to which Darwin’s theories of evolution were prefigured in the work of his grandfather, the relationship between Goncharov’s Oblomov and Samuel Beckett, Glenn Gould’s performance technique, mating habits of octopi, the practice of using Latin to denote things in nature, the evolution of Mickey Mouse, Shostakovich’s legendary process of composing (pastiche), parrots speaking, birds imitating other birds’ songs, Poussin’s paintings, the narrator’s experience reading a “real” character from his past into a Seurat sketch, the Shakers (who choose not to reproduce themselves), Beethoven’s plagiarisms, genetic projects to create miniature vegetables, the ellipsis . . . etc. There are also named characters who make appearances (Sam, Soskine, Emilie, Pilotier, Wilson, Melanie, Pinchard, Milner, Van Gulick), as well as some who never “appear” yet who are referred to (Roman, Gertrude, Thomas, Dawkins, Sidis, Mahdi). What is a character, after all, we might ask, but the creation of a resemblance? Can a character exist? If so, where? “Books, paintings are real ghosts,” the narrator posits. This book is unlike any ghost I have encountered. It is the difference that is so striking.