Gemini

By (author) Tournier Michel; Translated by Carter Ann
Short description/annotation
Gemini is a novel of extraordinary proportions, intricate images, and profound thought, in which Michel Tournier tells his fascinating story with an irresistible humor.
Description
Jean and Paul are identical twins. Outsiders, even their parents, cannot tell them apart, and call them Jean-Paul. The mysterious bond between them excludes all others; they speak their own language; they are one perfectly harmonious unit; they are, in all innocence, lovers. For Paul, this unity is paradise, but as they grow up Jean rebels against it. He takes a mistress and deserts his brother, but Paul sets out to follow him in a pilgrimage that leads all around the world, through places that reflect their separation-the mirrored halls of Venice, the Zen gardens of Japan, the newly divided city of Berlin. The exquisite love story of Jean-Paul is set against the ugliness and pain of human existence. Gemini is a novel of extraordinary proportions, intricate images, and profound thought, in which Michel Tournier tells his fascinating story with an irresistible humor.
Review quote
Astonishing; an El Dorado of ideas. New Statesman
Biographical note
Born in 1924, Michel Tournier studied philosophy and then became a journalist and a writer. He is the author of several novels, including The Ogre, Friday, and Gemini, also available in paperback from Johns Hopkins.
Promotional headline
Tournier''s novel is a love story that uses the theme of twinship to explore a near infinity of dualities.
Endorsement

An exceptional, incomparable novel.

Endorsement

The most extraordinary piece of writing for years . . . ''Gemini'' is about a pair of identical twins, collectively known as Jean-Paul. Saying this, however, is a bit like saying that ''Ulysses'' is about a man walking around Dublin, because Tournier uses the theme of twinship to explore a near infinity of dualities. In addition to playing with such traditional oppositions as heterosexuality and homosexuality, city and countryside, heaven and hell, Tournier elaborates ingeniously on the profound opposition of chronology and meteorology—the fixed, regulated march of the hours on the one hand, and the wild, unpredictable fluctuation of the seasons on the other.