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Gemini by Michel Tournier: book review





Gemini (1975, this edition 1981) is set on the Brittany coast of France in Pierres Sonnantes (Sounding Stones), and in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s. The French author, Michel Tournier (1924-2016), called the novel, The Meteors, influenced by the Greek myth of Beaver and Pollux.

Jean and Paul Surin are identical twins, called Jean-Paul because they are two halves of the same apple, speaking their own private language Aeolian. Their mother is Maria-Barbara and their father is Edouard. 

The novel has several narrators such as Edouard’s older brother Alexandre, and the twins – individually and separately – as well as Sophie (briefly) as Jean’s girlfriend.  

Gemini refers to twins, of course, but it is also a reference to a brand name of marine binoculars. The twins star, on film, in an advertising campaign for the binoculars when they are eight years old. This, Paul says, ‘set the seal on our ‘monstrousness’ – with people regarding them as freaks. 

Paul loves their unity, but Jean longs to be different. Jean chases women to get away from Paul, and Paul chases Jean to bring him closer. Jean leaves France and travels to places that either reflect images of himself or represent division – such as the mirrored halls of Venice and the divided city of Berlin. Paul follows. 

The novel has wonderful sections, such as information on cryptophasia – the unique language of the twins – and the chapter called The Breaking of the Stones. The ‘ugly’ parts are confusing and controversial with the character of Alexandre a dividing and unlikeable force, and the ‘beautiful’ parts are extraordinary. 

This is an excellent exploration about twinship and twinlessness – the twins together and the twins apart – about brotherly bonds and breaking the bonds (twinship turmoil). The writing is rife with imagery and messages and double meanings: the wind, tides, mirrors, binoculars – especially binoculars: they make things at a distance appear closer. I couldn’t put the book down; it was riveting to its end.






MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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