Memories from the Jungle
by Tristan Garcia; Christopher Beach (translator)
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Pub Date May 01 2025 | Archive Date Apr 30 2025
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Description
Doogie is no ordinary chimpanzee: gifted with an exceptional intelligence (perhaps the result of a scientific experiment), he has been taught a fairly sophisticated version of the human language, is capable of human emotions such as love and jealousy, and has a highly developed understanding of human behavior. After an accident to the spacecraft that was bringing him back to Earth from an orbital station, Doogie finds himself alone in the jungle. In order to survive, he must rediscover the very animal nature he has been trained to reject.
Advance Praise
“Embedded within this whimsical wild ride to a speculative future is a send-up of B. F. Skinner’s theory of behaviorism. In Christopher Beach’s adept translation, Tristan Garcia’s language play brings across the sympathetic and humanlike chimpanzee Doogie and his quest for a middle ground between nature and nurture.”—Elizabeth Kadetsky, author of On the Island at the Center of the Center of the World
“Writing in a style that is both precise and colorful, Tristan Garcia pursues his argument without falling into pontificating jargon, renewing in a playful mode a problem that goes back to Aristotle. It is well known: man is an ape to man, and vice versa.”—Emilie Colombani, Technikart
“An intelligent, original, and bold novel . . . and, ultimately, a very moving one, about the foundations of civilization, language, knowledge, and animality.”—Baptiste Liger, L’Express
“A kind of Jungle Book, but in reverse. It’s the comic version of the world of men, as seen by the animals of tomorrow. It’s daring, it’s thoughtful, it’s incisive.”—Hubert Artus, Rolling Stone
Available Editions
EDITION | Paperback |
ISBN | 9781496238535 |
PRICE | $24.95 (USD) |
PAGES | 268 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews

Memories from the Jungle offers a thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between humanity and animal instinct, set in a desolate future where Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by pollution and war. This premise is rich with potential, exploring what it means to be human versus animal, and how one’s environment and experiences shape identity. However, despite the rich ideas and compelling setting, the book’s narrative voice, which is told from Doogie’s perspective, occasionally distracts from the story. The effort to capture a chimpanzee’s voice—though undoubtedly a creative and bold choice—sometimes felt a bit jarring.
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