The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation [Hardcover]

Jean-Paul Kauffmann (Author), Tom Clancy (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 2000

The Kerguelens - isolated French islands in the southern Indian Ocean - were the home of the Arch of Kerguelen, a 1,000-foot-tall stone vault that had confounded navigators for centuries. Jean-Paul Kauffmann finds poetry in the isolation and strangely serene beauty of this land far from the hustle of "civilized" life, where the vast ocean dominates, where the wind reigns and solitude is interrupted only by animals scrambling in the windswept fields by the graves of those who journeyed there before.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Few islands are as remote as the Kerguelens, a treeless, roadless waste in the southern Indian Ocean. Kauffmann voyaged there--the only access is by ship--in 1991 and produced this wonderfully ethereal account of the place and its history. The islands were discovered in 1772 by Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen, a gloomy Breton whose disappointment with his find was reexperienced by everyone who tried to do anything with the Kerguelens. A century passed before any French returned, when the Boissiere brothers started a sheep-raising operation. That miserable failure was followed by a short-lived whaling operation, then by a failed colonization attempt. No tree grows in the Kerguelens, but the wind blows, a fierce, perpetual gale that shapes moods, accenting the sense of desolation, of geographical orphanage, that the Kerguelens impart. Nobody lingers, all long to leave, not least the annual missions France rotates through the Kerguelens to assert its sovereignty. A fine discovery in itself, Kauffman's story effectively comments on the ambience created when human dreams face nature's indifference. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"An expert in ennui, a master at malaise, Kauffmann. . . discovers the loneliness at the center of the human heart." -- St. Petersburg Times, 11/19/00

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows; First Edition edition (November 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581688
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581682
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,495,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A cloudy window on a fascinating land, January 7, 2002

By 

Veronique Chez Sheep (Santa Cruz California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation (Hardcover)

This book is neither a travelogue (in the usual sense), a natural history treatise, nor a serious historical overview of the French islands of Kerguelen (also called Desolation Island.) Although there are some evocative phrases that approach description (for example, "it's the land of 'the eternal late autumn.'"), author Jean-Paul Kauffmann never seems to get around to actually describing much more than the ever present wind.

Why travel to Kerguelen? Well, there's a rock arch. And a failed explorer. And it's difficult to get to. But overwhelmingly, one gets the feeling that the author made this journey because he couldn't think of anything better to do.

Not that that's a bad idea, mind you. But once he's arrived, he doesn't seem particularly interested in either noticing details or passing them on. His historical snippets of earlier explorers are truncated and flimsy. And he seems completely uninterested in the other human beings whom he encounters. Perhaps it's because most of them are scientists.

I betray my interest in natural history by pointing out that every time Jean-Paul Kauffman gets to an interesting fact or description of this most remote of all places on earth, he punts it by either declaring that science has taken the poetry out of nature-- the man has obviously never read Loren Eiseley-- or adds it as an unexplained addendum ("...the meteorite lying amid the ruins is like the dead soul of Port Jeanne d'Arc..." Hey, wait a minute, what meteorite?)

Despite its flaws, or possibly because of them, this book entices you to learn more. One hopes that the next adventurer to Kerguelen arrives with an actual sense of adventure and the descriptive power to pass it on.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Islands of Desolation, September 17, 2004

By 

Michael Makar (Bradenton, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation (Hardcover)

This book coupled with viewing the photos on this website, http://ile.kerguelen.free.fr/accueil.htm, paint a tale of how lonely a place can be. I have not seen many books on the Kerguelen and this book just whetted my interest in reading more about this place. If there had been more illustrations and maps I would have added another star.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Arch of Kerguelen, February 16, 2001

By 

Richard Sorsky (Fresno, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation (Hardcover)

A fine translation from the French but this book really suffers from the lack of photos. For those readers interested in the series of French islands in the southern Indian Ocean this is a fine book and I doubt there will be many disappointed readers.However, if you wonder what Kerguelen might look like in reality, this book is not for you.