Philosopher and novelist Tristan Garcia’s Memories From the Jungle, newly translated from the French by Christopher Beach, is a profoundly sad novel about a civilized chimpanzee who must return to nature. Garcia makes interesting choices to show that Doogie’s consciousness and command of language is different from that of a human. For Doogie, civilization is desirable and nature undesirable. Doogie remembers, “The little old human has covered the front of his beautiful white face with black” (p. 231). In Memories From the Jungle, there can be no synthesis between civilization and nature.