The Man Who Lost Himself tells the story of Michel Bedée, a brilliant scientist whose work on the new element that he's discovered—sirium—has alienated him from his mother, his sister, and his wife. He cannot bear the fact that, although he loves his wife dearly, he cannot make her happy. Unfortunately, when she finds an alternative route to happiness, he cannot bear that either. Forced into isolation, he completes the formulation of the theory that will integrate the properties of sirium into a revised physical chemistry. Then, having exhausted what remains of his reasons for living, he finds himself at a loss, suspended between life and death—which appear to him in graphic symbolic form. An unusual philosophical French science-fiction novel, a precursor to some of modern-day European SF.