Thomas the Obscure
by Maurice Blanchot
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Description
Before Sartre, before Beckett, before Robbe-Grillet, Maurice Blanchot created the new novel, the ultimate post-modern fiction. Written between 1932 and 1940, Blanchot's first novel, here brilliantly translated by Robert Lamberton, contains all the remarkable aspects of his famous and perplexing invention, the ontological narrative--a tale whose subject is the nature of being itself. This paradoxical work discovers being in the absence of being, mystery in the absence of mystery, both to be show more searched for limitlessly. As Blanchot launches this endless search in his own masterful way, he transforms the possibilities of the novel. First issued in English in 1973 in a limited edition, this re-issue includes an illuminating essay on translation by Lamberton. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Atheistic mysticism can be interesting; when added to existential void-gazing and cod metaphysics, it's much less so. This book gets good once we leave Thomas's navel behind and spend some time with Anne, and then see how Thomas has changed (or failed to change) with Anne's death. But rather too much of this is faux-intellectual bloviating romantic silliness. I assume Blanchot's other work is less so, and look forward to reading it.
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Author Information
122+ Works 4,268 Members
Maurice Blanchot, 1907 - Novelist and critic Maurice Blanchot was born in 1907. Some of his works in translation include "Death Sentence" (1978), "The Gaze of Orpheus" (1981), "Madness of the Day" (1988), "The One Who Was Standing Apart From Me" (1993), all of which were translated by Lydia Davis, and "Michel Foucault as I Imagine Him" (translated show more by Jeffrey Mehlman, 1987). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Collection L'imaginaire (272)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1941 see disambiguation notice; 1950 (nouvelle version) (nouvelle version)
- First words
- Thomas sat down and looked at the sea.
- Blurbers
- Poulet, Georges; Sontag, Susan; Sorrentino, Gilbert
- Disambiguation notice
- This is the *new version*. It is not to be combined with the original version, which is nearly 200pp longer!
Ceci est la *nouvelle version* et elle ne doit pas être confondue avec la première version qui est presque ... (show all)200 pages plus longue.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 326
- Popularity
- 97,470
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- 10 — Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
- ASINs
- 4
