Maurice Blanchot

A short novel by the contemporary French writer that deals with the intense consciousness of a man whose introspective awareness leads him to oblivion rather than self-knowledge

Thomas the Obscure

jess

Easily one of my favorite books of all time, on par with Beckett's trilogy and Lispector's An Apprenticeship. In fact, the similarity is borderline uncanny—of Lori and Ulysses, Thomas and Anne. Blanchot's literary prowess brings another spool of oneiric exploration to what it seems a perspective of Thomas' life, refracted through the kaleidoscope of fragmented moments and shifting epochs. Thomas, in facing the undulations of love, the surge towards one's own insurmountable sea of thought; of defining one's existence, on prefacing grievance, the loss or interwoven identity to the lover, dissociation and disintegration of self, the ultimate fissure towards death, and embrace to the inevitable cycle beyond, puts himself upon the pedestal of profound introspection, of what it's like to reverberate among the sea of life, immobile, perhaps, along its tides. To which the denouement was similar to Lispector's An Apprenticeship, of the embrace in the imminent humane within; the engulfing into what defines us as human, and the flaws that encapsulates us—the very marrow that binds us in our fragile, flawed essence. Thomas' emotional sinews and metaphysical carcass was so correspondently atoned it felt as if his internal turmoil of living, of his constant searching of its definition and profound ruminations, of making sense the perpetual flux we call life, was so humanely resonant towards our own. His quest for meaning amid the ceaseless rhythms of existence harmonizes with our own persistent yearnings, as we too descend into the abyss of desire, fervently clutching at the coattails of our humanity. Through these pages, we discover an intimate reverberation—we also, reconfiguring, through and through, whilst plunge ourselves deep into the trench of immense desire, of an antechamber of the ceaseless ebb and flow, the perpetual learning of being human and its ramifications, and its ineffable cycles that define us in the grand tapestry of life. Viewed through the lens of Thomas in this opus, it's as though we can get a glimpse of Ulysses' mind, as he confronted the embodiment of his own abyss through the enigma of existence, of one's existential introspection and adherence of its consciousness. Their emotional landscapes echo with resonances of love and desire, often mingling with threads of indifference, both intricate and delicate, as they navigated the intertwined narratives of Lori and Anne and exhibit an an imminent fervor—a fervor born of a profound acceptance of being human, and the acceptance in its relentment.

Boxuan Mao

  There is no exact time, no space, no motivation.  The two figures are difficult to grasp as if they exist only in concept.
  An extreme experiment in text. Wandering between the best work and the worst work in different dimensions. But by any standard, the impact of Dark Thomas on me is huge. I have folded many pages in the book because I am sure that I have found here in Blanchot the best exposition of nothingness and loneliness that I have seen so far, I will look back and imitate him.

Thomas the Obscure

Reviews