Maurice Blanchot - Thomas o Obscuro

A major work of 20th-century French literature, Thomas o Obscuro is a crossroads between philosophy and literature, as well as one of the most challenging books of modernity.

In French, as in Portuguese, a comma usually separates a name from its epithet, as in “Alexander, the Great.” Blanchot, a writer and intellectual admired by some of the greatest writers and philosophers of his time and ours, did not include a comma in the title of his work. Published in 1941, Thomas the Obscure was rewritten and republished in 1950. For the author, both versions were valid, although the later one (followed in this translation by Manuel de Freitas) became the canonical version. Thomas is the personification of the concept of the neutral that Blanchot explored in his literature. Thomas tells us: “I think, therefore I am not.” Thomas has no personality; he is a neutral being, a humanity deconstructed into loose parts, and as such, a unique analysis of the human being and simultaneously of the literary being. Regarding the title, some say it is a reference to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, known as “the obscure,” due to the oracular nature of his work On Nature, attributed to him by Diogenes Laërtius. However, some also see in Blanchot’s book an allusion to Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure, while others claim these hints are merely meant to leave the reader-interpreter in the dark…