Thomas the Impostor (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Peter Owen Modern Classics S.) [Paperback]

Jean Cocteau (Author), Gilbert Adair (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2006 | Series: Peter Owen Modern Classics S.

Guillaume Thomas is desperate for thrills, glamor and adventure. At just sixteen years old he knows the value of lying. Too young to fight, he assumes a noble ancestry and extra years to become a soldier. In this guise he meets the society Princess de Bormes and her impressionable daughter Henriette. While the princess pursues charity work with the wounded, Henriette falls in love with Guillaume. However, Guillaume, obsessed with his uniform and shiny revolver, is lost in the realms of fantasy. In the trenches he clings to his imposture, as he begins to grasp the real meaning of war.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jean Cocteau is regarded as one of France's greatest men of arts and letters. A multi-faceted talent and a recipient of the Légion d'honneur, he achieved distinction as a poet, playwright, and critic as well as an artist, illustrator, composer, actor, and internationally acclaimed filmmaker. He was the author of La Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants Terribles, and Opium. Gilbert Adair is the author of The Real Tadzio.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd; Tra edition (July 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0720612527
• ISBN-13: 978-0720612523
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #291,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aimless introspection, December 19, 2008

By 

Luca Graziuso (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas the Impostor (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Peter Owen Modern Classics S.) (Paperback)

Jean Cocteau's Thomas the Impostor, set in France at the beginning of World World I, evokes the atmosphere of a stay at the trenches. It parallels a overwrought society to the warring front, by describing the perils of love, the twisting wring of grief and the coiled fates of a group of disillusioned characters, including Thomas, the sixteen-years old "impostor" of the title, as they emulate the aimlessness and horror of the war only to incur the void and rage deceit leaves in us. This is an unforgettable story, steady in its besieging caustic strain and vicious in its lyrical puissance. Its realistic fold is only best conducted by the omniscient tussle with the absence of order or meaning or identity, rendered in a magical confusion that compels and appalls alike.
It is today of extraordinary interest to postmodern students and less haughty fans of great literature, given parallel expostulations by Maurice Blanchot in Thomas the Obscure and the great Italian Existentialist novel by Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe; not to mention its illuminating comparison with Camus' Marsault and the recently surfaced Hungarian masterpiece of Marai The Rebels.
Jean Cocteau's art (theatre, film and surrealist doodling) is so highly regarded but here we most readily see it put to practice in a way that uses reason to express the unreasonable, the absurdity of identity and the violance of being.
The foreword by Gilbert Adair is exceptional and should not be skimmed, but read with voracious interest.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The art of delusion, March 23, 2009

By 

Claude Lambert (Savannah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thomas the Impostor (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Peter Owen Modern Classics S.) (Paperback)

I do not know of any other book that describes so well the mind of a liar. The last thought of the wounded hero is that he is going to pretend that he is dead, but he is dead already.
You cannot be more powerful than that. I have 2000 reasons to dislike Cocteau (just as you might dislike Truman Capote), but there is no denying this book.