| Thomas the Impostor Contributor(s): Cocteau, Jean (Author), Adair, Gilbert (Introduction by) |
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ISBN: 0720612527 ISBN-13: 9780720612523 Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers OUR PRICE: $12.56 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 2006 Annotation: A modern classic, The Impostor is a 'hymn to the cult of youth' set against the chaos and the trenches of the First World War. Guillaume Thomas, restless and hungry for adventure learns just how much can be gained by lying. At sixteen, he is too young to fight but, borrowing a noble ancestry and a few extra years, he becomes a soldier. In this guise he meets the Princesse de Bormes and her impressionable daughter Henriette. While the princess seeks charity work and Henriette falls in love, Guillaume pursues his fantasy and dies a soldier's death. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | War & Military - Fiction | Coming Of Age |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2006279329 |
| Physical Information: 0.45" H x 4.9" W x 7.34" (0.31 lbs) 200 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Cocteau's breakthrough novel on the horrors of World War I. Too young to fight, Thomas assumes a noble ancestry, adds a few extra years to his age, and becomes a soldier. In this guise, he meets the society star 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, resplendent in army uniform and issued with a shiny revolver, is lost like a child in a fantasy land of their own creation. At the novel's denouement, he clings to his imposture, but in mind, if not body, he has grasped the real meaning of war. This visionary novel is a "hymn to the cult of youth" in which World War I battlefields become an exaggerated spectacle where fiction and reality are inseparable. |