The story of an intense encounter between two men who were once very
close and now must grapple with the fractured ideals that separate
them.
After several years abroad, a young man returns to his hometown to seek
the man he calls master. This master, a brilliant philosopher, had made
the young man into a disciple before sending him out into the world to
put his teachings into practice. Returning three years later, the
disciple finds his master has abandoned his wife and child and moved
into a squalid one-room flat, cutting himself off completely from his
former life. Disillusioned and reeling from the discovery, the young man
spends an entire night listening to his master's bitter denunciation of
the ideals they once shared. Written in 1960 during Jaccottet's period
of poetic paralysis, the novel seeks to harmonize the best and worst of
human nature--reconciling despair, falsehood, and lethargy of spirit
with the need to remain open to beauty, truth, and the essential
goodness of humankind. Translated by Tess Lewis, Obscurity is
Jaccottet's only work of fiction, one that will introduce new readers to
the multifaceted skills of this major poet.