Leon Bloy

Leon Bloy: A Study in Impatience by Albert Beguin, translated by Edith M Riley, 244 pages

This book is neither a biography nor a work of literary criticism, but an exploration of the thought of Leon Bloy as he expressed it in his life and writing.  It is the thought of a prophet, although Bloy was a prophet not because he was a futurist, but because he lived and thought eschatologically, and although he prayed devoutly for the end of the world to come, he saw clearly that the judgment and salvation of the world were being perpetually brought about in the present moment.  For Bloy, all of history is the story of the suffering Christ, retold over and over until its consummation.