Customer Reviews

Eumeswil (The Eridanos Library)

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This book takes the form of the ruminations of Manuel Venator, a bartender for a minor tyrant who rules a North African town sometime in the future. The writing style is fantastic. The otherworldly quality of what is being described is emphasized by the prose style, which is very matter-of-fact.

More than a fantasy or science fiction work, this is a fictionalized description of what it is to be an anarch (not to be confused with an anarchist), which is essentially one who is disengaged from his surroundings and operates under the maxim "non serviam" while not making any attempt to alter or destroy the power structure, understanding that to do so would be to only risk making things worse. In a sense, this is really an updated form of Epictetus' stoicism. This book can perhaps be seen as an Enchiridion for the third millenium.

Jünger is one of the most important writers of this century. A mix of Goethe, Hamann and Novalis on one hand, and of Chamfort,Joubert and the french moralist on the other. Soldier in both wars, friend of Heidegger, Brecht, Cioran and Scholem, scientist and writer, his life is alsmots as interesting as his books. Unfortunaly his best book, his private journal from the II Wolrd War has not been translated into English.Anyway, Eumeswil is an excellent science -fiction novel with heavy philosophycal backgrounds, mostly Nietzche, Heidegger, german romantics and Oswald Spengler.Juenger died two years ago when he was 102 years old.

Junger is an acquired taste. For Americans of a melliorist intent he comes hard. He requires focus and energy besides.

This book was finished when Junger was eighty two years old. In his youth he was an infantryman who received the Pour le Merite (the highest medal for valor) in Flanders. Even in great age he was a ferocious fellow indeed. An aristocrat to the core, he found the Nazis vulgar and blood thirsty, the antithesis of gentlemen, of whom and from whom nothing good could come. In "On the Marble Cliffs" he called them "flayers", flayers of men.

He watched a lot of changes in those first 82 years, and came to the conclusion that nothing good could come from hope in politics. He came to see freedom as being essentially internal to the individual and a private matter and not something power seeking persons (who make up governments, of course) can provide. To say that he did not believe politicians' promises is understatement.

Junger was vastly well read. His historical, literary, political, and philosophical references (used mostly as metaphor) are a treat (though I must have missed most of them). He had the true historical imagination.

Don't consider Eumesvil as "science fiction". It is more like poetry, with winding allegories, carefully chosen words, essentially compact, and reaches the reader on a level more basic than story telling.

Eumesvil is a truly important work. Dostoevsky examines human nature no more acutely than this. I have just finished by first reading and expect there will be many more.

"(T)he political meaning is not enough: we have to go back to the snakes, the dogs, the holders of power... All the political givens are ephemeral; but what is concealed behind the demonic, the titanic, the mythic remains constant and has an immutable value..." (Junger in conversation with Julien Hervier in "The Details of Time.")

"Eumeswill" represents the heights of Junger's consciousness, revealing a much misunderstood figure that has been largely written out of memory, or, consistently smeared and misrepresented as a `dangerous fascist subversive.'

Junger was considered to be part of the Revolutionary Conservative movement in the early part of the 20Th century, a movement that grew considerably after WW1. "Eumeswill's" 'Anarch' however, is rooted in Junger's thought decades after he rejected nationalism and did away with his fascistic ideals. Junger never felt he needed to apologise for once having been a fascist, but it is clear from his literature that he had moved far away from such concerns by the end of the Second World War, and that is proven by "On The Marble Cliffs", a barely veiled attack on the Nazi Party. Junger became fascinated by anarchism during WW2, but appears to have quickly rejected it all as inconsistent, except for Max Stirner, from whom it may be argued that he borrowed , furthered , and fully developed the idea of the 'Anarch' -- Junger fully developed these ideas in the late 1970's, and that train of his thought is devoted to solipsistic resistance and anarchistic ideas - no matter how hard his detractors love to connect the figure of the Anarch with modern day national socialists, that stage of Junger's thought, represented by "Eumeswill", is not in any way, fascist or right wing.

"Eumeswill" is free of any right wing aggressive thought -- the book is given over to Junger's exploration of the Anarch, as well as investigating ideas remarkably similar to those of Angelus Silesius and Meister Eckhardt, both of whom were medieval mystics, from the areas now known as Poland and Germany. Thomas Nevin, in "Ernst Junger and Germany: Into the Abyss" discusses Junger's interest in, and identification with mysticism, saying that Junger's "notion of hidden harmonies amid apparent chaos suggests succession to Angelus Silesius." (p 277).

By the time Junger wrote his stoic meditation "Eumeswill", he had moved far away from the violent brash prejudice and scorn of D'Annunzio's misogynist misanthropic avant garde fascism and Nietzschean apocalyptic visions of any form -- we need to look at much earlier 1930's Junger for that, and read and reflect on Walter Benjamin's urgent critique of Junger's thought of the time, as being lethal and extremely dangerous -- Walter Benjamin was right -- Junger was, at the time, encouraging aesthetic narcissistic fascism in his work, a commitment he moved far away from by the 1940's onwards -- by the 1970's and the release of "Eumeswill", Junger was far away from right wing thought of any kind.

`Eumeswill's" detached and contemplative Anarch reminds us of another similar flaw in the critique of Junger: nowadays Junger is still popularly and commonly (and erroneously) compared or packaged together with Evola. Junger had published in the same academic journals as Evola, but there is no record of any meaningful alliance between the two men. One may conjecture that Junger was not interested in Evola's obvious interest in the Nazi party and the Italian fascist party, and ultimately, there really is no comparison between Evola's obviously race based, elitist, violent visions, and Junger's later mystical, philosophical explorations.

"Eumeswill" has a strange and unique place in post war literature - the figure of the Anarch is arguably the true flowering of Max Stirner thought, fused with the consciousness of eternity that Meister Eckhardt and Angelus Silesius articulated so profoundly.

Eumeswil has no easily discernable narrative, but rather a series of almost-episodes that trigger a series of philospohical ruminations by Martin Venator, the narrator. He observes power but removes himself from it, describing himself as an anarch, responsible no one but himself, not judging history or individuals. In doing so, he ends up serving the Condor as both a barkeep and as a collaborator. Our narrator doesn't see that by standing aside from autocracy, he enables its perpetuation. He would rather spend hours in front of a historical simulation device called the luminar and working to create a little refuge in a nearby river delta, indicative of his remove from the world around him. Not an "airplane book" by any means, but worthwhile as a glimpse as to how intellect can convince itself to serve power.