Ernst Jünger (1895–1998)

A most erudite, mature work of Ernst Junger, that surveys the historical landscapes of the omitted, and the elaborate, finery is mixed with succinctness. A great study of "ecce homo" that is deep for these with depth of insight, and intuitively flowing and wise for these that would like to be Neptunian and oneiric about the matter. With typically Jovial, precise, yet nobly drawn picture of an anarch, it is a book by a XXth century magi, and definitely worth reading! One can sense melancholic fire, yet astute vividness of renewal that a magician with scholarly background can write, and absorb to the innermost millieus of his nature! May thus, the "Jupiterian gaseuos fires not burn you" - to astronauts living, dead, and undying!… (more)

Brave, noble writing. I recognize this fiery character, as this youthful, strong and vibrant style and gamut attests for a seasoned fighter's spirit. Immature yet, well-experienced, yet overly bold in assessments. Compared to Junger's writing colouristics in Eumeswil, the latter seems a toned down realistic account of the major fruition of his life's harvests. "The Peace" however is as relevant today as it was in post-war times. Nowadays hatred and injustice are distributed in an act of inverted slavery, a silent, crawling one that vampirizes the world and replaces people's values, virtues, and freedom with surrogates and apparitions.… (more)

After reading Mr. Junger's Eumeswil, The Peace, and fragments from "Glass bees", I approached this book desiring to acknowledge a combatant's point of view on the notion of pain, resilience, hardening and maturation. I was not disappointed. Although I haven't witnessed a war, I underwent mental torment in psychoses, and several years ago I decided to confront it and rise above the pain it inflicted. It paid off, as I am much more disciplined, stern, and focused than ever before and it took me years to get there. Relation to pain is like thanatology - death and pain is hidden, we merely engage in spectator's sport. Although one may blame the pain-triumphant on the experiences of war, it is merely an inevitable warning from a more experienced man. I observe character-less (ethosless) faces of men and women everyday in the streets of Warsaw, they are a cry for a future tragedy. They melted into a mass a long time ago, I observe other European physiognomies like Europeans see Asians - they are similar in their bureacratic-technocratic dullness. Yet, yet, when a face strikes me with gesture, raw beauty, character and robust experience written all over it - a rare view - I attempt to drink its thoughts, suspended between the object and the subject in an unwritten recognition. That is how a woman I onced loved was - raw, wild, heroic, and embracing my pain in silence, proud of my overcoming, silently appraising my forging.… (more)

A condensed elucidation of the philosophy of one of the most affable fascist writers around, if that isn’t a too unpalatable turn of phrase, here espousing a gentlemanly Heraclitean ‘war is the father of all things’ mentality concerning WWI where one is able to lap up the horror and bloodlust of battle. Walter Benjamin’s distanced enjoyment of his own alienation is here twisted into an exhilaration before the spectacle of one’s own utter annihilation in a far more brutal setting than just your old stereotypical plain Jane petit-bourgeois concrete jungle. This work is the account of a true heir of Nietzsche, with all the warts and chancres and tasteless asides that entails. Definite must-read for fans of Mishima’s Sun and Steel and, like some kind of acrid Europa-endorsing fine wine, I’d pair this book with the discography of Death in June - my go to would be ‘Oh How we Laughed’ but ‘But, What Ends when the Symbols Shatter?’ would probably do just as well.… (more)