Junger was born in 1895 and lived until 1998 (that's right, 102 years old), quite an achievement for someone who lived while active in two world wars and the devastating flu epidemic in between. The character narrating this book seems to have had a similar experience, although no dates are given.

Down on his luck and recommended for a possibly distasteful job, he goes over on his life from school years, with an attendant bully, through cavalry training, tank warfare, and other experiences, interspersed with philosophical musings and apprehensions. Labelled as defeatist early in his career, he has suffered a steady downward slope of status and meaning in his life, to the point that he cannot support himself and his wife. So when his friend Twinings recommends him to a job with a formidable industrialist, he takes the chance.

The industrialist, Zapparoni, is Junger's futuristic idea, a man of great invention and media control. You might thing of Walt Disney crossed with Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Entertainment under his control is mesmerizing and artificial; his image constantly changes to suit the situation; he is beloved in society. And yet he has invented the tiny robots, the glass bees, that promise so much more power and control.

Junger's view of the possible future is astoundingly prescient, but I was more impressed with the scope of change his narrator describes, the total change in technology and society experienced by, among others, Junger himself.

I don't know how to rate this. It's not really a novel in the sense of plot and character. But it held my interest. I kept thinking of my grandfather, who was a contemporary of Junger's, and who started in the Ukraine as a salt trader hauling sacks of salt off the rail cars by hand, and ended up flying from Brooklyn, N.Y. to Florida in the winters, having seen the complete transformation of his world. ( )

In a weird world that went from 19th century cavalry charges to a world dominated by automatons in the space of a generation, the former cavalry officer Richard is looking for a job and Zapparoni, lord over an imperium of fantastic automats, needs a head of security. Their common friend Twinnings arranges for a job interview. As he prepares for this interview he muses about his childhood and the lessons learned during his training as a cavalry officer and his later service as a tank inspector, about his own strength and weaknesses and how he fits into this new world where the values he was brought up on are a liability rather than an advantage. Written in 1957 a lot of his thoughts and ideas are very fitting for today's world. And his fantastical creations are charming and disquieting at the same time. ( )

Jünger’s expertly formed portrayal of a mind pinging through memory and regret and uncertainty, culminating in an unsettling episode in a strangely beautiful garden, won’t be easily forgotten.

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I enjoyed reading about Ernst Junger's vision of a dystopian future in "The Glass Bees." Junger seems to have been ahead of his time when thinking about the impact of technology on the human race.

The story follows a narrator who gets a job offer at Zapparoni Works, run by a wealthy man responsible for the growing use of luxury and other types of robots. The job offered is a bit unsavory and our narrator wrestles with questions of morality, showing how his background frames his views.

This was a quick little read and a pretty fun one. ( )

Jünger’s fiction is always interesting to read, primarily for the way he skirts around the edges of a genre while imbuing his works with a spirit all his own. Just as On the Marble Cliffs was a strange take on the fantasy genre, The Glass Bees is a (slightly less) strange take on a science fiction novel. Again, it’s an interesting work, but by splitting its attention in the manner that it does The Glass Bees sacrifices story for philosophical musings of varying quality.

Captain Richards, an old soldier who has always tried to live honorably and has failed to advance his career because of it, goes to a job interview with a reclusive inventor/industrialist named Zapparoni, during which he sees some things that emphasize to him that the age he grew up in is coming to an end. Besides the ending, that encompasses all of the action that actually occurs in The Glass Bees. You’re probably thinking that this doesn’t sound like enough material for a book, even one only 209 pages or so long, and you’re quite right. There are only perhaps 40 pages dedicated to the actual action, with the rest of the book consisting of memories Captain Richards recollects during the course of the day. Zapparoni will say hello to Captain Richards, but will do it in a way that Richards finds possibly insulting, and the entire next chapter will be a memory of Richards pertaining to that potential insult. It reminded me quite strongly of Zweig’s book Journey Into the Past, tracing the memories that arise as a man goes about his day, and in that way sketching the outline of the man’s life. Jünger uses these memories to expound upon the ways in which the world has changed since Richards’ youth, and many of these changes seem to coincide with changes that Jünger saw as well during post WW1 Germany and the rise to power of Hitler.

Richards tends to romanticize the past, unable to accept the changes that have occurred, and it’s hard not to feel as though Jünger also wouldn’t mind turning back the clock. There are some good lines and observations contained in these memories (“a name that is only whispered is more powerful than one shouted from the rooftops,” “I cannot dismiss it with the remark that the world is full of senselessness. Really, doesn’t everything make sense?”), but after a point they began to drag down the book. I was expecting the memories to provide us with Captain Richards’ backstory as well as to provide us some insight into what this future looks like, and for them to stop once Zapparoni made an appearance. After all, Zapparoni represents this new present, as well as the future, so it would make sense if he snapped the action back to the present and thereby brought some forward momentum to the story. Instead, although it occurs more than halfway through the book, Zapparoni’s introduction does nothing to stem the tide of memories. Despite some tension being created in the last 40 or 50 pages of the book, Jünger does a poor job of pacing. The ending is interesting, but ambiguous, and it feels as though it comes too soon in the story.

It’s interesting to consider why Jünger wrote this story as a work of science fiction. A story of a disenchanted soldier could, after all, take place during nearly any time period. I get the sense that Jünger used science fiction elements to recreate the feeling of being on unsure footing in the reader, just as Richards is experiencing. Subtle hints at the ways in which the world has changed (which Jünger drops in rather masterfully) as well as the introduction of the titular glass bees during the second half of the novel both keep the reader guessing as to what exactly this new world is, just as Richards is left guessing about what fate is going to befall him.

The Glass Bees is a work of science fiction different enough that you’d be hard pressed to find one that’s comparable beyond mere surface similarities. Still, this subtle and peripheral take on science fiction probably won’t satisfy most genre fans. Additionally, the pacing and lack of forward momentum will make this book frustrating for some people. Nevertheless, it’s a unique work, and experiencing such a take on science fiction is interesting enough that maybe it would be worth a read to you, if you’re okay with a plot that’s mostly drowned in the reminiscence of the protagonist.
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