Eumeswil

Ernst Jünger

Marsilio Publishers, 1993 - Fiction - 384 pages

Originally published in Germany in 1977, when Junger was eighty-two years old, Eumeswil is the great novel of Junger's creative maturity, a masterpiece by a central figure in modern German literature. Eumeswil is a utopian state ruled by the Condor, a general who has installed himself as a dictator and who dominates the capital from a guarded citadel atop a hill - the Casbah. A refined manipulator of power, the Condor despises the democrats who conspire against him. Venator, the narrator of the novel, is a historian whose discreet and efficient services as the Condor's night steward earn him full access to the forbidden zone, at the very heart of power. Every evening, while attending to the Condor and his guests at the Casbah's night bar, Venator keeps a secret journal in which he records the conversations he overhears, delineating the diverse personalities in the Condor's entourage while sketching out an analysis of the different aspects of the psychology of power. Venator's days are spent building a hidden refuge in the mountains, a hermetic retreat where he hopes one day to realize his dreams of utter self-sufficiency. In the meantime, however, he continues to pursue his career as a historian, using the magnificent tool that has been placed at his disposal - the "luminar," a holographic instrument that can summon up any figure or event in human history. Venator, in a word, embodies Junger's ideal of the "anarch" - a heroic figure whose radical skepticism and individualism are not to be confused with mere anarchism. Around the opposite figures of the dictator and the anarch, Junger weaves a hallucinatory and poetic rumination on the nature of history and on the mainsprings ofpolitical power. At once tale, essay and philosophical poem, Eumeswil offers a desolate and lucid assessment of totalitarianism by an author who witnessed its horrors firsthand.

Contents

• The Teachers: 9
• Isolation and Security: 91
• Night Bar Notes: 159

About the author

Junger published his war diary, The Storm of Steel, in 1920 at the age of 25. The recipient of the Pour le Merite, Germany's highest award for bravery in the field, Junger was lionized by his generation for his celebration of the "purifying" experience of war. His "heroic nihilism" was further articulated in his War as a Spiritual Experience (Der Kampf als Innerer Erlebnis), published in 1922. His allegorical On the Marble Cliffs (1939) is sometimes seen as an attack on Nazism. Nonetheless, Junger served as an officer in the Reichswehr in Paris during World War II. Since the war he has become involved in the conservation movement, making the defense of nature the subject of his later writing. He remains primarily known for his early works, and his romanticization and aestheticizing of war now elicit much criticism. His recent receipt of a prestigious literary prize was the subject of considerable controversy.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Eumeswil; Volume 25 of Eridanos library
• Author: Ernst Jünger
• Publisher: Marsilio Publishers, 1993
• Original from: the University of California
• Digitized: Jul 1, 2008
• ISBN: 0941419975, 9780941419970
• Length: 384 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General