Eumeswil
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Ernst Jünger |
|---|---|
| Translator | Joachim Neugroschel |
| Cover artist | Heinz Edelmann |
| Language | German |
| Publisher | Klett-Cotta |
Publication date | 1977 |
| Publication place | West Germany |
Published in English | 1993 |
| Pages | 434 |
| ISBN | Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Eumeswil is a 1977 novel by the German author Ernst Jünger. The narrative is set in an undatable post-apocalyptic world, somewhere in present-day Morocco. It follows the inner and outer life of Manuel Venator, a historian in the city-state of Eumeswil who also holds a part-time job in the night bar of Eumeswil's ruling tyrant, the Condor.[1] The book was published in English in 1993, translated by Joachim Neugroschel.[2]
Themes
[edit | edit source]The key theme in the novel is the figure of the Anarch, the inwardly-free individual who lives quietly and dispassionately within but not of society and the world. The Anarch is a metaphysical ideal figure of a sovereign individual, conceived by Jünger.[3] Jünger was greatly influenced by egoist thinker Max Stirner. Indeed, the Anarch starts out from Stirner's conception of the unique (der Einzige), a man who forms a bond around something concrete rather than ideal,[4][5] but it is then developed in subtle but critical ways beyond Stirner's concept.
The Anarch is the positive counterpart of the anarchist.
I am an anarch – not because I despise authority, but because I need it. Likewise, I am not a nonbeliever, but a man who demands something worth believing in.
Although I am an anarch, I am not anti-authoritarian. Quite the opposite: I need authority, although I do not believe in it. My critical faculties are sharpened by the absence of the credibility that I ask for. As a historian, I know what can be offered.
The Anarch is to the anarchist, what the monarch is to the monarchist.
Reception
[edit | edit source]Publishers Weekly reviewed the book in 1994: "In this acute if labyrinthine study of a compromised individual, [Jünger] telescopes past and present, playing over the sweep of Western history and culture with a dazzling range of allusions from Homer and Nero to Poe and Lenin, displaying his erudition but failing to ignite the reader's engaged interest."[6]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Booklist, John Schreffler
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- ^ Warrior, Waldgänger, Anarch: An essay on Ernst Jünger's concept of the sovereign individual Archived 2017-03-18 at the Wayback Machine by Abdalbarr Braun, accessed 14 May 2016.
- ^ An exposition of the figure of the Anarch through citations from Juenger's Eumeswil.
- ^ Publishers Weekly Review 1994-05-09 https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-941419-97-0
External links
[edit | edit source]- English Language copy of the book
- Blog discussing and exploring Jünger's anarch through excerpts from Eumeswil Archived 2005-01-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Association Eumeswil, a Florentine cultural association dedicated to the study of Ernst Jünger's life and works.
- Eumeswil title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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