The news sinks in slowly and deeply. It is altogether without sadness for the
man - if anyone would have been ready, even eager to face the Great Hunt, it
was Ernst Jünger. But the loss, the solitude, does stimulate a zeal to work, to
proudly keep the faith, as Luke Skywalker might have heard it from his master.
In 1995 I spent an afternoon in Wilflingen with Jünger - his signature graces
the inside cover of my copy of Eumeswil. Now that the original anarch has left
I would like to move ahead with a pet project on the Anarch in Eumeswil. A
paper, or more, is in the works on this topic. It occurs to me that I, and the
eventual readers, might profit from the abundant and diverse expertise
available on this mailing list. I shall post a quotation from Eumeswil every
few days for your:
* interpretations,
* comments on the translation,
* feelings about the importance of the passage,
* illustrative examples from Junger's own life,
* citations and links to other authors,
* anything else that I might use to personally understand Ernst Junger's
Anarch and to present a full picture of him (her!) to others.
I am using the English translation by Neugroschel (Eridanos, 1993, ISBN
0-941419-97-5) for the purposes of these postings. The phrases all deal with
the Anarch directly.
In my opinion the Anarch is Jünger's crowning creation, whether this is
recognized yet or not. I hope by this effort to contribute to a broader
recognition of this figure and his lessons on living in the world.
I trust that the phrases will stimulate interesting discussion for all. Any
materials or suggestions that are used in any way in an eventual publication
will naturally be credited to their source.
By the way, are we now awaiting the first translations of Die Schere from the
native German speakers? (I seem to have missed some postings)
Anyhow, let the experiment begin
From Part 1 - The teachers
(Regarding the psychological testing which the Condors's staff have to undergo
to be hired:)
"They found no mischief in me. I remained normal, however deeply they probed.
And also straight as an arrow. To be sure, normality seldom coincides with
straightness. Normalcy is the human constitution; straightness is logical
reasoning. With its help, I could answer satisfactorily. In contrast, the human
element is at once so general and so intricately encoded that they fail to
perceive it, like the air that they breathe. Thus they were unable to penetrate
my fundamental structure, which is anarchic.
That sounds complicated, but it is simple, for everyone is anarchic; this
is precisely what is normal about us. Of course, the anarch is hemmed in from
the first day by father and mother, by state and society. Those are prunings,
tappings of the primordial strength, and nobody escapes them. One has to resign
oneself. But the anarchic remains, at the very bottom, as a mystery, usually
unknown even to its bearer. It can erupt from him as lava, can destroy him,
liberate him.
Distinctions must be made here: love is anarchic, marriage is not. The
warrior is anarchic, the soldier is not. Manslaughter is anarchic, murder is
not. Christ is anarchic, Saint Paul is not. Since, of course, the anarchic is
normal, it is also present in Saint Paul, and sometimes it erupts mightily from
him. Those are not antitheses but degrees. The history of the world is moved by
anarchy. In sum: the free human being is anarchic, the anarchist is not."
Page 41.
Only one specific query: is anyone familiar enough with the life and writings
of Saint Paul to direct me to specific "eruptions" of his anarchic qualities?
Other comments? (The sentences are so simple, the significance and the meaning
so deep, so slippery. Concrete illustrations of how Junger lived according to
the ideas in the phrases would be particularly useful.)
