I have always maintained that Eumeswil is Ernst Jünger's defining and far and away most important work. At home I even have three copies of the hardcover English edition (Marsilio Publishers, New York: 1994) - which I picked up for $10 each on the bargain table at a Chapters in Vancouver 10 years ago!
A pity I did not buy everything on the table - as you see below:
If "the market is never wrong", this seems to be a confirmation of my highest opinion of this book.
It should also be an incentive for Marsilio to reprint - or for some other publisher, since the English translation rights in this case seem to have remained with the translator.
In the meantime the impatient reader always has the option to take matters into his own hands and look online for downloadable versions. At these high prices, I cannot imagine that a cult book like this is not available somewhere on the internet for free.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon only seems to be growing. I would pay this much for this book, but I am an exception - I already love the book, and, if need be, I could afford the sacrifice. But many cannot, however much they want to have the book. Such people go online and find free versions - and one can understand their position.
From all perspectives, it would really be time for a reprint!
I notice the Stuart Hood translation (the only English translation I believe) of On the Marble Cliffs has been out of print for some time, which surprises me. No demand for this text even from departments of Literature and History?
ReplyDeleteThe blurb on the dust jacket of my copy of Eumeswil states that translations of Heliopolis and On the Marble Cliffs were forthcoming from Eridanos. That was 1994; curious to know whether the translations were actually completed but just never made it to market.
Ryan Teall
Heliopolis was certainly never published. On the Marble Cliffs only appeared in the Stuart Hood translation, which I have to say is excellent!
ReplyDelete@anonymous:
ReplyDeleteAs reference for others: "The positive counterpart of the anarchist is the anarch. The latter is not the adversary of the monarch but his antipode, untouched by hirn, though also dangerous. He is not the opponent of the monarch, but his pendant."
Neugroschel's translation of this paragraph is good, except for "pendant", which I also find unnecessarily cryptic. He could have better used "equivalent", which is in the vein of this comparison. The anarch and the monarch are equivalent or comparable figures in their respective domains of the state and the self - as Jünger says in the next paragaph:
"After all, the monarch wants to rule many, nay, all people; the anarch, only himself."