Between Order and Disorder: Ernst Jünger on the Marble Cliffs - by Francisco Carmo Garcia

(From VoegelinView, 16 Feb 2021)

There are several examples that help us grasping that particular zeitgeist lived in the first half of the 20th century. A book such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain gives us a description of the moral and spiritual decomposition of the then bourgeois society. At this time, in the bashed and defeated post-war Germany, nihilism had turned to be a dominant moral disposition. Oswald Spengler announced the decline of the West amidst the hubris of the Great War; Nietzsche’s will to power was convincing posthumously a younger generation of German intellectuals; and Heidegger was caught exasperating at the end of philosophy. This aura of decadence marked the period, and to that faith in the inevitable progress of humanity so specific and characteristic of the 19^th century there followed an intellectual and existential despair. Ever since the moment when the idea of progress was contested by the destruction caused by the war, that a sense of moral disorientation had necessarily to follow.

It is this crisis of the idea of progress that we can feel all over Ernst Jünger’s oeuvre, from his famous diaries of his experience in the Great War (In Stahlgewittern), to his “prophetic” work Der Arbeiter and his late novels. But one book of his in particular allows us to penetrate in the nihilistic zeitgeist of the inter-war period: his Auf den Marmorklippen, published at the zenith of Hitler’s power, in 1939. This little book – On the Marble Cliffs, in English –, forgotten in the same way which its author is neglected by the intelligentsia, tells us more about our own times – which are also times of crisis – than several of the “scientific” works that are widespread today, and which denounce a supposedly evident return of fascism. In this jüngerian tale, the despotic figure of the tyrant appears in its most violent essence, as the result of a cosmological disorder that hits society in all of its foundations. On the Marble Cliffs is a book that needs to be remembered, the meaning of which seems today almost as intelligible – and appropriate – as when it was first published.

Flying dreams - Jünger's and mine

December is for dreaming and my own clear favourites are flying dreams. Here then, from Das Abenteuerliche Herz, Zweite Fassung, is my translation of "Flugträume", followed by an exposition of my own flying dreams and perhaps comments from readers with theirs!

"Flying dreams are like memories of the possession of a special spiritual power. In truth, they are more dreams of floating, throughout which a sense of gravity always remains. We glide forth into the twilight, close over the ground, and if we touch it the dream breaks off. We float down the stairs and out of the house and occasionally raise ourselves over low obstacles like fences and hedges. At these points, we push ourselves up with an exertion that we feel in our bent elbows and balled fists. The body is semi-prone, as though we were lying comfortably in an armchair, and we float with legs forward. These dreams are pleasurable; but there are other horrible ones in which the dreamer flies over the ground in a rigid posture, bent forward with his face down. He raises himself stiffly from the start, in a sort of catalepsy, by tracing a circle over his toes with his body. He glides in this manner over nightly streets and squares, once in while popping up like a fish before lonely passersby and staring into their terrified faces.

How effortless by contrast seems the lofty flight that we see on early floating pictures. Pompey is a site for such finds as well. A wonderful, uplifting vortex bears up the figures here, though it barely seems to ruffle their hair or robes."

Years ago, an unorthodox biology professor of mine made an informal survey of the various flying dreams we students had - soaring, floating, prone, upright, etc. At the time I had nothing to contribute, but at some later point, I began "learning to fly" in my dreams. Regarding the possibility of learning in dreams, Jünger himself talks of waking up after certain dreams with the impression that he had been "practicing with exotic new weapons". In my case, once initiated upon this new course of study, it developed over the years to the point that I could now outclass Superman and perhaps even soar with an angel!

"November" - a Jünger translation for the season

When I met Ernst Jünger in 1995 in the company of the Association Eumeswil Florence and asked about any particular works he desired to be translated into English, he produced a compilation of essays entitled "Grenzgänge" (Border Crossings). Here is one essay I have just finished in unofficial translation - just in time for this grey month of darkness and dying, and already dreaming of spring renewal!

"With each fall, the angel of melancholy comes. We should sacrifice to him, not flee from him. This is one way of celebrating the mystery of death: dying too must be practiced. The fruit ripens and is harvested; the leaves change color and fall. Crows gather in flocks and circle over the bare fields. The days become shorter, night falls earlier; fire and light are discovered anew. The time approaches for the festivals of the dead and walks in the cemetery, but also for nightly visits of charitable deities. Our dreams start to transform; mantic traits slip in. We near the most secret time of the year, the bleak nights and the festivals of light. The light is safeguarded; it becomes the light of the cave, hidden auspicious light.

In the gardens, the first frost has ruined the flowers: the nasturtiums, dahlias, asters, morning glories, the last lilies and the colorful sweet peas on the fence. Only the chrysanthemums, filled and unfilled, continue blooming in many colors, also late roses, often right into December. Our steps rustle in the yellow foliage of the hazel bushes, in the coppery leaves of beeches and the deep red ones of wild grapes.

Kriegstagebuch 1914 - 1918 - Deutschlandfunk book review

I am generally not very interested in the early Jünger works - whatever others may say, I find the mature works infinitely more useful for my own enlightenment. I also find they can be studied sufficiently well without much background in the early life and thought of Jünger. Life is short, too short to focus on the unessential, which is what these early works are in comparison with the mature masterpieces like Eumeswil and Co.

Nevertheless, when there is time, these immature works do add some interesting depth to the author. I still have to read the recently published Kriegstagerbuch from the trenches of WWI. This review on Deutschlandfunk is a good one, that just might make me buy the book.

If you find some extra time, listen....(auf Deutsch natürlich).

http://www.esnips.com/doc/728fd8b1-13ea-4a19-a1fc-08e7bfd3ddf1/Deutschlandradio-Juenger-Kriegstagebuch-review

ZEIT interview with Ernst Jünger in 1989

The following is my unofficial translation of an interview with Ernst Jünger which appeared in the ZEIT magazine in 1989. The interviewer is André Müller.

I leave it to the reader without comment - in any case, even the most objective translation contains something of the translator.

A friendship developed from my original working contact with Ernst Jünger, who I interviewed for ZEIT on November 8, 1989. We corresponded and he called me at regular intervals, initially to let me know about favorable critiques or newspaper articles, but later also to ask my opinions or share something personal. I visited him five times, twice at his house in Wilflingen and three times at his nephew´s,* where he stayed when he came to Munich for the annual meeting of recipients of the Bavarian Order of Maximilian. According to Jünger, I owed this interview to the second wife of Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the journalist Charlotte Kerr, who had requested a television interview with him. He said she had warned him about me. I was a dangerous chap with whom he should be on guard. He responded to her that he understood that as a compliment and decided to accept my request. After some hesitation, he even agreed to a recording.

Jüngers Kriegstagebücher - a higher perspective

The press has recently been been full of discussion about the publication of Ernst Jünger's War Diaries (Kriegstagebücher), his original notes from the trenches of WWI. Above all this has provided new opportunities for the usual misuse of his works by left-wing opponents and right-wing "friends", respectively expressing their knee-jerk critique and misguided hero worship.

The disproportion of this attention is apparent when one remembers that it is directed at a single teenage work of an author who lived to 102, wrote dozens of far more interesting and profound works, and was awarded Germany's highest literary prize.

(One wonders if these respected critics, Feuilleton editors and academics are in fact incapable in their 50's or 60's of anything more challenging than analyzing to death Jünger´s teenage works? The reflection of a difference in intellectual level of development? Would they know where to begin with later works like Eumeswil or An der Zeitmauer, works that have not been classified once and for all times in the public mind by these "authorities"? I challenge these venerable gentlemen to "explain" Eumeswil and the anarch to their readers with their tired old politicized cliches!)