 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 | 9783129041703 |
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. The book was published in English in 1993, translated by Joachim Neugroschel.
Themes
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. 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, 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.
— Ernst Jünger
Reception
Publishers Weekly reviewed the book in 1994: "In this acute if labyrinthine study of a compromised individual, 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."
References
- Booklist, John Schreffler
- Eumeswil. OCLC 722378431 – via WorldCat.
- Macklin, Graham D. (September 2005). "Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction". Patterns of Prejudice (.pdf). 39 (3): 301–326. doi:10.1080/00313220500198292. S2CID 144248307.
- 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 http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-941419-97-0
External links
- 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
| Ernst Jünger | |
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| Autobiography and essays |
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| Fiction |
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| Miscellaneous | |
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