Eumeswil#Themes
{{Short description|1977 novel by Ernst Jünger}}
{{Infobox book|
| name = Eumeswil
| image = Eumeswil by Ernst Junger.png
| caption = Cover of the first edition
| author = Ernst Jünger
| translator = Joachim Neugroschel
| cover_artist = Heinz Edelmann
| country = West Germany
| language = German
| publisher = Klett-Cotta
| pub_date = 1977
| english_pub_date = 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.Booklist, John Schreffler The book was published in English in 1993, translated by Joachim Neugroschel.{{Cite book|title=Eumeswil|via=WorldCat|oclc = 722378431}}
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.{{cite journal
| last = Macklin
| first = Graham D.
|date=September 2005
| title = Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction
| journal = Patterns of Prejudice
| volume = 39
| issue = 3
| pages = 301–326
| doi = 10.1080/00313220500198292
| s2cid = 144248307
| type = .pdf
}} 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,[http://www.norwichconference.com/?p=386 Warrior, Waldgänger, Anarch: An essay on Ernst Jünger's concept of the sovereign individual] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318071339/http://www.norwichconference.com/?p=386 |date=2017-03-18 }} by Abdalbarr Braun, accessed 14 May 2016.[http://ernst-juenger.blogspot.com ''An exposition of the figure of the Anarch through citations from Juenger's Eumeswil.] but it is then developed in subtle but critical ways beyond Stirner's concept.
{{quote
|text=The Anarch is the positive counterpart of the anarchist.
|sign=
}}
{{quote
|text= 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.
|sign=
}}
{{quote
|text=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.
|sign=
}}
{{quote
|text=The Anarch is to the anarchist, what the monarch is to the monarchist.
|sign=Ernst Jünger
}}
Reception
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."Publishers Weekly Review 1994-05-09 http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-941419-97-0
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160121170007/http://cnqzu.com/library/Fiction/81296969-Ernst-Junger-Eumeswil.pdf English Language copy of the book]
- [http://www.ernst-juenger.org Blog discussing and exploring Jünger's anarch through excerpts from Eumeswil] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050123161921/http://juenger.org/ |date=2005-01-23 }}
- [http://www.eumeswil.cc Association Eumeswil, a Florentine cultural association dedicated to the study of Ernst Jünger's life and works.]
- {{Isfdb title|id=1919119}}
{{Ernst Jünger}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:1977 science fiction novels
Category:German science fiction novels
Category:German-language novels
Category:Novels by Ernst Jünger
Category:Novels set in Morocco
Category:German post-apocalyptic novels
Category:Novels about time travel
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