"Storm of Steel" by Ernst Junger is one of the best War/Combat books ever penned. I've read his other books as well and he is incredible. Total Hyperborean Aryan Warrior (whether he realized it or not) as he conveys in his inimitable style how War is truly the Father of all men. Real men, that is. His prose of adversaries clashing on the battlefield is near poetic. Your comment on the novel being finished because all the stories have already been written is analogous to something George Thorogood said in a music interview many years ago. He was asked why he didn't write his own songs as his band did covers. He replied: (quote/paraphrase)-"Of course I don't write any songs, why should I bother? All of the great songs have already been written." Fabulous poem at the end there, MZ.
Thank you for your comment! I found your analysis of Junger helpful. So far, I've only attempted Storm and Steel (as my essay mentions), but I have not read any of Junger's other work. I have a copy of "On the Marble Cliffs", and I heard that "The Worker" is a good essay. Any recommendations? [preferably, only those currently translated]
You're welcome. "Fire and Blood", "Copse 125", "War as an Inner Experience" and "On Pain" - "Show me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!" All of them truly outstanding.
After my second attempt at Moby Dick, I came across the Kids Jr. Reader, version in book store, lots of good illustrations, less than 100pgs, read it in couple sittings, a solid sea tale, "without the ramblings" I like that, cheers.
"Who cares about endless reports of armies, generals, and battles?" -Men do.
The novel became popular because of the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and the format was used as social commentary which were also serialized in literary magazines. Not until many decades later where these novels published in one binding as a complete work. Dickens main job was the editor of one of the magazines and it was under his editorship that North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, my favourite novel of that era before Dostoevsky, was published as instalments. Probably a Chapter a month!
I dislike the literary and modernist novels with a few exceptions, I dislike most fiction in the last couple of decades. I disagree on modern man though as you categorized it because it is modern man that is primitive and does not have the capacity to understand older literature. First, he has to be interested as the ego of modern culture will not stand for a long, detailed, critique, of itself in the form of a novel, monologue, or play. Which was exactly the first purpose of Dickens and Gaskell type novels; art as social commentary as Voltaire's short stories, I love Candide, as vehicles of the Enlightenment system to reach an audience that could not be reached through more rigid and direct methods. When you cannot reach through philosophy and discussion then literature is the backdoor to the common mind. Or was until TV and radio...
Therefore if the novel and story is dead so is Art and with it Critique, I use the French form of criticism subtly to distinguish from mundane opinionated commentary, and then the Mind has lost an essential part of itself leaving a ragged, distracted, frought, shell of a ghost.
"Storm of Steel" by Ernst Junger is one of the best War/Combat books ever penned. I've read his other books as well and he is incredible. Total Hyperborean Aryan Warrior (whether he realized it or not) as he conveys in his inimitable style how War is truly the Father of all men. Real men, that is. His prose of adversaries clashing on the battlefield is near poetic. Your comment on the novel being finished because all the stories have already been written is analogous to something George Thorogood said in a music interview many years ago. He was asked why he didn't write his own songs as his band did covers. He replied: (quote/paraphrase)-"Of course I don't write any songs, why should I bother? All of the great songs have already been written." Fabulous poem at the end there, MZ.
Thank you for your comment! I found your analysis of Junger helpful. So far, I've only attempted Storm and Steel (as my essay mentions), but I have not read any of Junger's other work. I have a copy of "On the Marble Cliffs", and I heard that "The Worker" is a good essay. Any recommendations? [preferably, only those currently translated]
You're welcome. "Fire and Blood", "Copse 125", "War as an Inner Experience" and "On Pain" - "Show me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!" All of them truly outstanding.
After my second attempt at Moby Dick, I came across the Kids Jr. Reader, version in book store, lots of good illustrations, less than 100pgs, read it in couple sittings, a solid sea tale, "without the ramblings" I like that, cheers.
Please buy my product.
https://dyce.substack.com/p/the-melding-of-vr-headset-sensibility
"Who cares about endless reports of armies, generals, and battles?" -Men do.
The novel became popular because of the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and the format was used as social commentary which were also serialized in literary magazines. Not until many decades later where these novels published in one binding as a complete work. Dickens main job was the editor of one of the magazines and it was under his editorship that North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, my favourite novel of that era before Dostoevsky, was published as instalments. Probably a Chapter a month!
I dislike the literary and modernist novels with a few exceptions, I dislike most fiction in the last couple of decades. I disagree on modern man though as you categorized it because it is modern man that is primitive and does not have the capacity to understand older literature. First, he has to be interested as the ego of modern culture will not stand for a long, detailed, critique, of itself in the form of a novel, monologue, or play. Which was exactly the first purpose of Dickens and Gaskell type novels; art as social commentary as Voltaire's short stories, I love Candide, as vehicles of the Enlightenment system to reach an audience that could not be reached through more rigid and direct methods. When you cannot reach through philosophy and discussion then literature is the backdoor to the common mind. Or was until TV and radio...
Therefore if the novel and story is dead so is Art and with it Critique, I use the French form of criticism subtly to distinguish from mundane opinionated commentary, and then the Mind has lost an essential part of itself leaving a ragged, distracted, frought, shell of a ghost.