Search results for ""Author Ernst Junger""

Ernst Jünger was one of twentieth-century Germany’s most important—and most controversial—writers. Decorated for bravery in World War I and the author of the acclaimed western front memoir Storm of Steel, he frankly depicted war’s horrors even as he extolled its glories. As a Wehrmacht captain during World War II, Jünger faithfully kept a journal in occupied Paris and continued to write on the eastern front and in Germany until its defeat—writings that are of major historical and literary significance.Jünger’s Paris journals document his Francophile excitement, romantic affairs, and fascination with botany and entomology, alongside mystical and religious ruminations and trenchant observations on the occupation and the politics of collaboration. While working as a mail censor, he led the privileged life of an officer, encountering artists such as Céline, Cocteau, Braque, and Picasso. His notes from the Caucasus depict the chaos after Stalingrad and atrocities on the eastern front. Upon returning to Paris, Jünger observed the French resistance and was close to the German military conspirators who plotted to assassinate Hitler in 1944. After fleeing France, he reunited with his family as Germany’s capitulation approached. Both participant and commentator, close to the horrors of history but often distancing himself from them, Jünger turned his life and experiences into a work of art. These wartime journals appear here in English for the first time, giving fresh insights into the quandaries of the twentieth century from the keen pen of a paradoxical observer.

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Presenting the desperate conflict of the First World War through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier, Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel is translated by Michael Hofmann in Penguin Modern Classics.'As though walking through a deep dream, I saw steel helmets approaching through the craters. They seemed to sprout from the fire-harrowed soil like some iron harvest.'A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, Storm of Steel depicts Ernst Jünger's experience of combat on the front line - leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, and simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart. One of the greatest books to emerge from the catastrophe of the First World War, it illuminates like no other book not only the horrors but also the fascination of a war that made men keep fighting for four long years.Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) the son of a wealthy chemist, ran away from home to join the Foreign Legion. His father dragged him back, but he returned to military service when he joined the German army on the outbreak of the First World War. Storm of Steel (Stahlgewittern) was Jünger's first book, published in 1920. Greatly admired by the Nazis, Jünger remained at a distance from the regime, with books such as his allegorical work On the Marble Cliffs (1939) functioning as a covert criticism of Nazi ideology and methods.If you enjoyed Storm of Steel, you might like Edward Blunden's Undertones of War, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'To read this extraordinary book is to gain a unique insight into the compelling nature of organized, industrialized violence'Niall Ferguson, author of War of the World'Hofmann's interpretation is superb' The Times'Unique in the literature of this or any other war is its brilliantly vivid conjuration of the immediacy and intensity of battle' Telegraph'Storm of Steel is what so many books claim to be but are not: a classic account of war' Evening Standard

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Ernst Jünger was one of twentieth-century Germany’s most important—and most controversial—writers. Decorated for bravery in World War I and the author of the acclaimed western front memoir Storm of Steel, he frankly depicted war’s horrors even as he extolled its glories. As a Wehrmacht captain during World War II, Jünger faithfully kept a journal in occupied Paris and continued to write on the eastern front and in Germany until its defeat—writings that are of major historical and literary significance.Jünger’s Paris journals document his Francophile excitement, romantic affairs, and fascination with botany and entomology, alongside mystical and religious ruminations and trenchant observations on the occupation and the politics of collaboration. While working as a mail censor, he led the privileged life of an officer, encountering artists such as Céline, Cocteau, Braque, and Picasso. His notes from the Caucasus depict the chaos after Stalingrad and atrocities on the eastern front. Upon returning to Paris, Jünger observed the French resistance and was close to the German military conspirators who plotted to assassinate Hitler in 1944. After fleeing France, he reunited with his family as Germany’s capitulation approached. Both participant and commentator, close to the horrors of history but often distancing himself from them, Jünger turned his life and experiences into a work of art. These wartime journals appear here in English for the first time, giving fresh insights into the quandaries of the twentieth century from the keen pen of a paradoxical observer.

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Since the dawn of time, magic is the node around which all human activities and culture revolve. As magic entered the development of science, art, philosophy, religion, myth, and psychology, it still retained its essence: that we have a dynamic connection with all other forms of life.Exploring the source magic that flows beneath the surface of culture and occulture throughout the ages, Carl Abrahamsson offers a “magical-anthropological” journey from ancient Norse shamanism to the modern magick of occultists like Genesis P-Orridge. He looks at how human beings relate to and are naturally attracted to magic. He examines in depth the consequences of magical practice and how the attraction to magic can be corrupted by both religious organizations and occult societies. He shows how the positive effects of magic are instinctively grasped by children, who view the world as magical.The author looks at magic and occulture as they relate to psychedelics, Witchcraft, shamanism, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), the panic rituals of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in Morocco, psychological individuation processes, literary “magical realism,” and the cut-up technique of Beat icons like William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin. He explores the similarities in psychology between poet Ezra Pound and magician Austin Osman Spare. He looks at the Scandinavian Fenris Wolf as a mythic force and how personal pilgrimages can greatly enrich our lives. He also examines the philosophy of German author Ernst Jünger, the magical techniques of British filmmaker Derek Jarman, and the quintessential importance of accepting our own mortality.

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