The Violent Eye

Book excerpt: Ernst Jünger embodies the enigma of that catastrophic turn taken by European civilization in German history and culture during the period of the two world wars. This study undertakes more than a critical account of an individual German writer. It examines how the interior explorations of Jünger's writing can be interpreted as the counterpart to those exterior events that determined German national life. Jünger's position as witness to and representative of this century is unique. His long and distinguished career as a writer began in the aftermath of the first World War, sharing its origins with those of German fascism, and has continued through to our own time. The journals, essays, and fiction in which he comments on the horrors of modernity and postmodernity from the period preceding World War II up to the present are often chilling. Everything on which he reflects is presented simultaneously through its place in a planetary perspective and as the object of the most minute scrutiny. He moves with dizzying rapidity from speculations on the vast movement of history to the fascination of entomology, a field in which he has earned a worldwide reputation. The Violent Eye is the first complete critical study in English of Ernst Jünger's writing and his place in the history of German fascist culture. Marcus Paul Bullock has written this book in order to understand the increasing rarity of the right-wing intellectual in our century. Bullock's purpose is not to side with Jünger, nor to seek to justify his position. He does not aim to salvage Jünger's reputation, but to clear a way to the real significance of his writing. His study attempts to derive an understanding of history from Jünger's work according to values entirely distinct from Jünger's own.