War is le… good?
>>24782632IDK war didn't seem that great when I read it
>>24782632Storm of Steel is someones honest recounting of their experiences fighting in WW1, it only appears "war is good" because people were forced to read the "war is super bad :(((" slop that is All Quiet on the Western Front.
>>24782632Such a cool cover
>>24782632Great book. No idea why sloppists read cotton wool crap about teenage girls with magical powers for some reason when real, indelible stuff like this exists.
>>24782653It's the most boring war memoir I've ever read. I expected more of Jünger's psychedelic prose but 99% of it is dry description of troop movements and logistics
>>24782632I think I have found a comparison that captures the situation in which I and all the other soldiers who took part in this war so often found ourselves: you must imagine you are securely tied to a post, being menaced by a man swinging a heavy hammer. Now the hammer has been taken back over his head, ready to be swung, now it's cleaving the air towards you, on the point of touching your skull, then it's struck the post, and the splinters are flying — that's what it's like to experience heavy shelling in an exposed position.— Ernst Junger, ‘Storm of Steel’Doesn't strike me as entirely enjoyable. You have to remember that he has an aristocratic mentality which will underplay many grim or sordid details, relying on the reader to exercise imagination.
>>24782659Pierre Drieu La Rochelle is more graphic. He talks about shitting blood during an artillery attack and having to run back and forth between an outhouse and a bunker
>>24782656Name five (5) more entertaining war memoirs you've read.
>>24782632Is his fiction any good? I saw "On the Marble Cliffs" browsing NYRB once and it looked interesting.
>>24782659>You have to remember that he has an aristocratic mentality which will underplay many grim or sordid details, relying on the reader to exercise imagination.This was pretty obvious to me reading the book. His experience is coloured by a cultural upbringing to seek glory and honour and he focuses on these elements. my favourite excerpt:>A little before ten o'clock at night, a fire-storm was directed at the left flank of the regiment, which, twenty minutes later, had moved over to us. Soon we were completely wrapped in smoke and dust, but most of the shells came down just behind or just in front of our trench, if one can use that word for our smashed hollow. As the storm raged around us, I walked up and down my sector. The men had fixed bayonets. They stood stony and motionless, rifle in hand, on the front edge of the dip, gazing into the field. Now and then, by the light of a flare, I saw steel helmet by steel helmet, blade by glinting blade, and I was overcome by a feeling of invulnerability. We might be crushed, but surely we could not be conquered.
>>24782656>but 99% of it is dry description of troop movements and logisticsi know, its so kino
>>24782656>99% of it is dry description of troop movements and logisticsI will now read your memoirs
>>24782632His message is more like war is le... fun!
>Jünger wrote in a letter that the only time he felt euphoric happiness in his 102 year long life was, after previously already having been gravely wounded many times during his 4 year voluntary service in world war one, when he felt that he had 'finally' been fatally wounded and would soon die. He ultimately was saved by comrades in his unit after they reached the position where he lay gravely wounded, an outcome he stated he often regretted occurred[3].Bros...
>>24783109I wonder if Mishima ever read Jünger
>>24783117not gay or poof artsy enough for Mishima probably
>>24782632I was in the army and all I wanted was to die in combat, but I didn't even get deployed in 4 years and then got out of the military to get on with my life
>>24782632Utterly mogged by this masterpiece
>>24782770I just finished reading On the Marble Cliffs, the prose was nice but I didn't really think there was "anything to it"I haven't yet read "glass bees" but it seems far more interesting
Huh
>That passage just before the Spring Offensive where he talks about the energy in everybody and how they all felt that the fate of the world was to be decided>That passage where his platoon is completely wiped out by artillery and he's left sobbing in a shell hole>The passage where he finds his brother alive>The passage where he walks back to his lines when everyone around him is being captured after being shot through the lung.Absolute fucking kino. As close to a modern Iliad we will ever get.
>>24782635what war did you read it during?
No, it's more like: >All Quiet On the Western Front: war is hell :(vs>Storm of Steel: war is hell :D
>>24783848I've gotten a little more out of it after reading the ww2 diaries but I tend to agree. it's one of his early works and it shows. maybe you had to be there.for me it's eumeswil > glass bees > heliopolis for the three I'd recommend without reservations
>>24782656>99% of it is dry description of troop movements and logisticsSounds kino
