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emmjo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
jack1325wd's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
zurvanite's review against another edition
A blood-poisoned ultra-right-wing parable that (intentionally) finds itself somewhat ambiguously positioned. Junger's elitist, vague Mediterranean fantasy land gets strung through with a lattice of those who would raze the cities and slaughter the field-worker. I'd imagine that the geography described here (the lake, then the valley, then the titular cliffs, then the steppe, then the forest) is the most reactionary component. What is going on? Who is paying the bills here? At what point do we delineate between anarchism and nihilism, between nihilism and fascism, between fascism and ultra-reactionism, between ultra-reactionism and anarchism? I don't care about flowers, but I had a dream last night about a sunset with purple clouds...
imbrenda's review against another edition
5.0
This book reads like a dream walk through the destruction of civilization. Short and strongly reccomended.
dillonrockrohr's review against another edition
3.0
This is an odd little book, what Jünger calls in the author’s note an “assault from the realm of dreams.” The fact that the book is odd counts, for me, in its favor, if only as a reading experience—its mythic qualities, and it is more myth than fairytale. Walter Benjamin argues that myth is defined by an attachment to fate and sacrifice. This little novel is nothing but attached to those things. But it reads at times with the tenor of a fairytale, with the little boy calling the snakes to the milk bowl, with the hermit brothers seeking out a rare red flower at the fringe of a dark forest. But this is a story about annihilation as the peace of chaos. Jünger pontificates on how one must be true to oneself in the face of death and cataclysm. It’s as if only the moment of collapse bears the heart of the narrative. This might be the most right-wing thing about him: his fetishization of the end of all things as securing their authenticity.
wkndstbl's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0