Pages 249-303
In section 39 we begin to get more oblique descriptions of the phonophone and the luminar. The phonophone is a communication device that any child could use, like a smart phone, which is likened to a magic wand. The Luminar is a search engine, the access to which is extremely limited: the worldwide web and AI if only the elite few were granted access.
“I scroll the texts on the monitor. Pulling out whatever documents I need. In Eumeswil, there are scholars, like Kessmuller, who fabricate their work in this manner.”
The history summoned from the Luminar appears in great scenes, an animated movie taking the historian back into the past: “We can also warm our hands at the fire of history, albeit from a prudent distance. Timeless things, seeping uncannily into time, can be felt.”
An examination of Prussian and German history in Early Modern times, is punctuated by the observation that war is the father of ages and chaos the mother. This is followed by a delving into the yawning philosophical navel gazing of 1800s Arуan philosophy. To read this twice would have required Ernst holding a bayonet to my throat. On page 266 the reader is released from the near mire to wonder once more in the pastures of Antiquity.
On page 269 Attila is reintroduced to inject some life back into the mired muse. The discussions recall and refer to the “forest,” in terms of a scene of passage. The philosophers gather, with Vigo destined for the forest and Bruno the catacombs, which is to say the buried human past, the Atlantean secrets. Life rather than the ideal reemerges as the focus of Manuel Venator’s heart, to the point where the text once again begins to offer meaning above mere observation and argument:
“One of the areas he [Bruno] studies is the ability of human intelligence to reach a level of supercommunication, which will make the mind independent of technological media. This development would have to be preceded by vast reductions. The Titans restrain freedom, the gods grant it.”
Already, in 1977 or before, Junger had identified mass media as a tool for cruel emotional control of humanity through technical means, and wondered through one character, at a possible antidote.
“It is not the nearest being but the most distant—Prometheus on his rock—who taps on my door at night.”
So ends the dreary day in the life of an introspective man on page 272.
A Day in the City
Latifah, his hooker down on the waterfront, and Ingrid, his intern, his two love interests, are introduced in lovely contrast, signaling that this story is a tragedy. What love of life and life in love, has been granted the tormented survivor of an abortion in an anti-natalist remnant of human society, is thankfully freed of the philosophical mire of the body of his agonizing life. He is at least given some comfort that might be lost. For his life has been lived on an ideological unicycle, on a political balance beam, juggling conflicting notions of society and eternity.
It is revealed that Latifah only has a gray, or striped phonophone. This brings the color scheme close to a parody of Hesiod’s scheme of ages: gold, silver and finally iron.
She is such a relief from his coworkers: “She is of average intelligence, yet imaginative; a human being is revealed more in his lies than in his banal truth—his measure is his wishful thinking.”
“We were lying under the blanket, almost skinless, two embryos in the belly of leviathan. Yes, it was good a relapse into humanity.”
In 45 we are introduced to Ingrid. Manuel’s lovely and inner-distant research assistant, who eventually engineers an affair. She is more than helpful at the luminar. Between the passionate hooker and the dedicated work wife, Manuel now has a life that could be suffered by many, even elevated in spots above suffering. But his code of the anarch, his dedication to duty on principal, and his concurrent skepticism, draws him to the survival retreat. His history studies are taken deeper with the aid of Ingrid. The sin that Christian nations lust for war against one another over Crusade against Islam, rings ever more true as our years drift by. The shades of Antiquity rise in fascinated repose. Hesiod mentions a Phoenician merchant; the Goldfinch Plan… Deep dark waters are carefully left unplumbed.
“The luminar is a time machine that simultaneously abolished time by leading out of it. This is not true always or for everyone; but in some passages, one hears only the melody and forgets the instrument.”
It is this reader’s notion that the luminar, is a computer, that reflects Junger’s own inquisitive/poetical journey down the echoing falls of time in his boat of the mind.
The Cabalist exegesis, leviathan, cliffs, empires, strong points, occupy Manuel and Ingrid in their fruitful discourse, revealing to him that he has wandered far from some primal home. She senses this and insists on a final embrace less reserved than her wont.
Before he is confronted with the forest, Manuel wonders about this, “...why her, of all women? In each man a shepherd slumbers, and the goddesses appear to him as they did on Mt. Ida.”
Concerning the Forest
Manuel refers to the post apocalyptic world, in these last pages realized as more than an ideological and historical muse a science-fiction setting, as “Diadochic Realms,” referencing the Diadochi, or violent successors of Alexander. So far as this reader can tell, Alexander was the ultimate example of manhood to Enst Junger. His successors wrecked the world he ever so lightly conquered, fighting for the scarps of his greatness.
The final sections, 47 through 50, are beautifully wrought, as the author is done with his anarch guide and historical musings, and here leaves us with a brief and grand story.
The epilogue is even better, and more authentic.
Thank you, Old Soldier, and Mister Grey for the original copy, Jeth Randolph for the podcast revisit and to Montius for this copy.
