Svenssongalaxen

lördag 29 november 2014

Media Coverage of the Jünger Book

The buzz around "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait" continues.

Swedish weekly Nya Tider has payed attention to my Jünger book. No 48/2014 runs an item about it. It's only a short piece, however, all the facts are there. So I've taken the liberty to translate a few lines from it, for your information and reading pleasure.

For example it says:

Nya Tider has a writer named Lennart Svensson. He has contributed to the magazine since 2013, mostly by way of cultural items. Now he has broadened his record by writing a biography of the author Ernst Jünger. The book is called Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait and is published by Manticore Press.

On 290 pages Svensson tells about Jünger's life and his central books such as Heliopolis, the war diaries, Storm of Steel, On the Marble Cliffs and Eumeswil. Jünger's role as an outsider is also discussed as well as his spiritual sides. And his ideas about art, literature and history.

There's more but this is the gist of it.

As for Nya Tider, it's a rather promising independent newspaper, publishing stories and presenting views that MSM tends to be silent about. As concerns items like immigration, multiculturalism, the seedier side of foreign affairs, the corruption of MSM and established politicians. Nya Tider also covers books and films beside the mainstream and presents interviews with counter-culture figures like Jared Taylor. Also, there's sometimes articles on foreign policy by Manuel Ochsenreiter of the German monthly Zuerst!

Nya Tider began circulation by the late fall of 2012. Editor-in-chief is Vavra Suk.

Related
More on the Book
Everyday Songs With Religious Feeling
The Swedenborg Machine (short story)
The Middle Zone (short story)
The New Improved Sun (poem)

tisdag 18 november 2014

I Wanna Be Seen Green (poem)

It's November and it's alright. I only want to be here now. I don't long for Christmas. Pure existence in the Here and Now will do.

Hereby another poem, another work of my own. It's about the colour green, of verdure; I have a green period now, as it were. The poem is something of a borderline piece, bordering on the parodic as well as the fantastic. You choose where the emphasis lies.

I hit the sack in my four-poster bed
with a four-leaf clover under my head.

Then I trail off into lands unseen
with a clarkashtonesque, jewelry sheen...

There I dance with a heavenly sprite
on a flowery meadow lush, green and bright.

Starry-eyed I sail over ground
to a secret pool where I can’t be found.

I dive in the water, I’m finding a stone,
a crystalline object, an emerald throne.

I sit on the throne like a submarine king
and I’m falling asleep as the fish start to sing.

The next thing I know, I’m awake in my bed
with an emerald gem lying under my head.

The four-leaf clover has somehow been changed
into a precious stone – am I deranged...?

Or maybe it’s so, that what we see in our dreams
is more than we see, more than it seems...?

Pic Åke Ehrenberg

torsdag 13 november 2014

Rave Review of My Jünger Book

In Australia there was a magazine called Living Traditions. It isn't online anymore. It wrote about spirituality, history and culture. In 2014, it reviewed "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait".

On the whole the unsigned review was positive towards my book. In fact, Living Traditions (= LT) seemed to have nothing negative to say about it.

For instance LT says this, about the life-story of Jünger you find at the beginning of the book:

Svensson’s biography (...) is precise and matter of fact, it avoids all the undue speculation and interpretation found in so many other biographies and offers a clear and accurate picture of Junger’s truly amazing life. He offers a detailed look at Junger’s role in WWI and WWII and his literary output.

LT summarizes various chapters of the book, LT in the process making these apt reflections:

The next chapters examines his [= Jünger's] other books such as his WWI volumes, here Junger has much in common with Julius Evola he does not just discuss war but the mindset required to be a devoted warrior. At the same time Junger produces more adventurous literature which is hard to place in a single genre, his books in this vein are enigmatic and thought provoking. On the Marble Cliffs is an example of this new style which can be read on multiple levels and needs reflection to be fully appreciated for the work of literature it is.

LT has more praise to give my book. Like this:

In chapters 20 and 21 Svensson goes way beyond a traditional biography and offers a substantial examination of German figures that influenced Junger and then offers an exceptional comparison of Junger with Yukio Mishima, Carlos Castenada and Julius Evola. In Chapter 26 after examining the role of religion in Junger’s work as well as reoccurring key esoteric themes Svensson looks at Junger the fantasy writer and compares him to others such as Tolkien. Svensson also considers other characteristics of Junger such as his surprising optimism, sense of play and poetic side.

And lastly the pay-off. LT seems to like "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait", stating:

Svensson offers us a superb biography (...) Rather than get caught up in all the fruitless debate about Jünger in the 20’s he offers an honest yet nuanced approach which in my mind stands up rather well compared to academic biographies which spend their time in politically correct disputation. (...) Svensson has produced an amazing work which is not only approachable but perceptive. His analysis of obtuse aspects of Jünger’s work not found in other biographies makes this a must read by themselves. When you add the sheer comprehensiveness of the work this really is a biography of the very highest calibre.

That was that. More info about the book below.

Info About the Book on This Blog
Presentation on the Publisher's Site

Related
Info About the Book
Presentation on the Publisher's Site

måndag 10 november 2014

Sword and Staff (poem)

Now for a poem of my hand. Everything on this blog is by me, and who "me" is you should have found out by this time.

It's time for a poem, a gnomic piece, a scholarly text in poetic form. If you're in for mysticism and metaphysical poetry, this might be for you.

An old wisdom tells us:
we need both the Sword of Reason
and the Wand of Intuition,
both The Pentacle of Valour
and The Cup of Sympathy.

Bring ’em all on your journey,
forgetting one and you’re lost.

Without the sword you’ll go mad.
Without the wand you can’t find the way.
Without the pentacle you’ll dare nothing
and without the cup you’ll lose your heart.

Thus a golden wisdom.
So sing this for memory:

”Sword and staff, cup and pentacle,
emerald, sapphire, topaze and ruby –
reason, intuition, courage, sympathy –
eeny, meeny, miny, mo”...

måndag 3 november 2014

Book News: Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait (Svensson 2014)

My latest book is a biography about Ernst Jünger. The title is "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait". The imprint is Manticore Press. As a Swede you can buy the book on Adlibris. Or, if you're in the USA, on Amazon.com -- or, in the UK, on Amazon.co.uk. -- Edit 24/11 2014: here's a review of the book, a summary of a text in Living Traditions Magazine. Among other things the review says this about my book: "[A] biography of the very highest calibre." -- [A Swedish version of this presentation can be found here.]

For about 30 years I've read the books of Ernst Jünger. He was a German author living 1895-1998, a true legend having participated in both world wars as well as being a nationalist, a collector of beetles and butterflies, a world traveller and an informal teacher on esotericism.

Suddenly, having read most of Jünger's books and some bios, I realized that I could write a bio of my own. My goal was to create a Jünger bio without Politically Correct bias, a hands-on, affirmative and inspirational portrait of the greatest German author since Goethe.

My book goes into it all: Jüngers eventful life per se, his books on war, the controversial politics, the philosophical and life-affirming sides and then some. The number of pages is 288 and the book layout is smashing. See for yourself in the pictures of this entry.

An example of the style is this, from the chapter about the novel "On the Marble Cliffs" (1939):

”On the Marble Cliffs” displays a rich collection of characters. We have [for example] prince Sunmyra, pale and frail yet strong and belligerent, a romantic dreamer aroused from his sleep and ready to act against darkness, mirroring in a way the statue of the Bamberg Horseman (der Bamberger Reiter) in Bamberg cathedral: a heroic medieval knight, seemingly distraught but essentially a true rock of resistance. Mythologically he is in my book juxtaposed by the knight depicted by Dürer in his 16th century engraving ”The Knight, Death and the Devil”, a no-nonsense fighter with a literal devil-may-care attitude, a man of a hard mindset and yet no mere barbarian. And this character could be said to be represented by another ”Marble Cliff” figure: Biedenhorn, the commander of the mercenaries. The brothers at the centre of action get some help from him at the end, and before that he is lovingly depicted as the timeless solider, without higher ideals but reliable when it comes to battle and a jovial friend to his brothers in arms.

The book is already selling and I've received praise for it from readers.

Buy it on Adlibris.

Buy it on Amazon.com

Buy it Amazon.co.uk.

lördag 1 november 2014

Nordic Sphinx (poem)

Here's a poem by me, Svensson. It's about "northernness", a term coined by C. S. Lewis. And about "archeofuturism", a term coined by Guillaume Faye.

I’m a Nordic Sphinx,
looking out over the boundless hills,
seeing a bright future

for all and sundry – a future perfect,
an archaic future, a future in
purple and gold, silver and green.

The pine is ever green,
the sun casting its gold
on the mountain side,

the moon etching its silver runes
and the purple twilight –
the colours of a new era.

- - -

I’m the king of comedy,
a metal guru and an
implicit whiteness.

I’m a prophet, a poet,
a preacher, a piper,
a guru, a sphinx,

an attic fanatic and a forest creature,
an aristocrat of the soul
in a time of decay.

- - -

I’m a poet and a piper,
a prophet of Northernness
singing for the trees,

singing for the people,
singing for fun in an age
where no one seems to

be laughing any more, no one
smiles, no one feels the joy of anything.
There I come with my flute

throwing green melodies over
everyone, saying ”life can be
fun too, you know”.

- - -

The prophet has spoken,
the guru is gone, the
Northern Spinx has left

the building, left us for
the boundless hills, the
thousand-mile forest,

the moors and the swamps,
the grey-green expanses of
coniferous woods

holding a future for us all,
an old future, an archaic future:
archeo future, a future perfect.

Related
Swedish Mystique

onsdag 29 oktober 2014

Boknytt: Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait (Svensson 2014)

Min senaste bok är en biografi över Ernst Jünger. Living Traditions Magazine säger om den: "A biography of the very highest calibre." Boken kan köpas här.

Jag har skrivit en bok. Boken handlar om Ernst Jünger. Han var en tysk som levde 1895-1998. Boken är på engelska. Förlaget som gett ut boken heter Manticore Press. Det är baserat i Australien.

Boken heter "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait". På 288 sidor berättar jag om Jüngers liv, hans centrala verk, hans kontroversiella sidor och lite till. Som hans syn på konst och historia, hans sf-romaner och hans särprägel i största allmänhet.

Boken kan beskrivas som en essä, en personligt hållen biografi. Kort sagt: ett porträtt (eng. portrait). På tyska har vi Helmuth Kiesels och Heimo Schwilks mer akademiskt hållna Jüngerbiografier. Dessa böcker kom 2007. Och här är min Jüngerbok, en bok med en friare, personligare utgångspunkt. En bok som både tar en titt den kontroversielle Jünger och som lyfter den esoteriske, livsbejakande Jünger. En Jünger som är synnerligen aktuell i dessa nihilismens tider.

- - -

Boken har 32 kapitel. Ett exempel på stilen är detta, ur kapitel 10 som handlar om "På Marmorklipporna", Jüngers roman från 1939 som på engelska heter "On the Marble Cliffs":

”On the Marble Cliffs” displays a rich collection of characters. We have [for example] prince Sunmyra, pale and frail yet strong and belligerent, a romantic dreamer aroused from his sleep and ready to act against darkness, mirroring in a way the statue of the Bamberg Horseman (der Bamberger Reiter) in Bamberg cathedral: a heroic medieval knight, seemingly distraught but essentially a true rock of resistance. Mythologically he is in my book juxtaposed by the knight depicted by Dürer in his 16th century engraving ”The Knight, Death and the Devil”, a no-nonsense fighter with a literal devil-may-care attitude, a man of a hard mindset and yet no mere barbarian. And this character could be said to be represented by another ”Marble Cliff” figure: Biedenhorn, the commander of the mercenaries. The brothers at the centre of action get some help from him at the end, and before that he is lovingly depicted as the timeless solider, without higher ideals but reliable when it comes to battle and a jovial friend to his brothers in arms.

Du köper boken till exempel här, på Adlibris.

Relaterat
Recension av boken
På Marmorklipporna
Heliopolis
Svensson: biografi med galleri

fredag 17 oktober 2014

Some Notes on A Book by Clark Ashton Smith

Hallelujah.

Who has seen the towers of Amithaine
swan-throated rising from the main
whose tides to some remoter moon
flow in a fadeless afternoon...?
Who has seen the towers of Amithaine
shall sleep, and dream of them again.

These are words by the poet Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). I sit here with his "Out of Space and Time" vol. 2, reading about demons and gargoyles, brownies and fairies, charnel-dungeons and emerald hornettoes. A truly mind-boggling journey through thick and thin:

Rememberest thou? Enormous gongs of stone
were stricken, and the storming trumpeteers
acclaimed my deed to answering tides of spears,
and spoke the names of monsters overthrown -
griffins whose angry gold, and fervid store
of sapphires wrenched from mountain-plunged mines -
carnelians, opals, agates, almandines,
I brought to thee some scarlet eve of yore.

The collection also has prose-poems like "From the Crypts of Memory", about a shadowy existence in a dying land beyond the Beyond. This is fat, rich poesy with words you don't even find in Longman Dictionary. The piece ending the book, "The Shadows", is as rich, with all its "fretted windows", "the undesecrated seal of death" and "a meaningless antic phantasmagoria". I read them again and again these jewels of literature: neither stories nor versified poems, but poems in prose. Being about two pages long they have the right length for a prose poem.

I like the book's more conventional tales too, like "The Last Hieroglyph", "The Monster of the Prophecy", "The Death of Ilalotha" and "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis". These outings aren't overly deep, not profound in any sense of the word -- but fun in a quiet way, fun in a "oh-how-he-can-adorn-his-language-with-obsolete-words"-way. There's that personality you can't mistake, that jewelry tinge to it all that makes me come back for more. Purple shadows, man.

For trumpets blare in Amithaine
for paladins that once again
ride forth to ghostly, glamorous wars
against the doom-preparing stars.
Dreamer, awake! ... but I remain
to ride with them in Amithaine.

As you can see the depicted book is another one than the one treated in the post. However, I love that bluegreen cover, painted by Bruce Pennington as it is.

måndag 22 september 2014

Svensson: The New Improved Sun (poem)

Essentially, we live in a peaceful world. There is no longer the threat of all-out war, whatever MSM says. Mankind is on the eve of a new era. Hereby a poem that catches the gist of this.

It was an early morning in September, 2010. I was out on a bike ride in my beautiful town, Härnösand.

It was fairly warm. The air was moist, the effect of a rain the night before. "The wild and windy night / that the rain washed away / has left a pool of tears / crying for the day"... as Macca had it in "The Long and Winding Road".

The sun had risen, but from my point of view it was concealed behind a mountain on my right.

On my right a brook ran, carrying rather a lot of water; it had been raining as I said. I was in an area of detached houses, a villa region in the near-city zone, and to have an open brook running through the scenery was a quaint eyecatcher: they hadn't led it through ducts and covered it with soil. No, freshly running water, murmuring in the early morning sun...!

In front of me was an old regimental barrack, a yellow "kasern" as we say in Sweden, presiding on a small shelf in the hillside, surrounded by emerald green lawns and flanked by maples, the building resplendent like a castle with the front catching the sun rays. And in my mind I transformed it into a watering place, a place to quench your spiritual thirst. And along with some other reflections on the times, it all evolved into this poem. Note the Macca-reference in line #1...! By the way, the rest of the lines are also made up of quotes/titles. I won't tell you which ones though. Not today.

Now for the poem:

I'm in love with her and I feel fine
living in this Midsummer Century
praying at the Watering Place of Good Peace
under the New Improved Sun.

I could comment a lot on this. Now I only say: since after November 11, 2011, earth lives on a higher, spiritual level, for example resulting in the impossibility in an all-out war, such as "total Middle Eastern War" or "war between Nato and Russia over Ukraine".

It just won't happen. And I sensed it, vaguely, already in 2010, writing this poem.

Related
Swedish Mystique
Caza: The Ark
Details (flash fiction)
PKD Stories I'm Critical Of

fredag 19 september 2014

Svensson: Good Cop, Mad Cop (flash fiction)

It's time for another ultra-short piece, a flash fiction as we call it in the industry. A work of fiction shorter than 1000 words. Here's my latest oevre.

Criminal investigator Johnson lived and worked in Anytown, a city somewhere in the Gray Area. Once this Johnson fellow was working on a murder case. However, the poor man went mad trying to solve it so another policeman had to take over the case. Smith, the new guy, did his best trying to decipher the illegible notes of Johnson, and he got some leads that eventually led him to a villa on 378 Park Drive. There a possible suspect would be living so Smith took his car and went over.

Finally there he found a letterbox with the address ”378 Park Drive” next to the drive of the villa. But turning around the streetcorner Smith found another letterbox, this one next to a cobbled walk leading to the back door of the same house. Here the address was ”101 Mayfair”. In a way it was logical since they were different streets and the house was situated at a streetcorner -- but why two letterboxes at the same house?

Smith went up to the door and pushed the ding-dong. And who opened but Johnson, the mad policeman. After some more investigation Smith concluded that Johnson was the murderer, under the covername ”B. Batty” who happened to live in the same house although around the corner. A true schizoid: one man with his two personalities living in the same house, but on different addresses!

”I daresay,” Smith said to himself when the case was solved, sitting in his office smoking his victory cigar, ”this was a remarkable case. You could call it a criminal variety, with psychopathological undertones, of the theme of ’fireman also being a pyromaniac’. In this case, it was about a policeman being a criminal, my own colleague Johnson as it turned out.”

Smith took a whiff and let the smoke dance around in his mouth, slowly blowing the smoke out. Smoking cigars shouldn’t be done by inhaling, namely.

Related
Another Flash Fiction: Details
The Ark
The Ascended Masters
In Swedish: Kopisten i Babylon
In Swedish: Melinas resa

söndag 14 september 2014

Swedish Mystique

What foreigners know about Sweden is the Nobel Prize, Ingmar Bergman, and such.

In my library I have a book by Peter Englund. Yeah, it's him, the Secretary of Svenska Akademin. He even signed it for me, imagine that...! Maybe I should write him and try to influence him in giving me the Nobel Prize in literature. Well maybe. Or maybe not.

Anyhoo, The Prize and Akademin are part of what you can call Swedish Mystique. It's those things that foreigners find exotic and alluring with Sweden. Another one might be Ingmar Bergman. Everybody loves him, right? Who can resist "The Seventh Seal" with the white-faced Death playing chess with the statuesque Max von Sydow?

I too like this film. Bergman might lack some depth, some esoteric footing, but on the whole his film is a great one. Life and death, the knight and the common people he meets, the landscapes, the interiors, it all adds up to a mystic whole, Swedish style.

- - -

So what's more to say about the Swedish allure? Neverending pine forests, that's pretty typical for Sweden's inland. I was born there. Now I live by the coast but we have rather a lot of woodland here too. I love these woods. It's the playground for sagas and myths, for John Bauer and traditionalism.

An artist of Bauer's school was Gustaf Tenggren who eventually joined Disney Studios and painted backgrounds for Snow White and Pinocchio. He knew how to draw trees and make them contribute to the atmosphere. Tenggren made a lasting impact on the Disney Studio and their renderings of folk tales such as Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty.

I'm a Swede and a mystic, an adept and a scholar, so I've got to be the definition of Swedish Mystique. We've been living in a materialistic paradigm until now. Now's the time for Actionism. Now's the time for dancing in the woods to the tune of Jethro Tull's "Broadsword":

Bring me my broadsword
and clear understanding,
bring me my cross of gold
as a talisman...

tisdag 9 september 2014

The Not-So-Good of Philip K. Dick

Of course I love Phil Dick also. Even when he was bad he could be interesting. Along with Heinlein, Dick was an all-time great of SF. But now I'm going to list some Dick books that I disagree with.

1.

A Maze of Death -- you've got it, death-death, desolation and drug-induced paranoia such as insects with guns... However, there's energy and drive to it too; the setting, though depressing, has some depth. Although a hackwork this novel, being written by Dick, kinda "radiates quality". A novel about God and prophets, it has its moments but overall it's something of an oddity. Read Galactic Pot-Healer instead, it's got a modicum of optimism.

2.

Dr. Bloodmoney or how We Got Along after The Bomb -- in short: you can't write about The Bomb. It goes beyond human drama, then as well as now.

3.

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch -- all in all a rather fine book but I'm bothered by the setting in an Earth plagued by scorching sunshine. It doesn't contribute to the story, other than saying we shall pity the characters.

4.

Eye in The Sky -- again a good book compared to many others. However, the framing of the characters (right-wing guy, prissy secretary, religious fanatic) is a bit too clever-clever, a Simpson's-like satire, i. e., not hard-hitting at all. And all the railings against religion are trite; later on Dick learned better in that respect.

5.

The Man in the High Castle -- Nazis bad, Japs innately good, now that's "a bedtime-story for the children of the damned"... OK, it's wrong to call this a bad book. In fact it's got most of the marks of a classic. But I freak out on the implicit antiwhiteness of it all.

Coda

So then, I'd say the good Dick novels, the ones to read, are: The Game-Players of Titan, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (mid section great, the basis for the film Blade Runner), Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (anti-Nixon but overall great) Time out of Joint and Selections From the Exegesis (ed. Sutin).

Related
Heinlein and My SF Study
Jünger and the Craft of Science Fiction

Related in Swedish
The Man In The High Castle
Katedralbyggare och kritiker
Jim Ballard