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.

Related
Review of "Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait"
Svensson: biography
Presentation on the Publisher's Site

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

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

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.

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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.

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.




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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.




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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...

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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
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Dokument: Min värnpliktstjänstgöring

1984-1985 gjorde jag lumpen som infanterist. Bevisen för detta finns hos Rekryteringsmyndigheten. Jag har nu begärt ett utdrag ur deras register.

Man måste ha belägg för det man säger. Säger jag till exempel, "jag är fil kand", så bevisar jag det med relevanta dokument.

Detsamma gäller för min värnpliktstjänstgöring. Fakta om den finns lagrad i Rekryteringsmyndighetens datorer. Nyss tillskrev jag denna instans och bad om ett utdrag. Det har man rätt till. Sin egen tjänsteförteckning har man rätt att få ut.

Nu återger jag delar av det hela här. Det gör jag för att förebygga angrepp på mig, angrepp sådana som en nationalist får vara beredd på i dagens kulturklimat. Anklagelser om lögn etc.

- - -

Jag begärde ut mina uppgifter. Vad fick jag då? Jag fick en bunt med papper.

Nu tänker jag inte återge allt som står i dem. Men det jag nedan återger ur dokumentet berättar på ren svenska om mitt liv som infanterist, som verksam I Rikets Tjänst, som soldat beredd att försvara landet med liv och blod.

De papper jag fick av Rekryteringsmyndigheten kan sammanfattas som: följebrev signerat Lena Ahlbom-Barrefors (handläggare), kopior av inskrivningsdokument (hälsotest mm) samt utdrag ur Rekryteringsmyndighetens dataregister.

I det sistnämnda kan man läsa sådant som att jag, LS, var furir. Denna grad erhöll jag 2/8 1985. Min befattningskod var BEVAKNINGSGRUPPCHEF.

Vidare så var min krigsbefattningskod STF C BEVAKNINGSGRUPP. Jag har färdighet att köra lastterrängbil och tung lastbil. Mitt vitsord var X88 (= normalhögt). Jag tjänstgjorde på Västernorrlands regemente I 21, från oktober 1984 till augusti 1985. Utryckningen skedde 1/8 1985. Mönstrade gjorde jag i Östersund, den 19/9 1983.

- - -

Det var något om min tjänstgöring. Detta är fakta i målet. För övrigt kan man ju i ämnet tala om skidpatruller, grg-skjutning, ksp-rassel och taptot som ljuder över kaserngården i skymningen, en färdiginspelad trumpetmelodi, ekande från kasernvakten och ut över regementets kaserngård, dess huvudgata, dess bakgator och prång. Mer om det, om mina lumparminnen, här.

Om min värnplikt vill jag bara tillfoga detta: jag tjänstgjorde, jag försvarade landet. Dokumentet ovan talar sitt tydliga språk. Och nu fortsätter kampen metapolitiskt. Det är än tid, det är hög tid att försvara det traditionella Sverige mot globalister, kulturmarxister och betongliberaler. Det gör jag genom inlägg som detta.




Relaterat
Mina lumparminnen
Jag är fil kand

Öde städer i "Eld och rörelse"

År 2007 gav jag ut en bok, novellsamlingen "Eld och rörelse". Den kan numera läsas fritt i elektronisk form. Vill ni ladda ner pdf:en till boken går ni hit. Där finns en länk till filen på Dropbox. Det är gratis.

Ett subtema i "Eld och rörelse" är för sin del öde städer, övergivna stadsrum som psykologiska landskap. I novellen "Latonia" kommer t ex en man till en öde stad, möter en vacker kvinna, umgås med henne och förstår sedan att hon var stadens själ, dess "anima" - men då var det för sent...

En annan öde stad har vi i "Nineves skatt", om en antik perser som finner nämnda ruinstad och går ner i ett valv för att möta ett vaktande monster. Kommer han att överlista detta för att finna skatten? Denna story gillades av författaren Percival. Det sa han åtminstone till mig på telefon.

I "Norrlandsproblematiken" har folket i denna landsände drabbats av galenskap, av vansinne av att stirra in i de omgivande skogarna dagen lång; de har lämnat Norrland i stora skaror och inkvarterats i läger i Mälardalen. Uppsalapsykologen Rickard Länseborg sänds då upp till Norrland för att studera problemet på plats, och i den kända metropolen Åsele möter han en annan psykolog, Viveka Pjäx, utsänd från Lund. De inser att enda sättet att rädda staden, rädda Norrland från sitt elände är att drömma en bättre värld, "dreaming together" i Castanedas anda. Resultatet överträffar deras vildaste fantasier...

- - -

Vidare bland "Eld och rörelses" öde städer kan man nämna novellen "Synkrongeneratorn". Där går en man runt i en öde teknostad och växelverkar med dess engram. Läs om impedansmanometrar, alkalieflor, hardyskivor och annat dylikt.

Sist har vi titelstoryn, själva den 40-sidiga "Eld och rörelse", där allt kulminerar i en krigshärjad, ödelagd stad. Det är ruiner som skelett och takbjälkar som blottade revben, det är klagande metall och ekande tomma gaturum, tomhylsor i rännstenen och mulen himmel, avancemang ut i tomma intet och regn som faller utan att han blinkar... Storyn jämfördes av Göran Lundstedt med Ernst Jüngers "Sturm".

Det finns en nätsajt som heter Rostsverige [edit 2018: numera offline]. Där visas bilder över allsköns nedlagda miljöer: tennisbanor, fabriker, dansbanor och allt som tänkas. Gillar man den gillar man nog de öde nejderna i "Eld och rörelse" också. Och där finns förvisso noveller om mycket annat: om en åsiktskonstnär, galaxens herre, riddaren, djävulen och döden (en annan Percivalfavorit), en kvartsklippa och ett svenskt Roswell. Med mera!

Vill ni ladda ner pdf:en till boken går ni hit. Där finns en länk till filen på Dropbox. Det är gratis.




Relaterat
Eld och rörelse
Glädje
Kopisten i Babylon

Tisdag

Idag är det tisdag.

Idag är det tisdag. Och idag ger jag detta råd: se till så att det kokta fläsket inte är stekt.

För övrigt kan jag säga detta: korven tjorvar, potäten vill bli äten och äpplet päpplar. Det är så sant som det är sagt.




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Birger Jarlspassagen

Caza: The Ark

Hallelujah.

It's nice to buy things, put them in your library and see them "sweeten through the years like wine". To see them grow and develop, see them take on new meanings. Like: you buy a book, read it in 1987, then save it and read it again in 1992, 1998 etc, and all the time the work takes on new colours, new meanings, new dimensions. It's some sort of alchemy: "the alchemy of consciousness and time" as Ellie would have it.

Anyway: it's fun to buy books and magazines and re-read them over the years. And here I have a magazine just like that, Heavy Metal from February 1983. It runs the poem "The Ark" by the French artist Caza, a graphic rendition of a poem by one Francois Bazzoli. I've read it again and again since the eighties and each time it astounds me.

It's about an ark, a stony vessel fastened to the ground, going through epochs of water, earth, air and fire. It's very majestic, the images perfectly mirroring the words, words like:

The Ark.

The Ark is closed... waiting.

The antediluvians, guided by the immemorial voice
of a myth, are already there.

That's the beginning, showing The Ark going through torrential rains and then getting drowned completely - "a shipwrecked cathedral". It's sleeping with the fish as they say. Then the water recedes, exposing the ark to the light of day:

The Ark reappeared on the earth's surface, covered
with slimy excrement and silt, enclosed in anticipation
- immobile.

The closed ark: shrine and prison, mountain and temple,
chest and skull. Arcane.

... And, under the petrified matrix: deaf ripening, slow
sculpture, secret maturation - transmutation.

The colours at the beginning were greyish violet. And the water epoch was green. Then the epoch of earth and sand becomes ochre yellow; The Ark is worn down by the desert winds, severe abrasion seeming to dissolve it completely. But then a new epoch dawns, transforming The Ark into a reddish violet gem:

Resurrection: in the sparkling air, it is The Ark! Delivered
from its origin of chalkstone, the rarified nave reveals
its silvery chrystallizations to infinity. (But still opaque.
The time of revelation hasn't come yet, prince.)

(Thus, the age of air: of clear and cold night, of
purification, of coagulation - a chrystalized psalm.)

(Millions of years frozen in the instant of dawn.)

Then the sun goes nova and everything falls apart, literally:

And see: what boils under the shell, this terrible lava of unleashed gods and spirits of the underworld, spring up and are united with the fires of the howling sky, in the incandescent apotheosis of a cosmic copulation.

Everything burns and desintegrates, except, of course, The Ark. The glorified nave withstands it all, just quietly sailing away into the abyss. Stars fade and die in this era of emptiness, akâsha, the fifth element. Only The Ark remains, attracting matter and contracting into a cosmic egg. Everything ends with a Something orbiting a center, a rainbow coloured orbit with lights in the dark:

Thus, prince, The Ark will not open onto the outside
- it is abolished as well as the inside. It turns in on its
entirety - inverts itself, and is revealed.

So... so here is the one that was integrated with eternity.

Here is where opposites converge... here, finally
recomposed, the ultimate principal of the living
universe, Alpha and Omega...

Here is THE ARK.

Period.

And Genesis.

In other words, this is a work of genius. The original poem might have been in Italian or French, but the actual version to me has echoes of a poet like T. S. Eliot.

Furthermore, no human beings are depicted in "The Ark". No humans are part of the story -- and yet it's so moving. We see some lizards at the beginning, we see the odd fish -- but other than that it's just water, earth and air. Pictures and words cooperate seamlessly, merging into a new amalgam. It's alchemy!




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