Review of Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger (translated by Hoffman)

Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Title: A warrior and poet goes to war

Few books I've read have driven me forward in narrative, style, and story quite like Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger (translated from the German by Michael Hofmann). This first-person narrative of Junger's time as a lieutenant in the German army on the Western front during World War I is raw, compelling, and riveting. 

I do wonder what reading the original German would be like. I'll never know. I am not a fan of reading books in translation because so much can be lost from one language to the next, but this book seems like an amazing exception. Hofmann gives us a nice introduction to the book and his translation work and how it's differed from what translations have come before, and why they've come short. (He provides several passages for comparison, and it's readily apparent why previous ones have not done justice to the strength and power of Junger's prose; some are even comical, or just comically embarrassing). Then we're let loose into the storm of Junger's experiences fighting trench warfare on the Western front in WWI. Prepare yourself. It's brutal. It's beyond what you can imagine. And, according to the Introduction, it's been toned down from its original release soon after the war. Toned down! 

Lyrical. Poignant. Horrific. Yes. Romantic? Perhaps. But to those who say Junger "celebrates" or "glorifies" war, I reply with a quote from the French poet Baudelaire: "There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create." Ernst Junger is in the rare position of being both poet and warrior. He's a warrior, and to not recognize this is to miss his essential being. He doesn't flinch at war; he embraces it. He needs it.

Our current culture is so flopping about, so squeamishly trying to pussyfoot around reconditioned notions of masculinity, that who Junger is as a warrior may come as a soul-rending shock to the sensibilities of many 21st-century readers. But it intrigued me, as a man, recognizing his descriptions of a deep inner desire for outward circumstances to test the mettle of the individual on behalf of some larger struggle. Men need and form a tribe to act as a conduit for their energies. Men have an innate desire to lose themselves in a greater struggle. On surveying one of the many battlefields in the aftermath of destruction Junger writes: "This wasn't war; it was ancient history." (p. 150) So Junger is a poet, too, and his lyricism shines through in every paragraph, often every sentence, as he brings images to life like few authors I've read. 

It's a somber treat, and a real responsibility, to be able to read Storm of Steel. 

I loved it/It was amazing
5/5 Goodreads
5/5 Amazon



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