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Title: The Glass Bees (New York Review Books Classics) by Ernst Junger, Bruce Sterling ISBN: 0-940322-55-2 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Top Ten ? Definitely in the Top 100 for the 20th Century
Comment: How do you even begin to do justice to a novel like this? I would imagine that this could very well be a polarizing novel. (Keep in mind my personal philosophy is largely derived from Rene Guenon, et al.) However, I don't think anyone could doubt the quality of the prose itself.
As stated, very little actually happens. Actually, the "action" herein is probably a mere tenth or so of the length, but don't be fooled - Junger will string you along for a few pages, and then hit you with a philosophical passage that begs reading and re-reading. This is a science fiction novel by technical definition, although there is little actual emphasis on the technology; it is presented more as an allegory for the modern age.
The plot is very simple. Captain Richard, an aging war veteran, is given a job interview by the "great Zapparoni" (who is sort of mixture between Walt Disney and Rupert Murdoch). Richard, despite having no short amount of noblisse oblige (nurtured in an earlier, more noble era) nevertheless has cultivated an identity based on failure, largely resulting from being out of step with the current age. He is a man caught between two worlds - he cannot bear to destroy himself even in lieu of the pointlessness of modern existence, yet is unwilling to sacrifice himself to the new technological gods, who demand little more than technical efficiency and blind obedience at the expense of human perfection.
When I was reading this novel, I was reminded of Spengler's introduction to _The Decline of the West_, in which he differentiated between "men of action" and "men of contemplation". Men of action, Spengler said, are the logical result of the particular era they live in (sadly, the figures of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush probably exemplify our own era.) Richard, on the other hand, is a man of contemplation, if perhaps not a great one. He paradoxically realizes that he is trapped in circumstances beyond his control while the "men of action" - who can do little but mirror the values of the modern age - do not stop even for a second to consider anything at all.
Richard knows that Zapparoni, who has built an empire based upon animatronic robots, is little more than the logical product of his age. Richard must come to terms with Zapparoni - who is less a figure than a representation of the modern industrial age. It is a world where "efficiency" and predictable order take precedence over any mere human interest, and "progress" is little more than the continual play of technological novelty.
Richard realizes that no reads Herodotus any more; he pontificates on the nature of the man who is infinitely adaptible. In a telling scene, a former horseman and comrade-in-arms is now a petty bureaucrat in the public transportation system of his city, and elicits little more than disdain for their old days in the army.
I won't give the conclusion away, but the end result isn't a happy one - and it will doubtlessly not sit well with those of us who simply "do what we have to do to get by" in lieu of overwhelming feelings of powerlessness and anomie that characterize the modern age (even as Americans possess the highest standard of living of any people in the history of planet.) This novel poses many questions: to what degree do we limit the possibility of human perfection by striving for technical perfection? Is it possible for the person inherently out of touch with the values of the modern age to find meaning in existence? And most importantly: do human values have any place in the modern era at all?
In the end, I believe Junger has created perhaps the most succinct testimony to modern spiritual death yet written.
Rating: 4
Summary: A little surprise in store
Comment: When I imagined this book as I movie, I thought it would be like a futuristic movie set in the 1950's, with everything the same, the cars and clothes and hair, except for a few overdeveloped gadgets, a little bit like Minority Report. The gadgets are not attempts to master nature but very close imitations of nature, the Glass Bees of the title. They are unheimlich, to use a German word that I don't think Junger ever uses. The Zapparoni character reminded me more of Larry Ellison than Bill Gates, because Gates has a big house with lots of gadgets but Ellison transplanted an entire Japanese house and garden to America. Zapparoni shares the same Japanese perfectionism and fascination with miniatures. Junger also has some thoughts--very little happens in the book, which is almost a short story--on the connection between the perfection of technological means and dismemberment. Well worth reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: Millennium bugs
Comment: Captain Richard trained as a swashbuckling cavalry officer, but increasingly mechanised forms of warfare forced him to become a tank technician. Now, down on his luck after a life that reads like a radically compressed history of the twentieth century, he approaches the industrialist Zapparoni for a job. As the book came out in the 1950s and its author was born before the turn of the century, Zapparoni's products are called "robots" or "automata"; but they're a far cry from Asimov's Robots and Mechanical Men. As Bruce Sterling points out in his intriguing introduction, some passages from The Glass Bees, taken out of context, might easily have come from a computer magazine of the 1990s, blaring the wonders of miniaturisation and CD-ROM. The bulk of the novel comprises Richard's meditations before, during and after his interview with Zapparoni, and Junger's prescience is impressive not only in terms of the technology he envisages, but also in terms of its effect. Richard notes, for example, that the artificial bees' total efficiency in collecting nectar - not a drop left inside - will simply cause the flowers to die off through lack of cross-pollination. Written with brilliant and chilly clarity, and climaxing in an episode of restrained horror and terrifying ambiguity, The Glass Bees is an examination of the moral and cultural price of technology, from the perspective of a man who had seen plenty. However, although Sterling compares him with Celine, Junger is neither rancorous nor misanthropic. Indeed, despite the fact that Richard's wife is mentioned only a few times and never appears in person, the book is also a rather touching affirmation of human love.
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Title: Aladdin's Problem (The Eridanos Library) by Ernst Junger, Joachim Neugroschel ISBN: 0941419584 Publisher: Marsilio Publishers Pub. Date: 01 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics) by Ernst Junger, Michael Hofmann ISBN: 0142437905 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 04 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Details of Time: Conversations With Ernst Junger (Eridanos Library (New York, N.Y.)) by Julien Hervier, Joachim Neugroschel ISBN: 0941419959 Publisher: Marsilio Publishers Pub. Date: 01 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Copse 125: A Chronicle from the Trench Warfare of 1918 by Ernst Junger ISBN: 0865274452 Publisher: Howard Fertig Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Revolt Against the Modern World by Julius Evola ISBN: 089281506X Publisher: Inner Traditions International Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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