{"product_id":"on-the-marble-cliffs-isbn-9781681376257","title":"On the Marble Cliffs","description":"\u003cb\u003eNow in a new translation, a darkly radiant fable about a pair of brothers, formerly warriors, whose idyll is shattered by an encroaching fascistic force.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet in a world of its own, Ernst Jünger’s \u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e is both a mesmerizing work of fantasy and an allegory of the advent of fascism. The narrator of the book and his brother, Otho, live in an ancient house carved out of the great marble cliffs that overlook the Marina, a great and beautiful lake that is surrounded by a peaceable land of ancient cities and temples and flourishing vineyards. To the north of the cliffs are the grasslands of the Campagna, occupied by herders. North of that, the great forest begins. There the brutal Head Forester rules, abetted by the warrior bands of the Mauretanians. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe brothers have seen all too much of war. Their youth was consumed in fighting. Now they have resolved to live quietly, studying botany, adding to their herbarium, consulting the books in their library, involving themselves in the timeless pursuit of knowledge. However, rumors of dark deeds begin to reach them in their sanctuary. Agents of the Head Forester are infiltrating the peaceful provinces he views with contempt, while peace itself, it seems, may only be a mask for heedlessness. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTess Lewis’s new translation of Jünger’s sinister fable of 1939 brings out all of this legendary book’s dark luster.“Jünger brings to mind a different epoch, one when both soldiering and philosophy held a vastly different status in civic life...[his] writing has a comparable feeling with certain alchemical emblems: still waters, wise vipers, and black dogs. One encounters a blissed-out feel for the natural world here, but also terrible foreboding. \u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e is a warning of what lies up ahead.” —Ian Penman, \u003ci\u003eCity Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e [is] a parable of ascendant barbarism that contains an oblique protest against Nazism…[In] \u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e, Jünger attempted something riskier: a dark fable with unmistakable modern overtones.\" —Alex Ross, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The classical beauty of the writing, in Tess Lewis’s exquisite translation, gives a sense of the author’s sympathies. . . . [H]is short, prismatic book is beautiful.” —Sam Sacks, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] literary achievement of the highest order.” —Nil Santiáñez, \u003ci\u003eThe Massachusetts Review \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Jünger] was a sporadic critic of the moral obtuseness that grew like vines all around him.” —Thomas Meany, \u003ci\u003eHarper’s Magazine \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jünger’s coolly detached empirical style, with its Nietzschean cadences evident in \u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e, has its detractors. . . . Yet the primacy of his poetic imagination, his born naturalist’s observational perceptiveness, and the noble humanness undergirding his writing lend it unequivocal greatness.” —Will Stone, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e might be called Jünger’s descent into the maelstrom, a record of terror seen and survived. . . . An allegory that does not moralize, its hermeticism is inviolable and inimitable.” —Thomas R. Nevin, \u003ci\u003eErnst Jünger and Germany: Into the Abyss, 1914–1945\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eOn the Marble Cliffs\u003c\/i\u003e is a great book and virtually no one I’ve ever mentioned it to has read it.” —W.S. Merwin\u003cb\u003eErnst Jünger \u003c\/b\u003e(1895–1998) was a German philosopher, writer, and entomologist who became widely known for \u003ci\u003eStorm of Steel\u003c\/i\u003e, his memoir of World War I. He was the author of six novels, including \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Bees\u003c\/i\u003e (available from NYRB Classics), and dozens of works of philosophy. During his lifetime, he received the Goethe Prize as well as the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTess Lewis\u003c\/b\u003e has translated works from the French and German, including books by Peter Handke, Anselm Kiefer, and Christine Angot, and for NYRB Classics, \u003ci\u003eThe Storyteller Essays\u003c\/i\u003e by Walter Benjamin. Her awards include the 2017 PEN Translation Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship. She serves as the co-chair of the PEN Translation Committee and is an advisory editor for \u003ci\u003eThe Hudson Review\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJessi Jezewska Stevens\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eThe Exhibition of Persephone Q \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Visitors. \u003c\/i\u003eHer work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMaurice Blanchot \u003c\/b\u003e(1907–2003) was a French writer and philosopher whose books, including \u003ci\u003eDeath Sentence, Thomas the Obscure,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Space of Literature,\u003c\/i\u003e frequently blended narrative and theory.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303328043237,"sku":"NP9781681376257","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681376257.jpg?v=1767734117","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/on-the-marble-cliffs-isbn-9781681376257","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}