About Storm of Steel
Ernst Jünger’s nonfiction account describes his experience as a German soldier during the First World War. Trench fighting, raids, and bombardments form the setting for a memoir whose attention to danger and endurance coexists with an unsettling fascination with battle. Michael Hofmann translated the listed Penguin Classics edition and provides its introduction.
Witness, Distance, and the Language of War
Readers can examine how Jünger’s voice shapes the relationship between description and judgment. Consider what the memoir makes vivid, what it leaves at a distance, and how your own response changes as the narrator moves between physical danger and reflection. Its perspective offers a basis for comparing accounts written from different sides of the same conflict.
Questions for Book Club Readers
How does the narrative invite or resist sympathy with its author? Where do admiration for endurance and recognition of suffering come into tension? What responsibilities does a reader bring to a firsthand account of war? Attend to the language of particular passages when discussing those questions.
Read the Storm of Steel Book Club reading guide.
