Eumeswil is hard to pin down. Taken purely as a novel, actual narrative material or conversation between characters seems to fill a painfully small part of the whole text. Jünger is here to use protagonist Martin Venator, a remarkably conflicted but outwardly stoic man, as a sort of captive brain for the reader to wander through.

The main question of the book is how the individual can remain self-possessed and inwardly free despite the growth of interlocking technological and political totalitarianisms, such as Jünger experienced in his own long and chaotic life. A man who fought in the trenches of World War I and lived through the heights of the Cold War has seen exactly what earth-shattering political change can mean for the individual, and Jünger brings that experience to bear in Eumeswil . Venator is shown to be a historian by trade, a character trait that allows the novel's "found diary" format to launch into lengthy digressions on history from the Acropolis to the atomic bomb.

Venator moonlights as a night bartender for the dictator of the post-apocalyptic city-state of Eumeswil, a semi-benevolent tyrant known as the Condor. The Condor and his various henchmen, minions and flunkeys are a large part of the book, seen from Venator's point of view over the bar as they talk in hushed tones of the problems of governing a city-state whose previous democratic government they violently overthrew. As the novel progresses, these conversations are used as the basis to discuss what exactly it means to hold political power, the flaws of democracy as a project and a pencil-thin sketch of what Jünger refers to as the "anarch" philosophy.

The anarch is the core of the book, essentially a how-to for maintaining individuality and freedom to oneself no matter the accidents of birth, politics or technology. Venator is shown to have no particular loyalty or alignment to the Condor, despite his position on his staff, nor is he amenable to the various anarchist or pro-democratic factions in the city itself. Venator is interested in no cause that surrounds him, and speaks dispassionately on the ideas of either progress or reaction, attempting to maintain a disinterested and critical eye towards everything.

Essentially, this is an outgrowth of Jünger's earlier philosophical tract The Forest Passage in which he lays out a similar philosophy, but with a crucial difference; the "Forest Rebel" of that book is an essentially isolated individual who detaches themselves from a society they find unjust, while the Anarch is content to live and act within a society - they simply don't allow that society and its ideologies to live within them . Venator struggles with these topics, and as such so does the reader. Jünger does not do the reader any favours with his incredibly out-of-the-way allusions to ancient literature or biblical mysticism, but it does lead to a constant questioning and learning of our own as we follow the protagonist's thoughts.

While an interesting work of philosophy couched in a very strange little novel works most of the time for Eumeswil , it can wear thin. There is a lack of any real narrative development or character exploration besides brief sketches, plus the occasional asides (such as Venator staring at himself in the mirror every morning to try and determine his own individuality) which make it clear that being an anarch is not a particularly vibrant or joyful existence. It can be quite a grim and even nihilistic read, but Jünger does put forward strong and well-reasoned stances through the situations Venator finds himself in. Arguably, two books could have emerged here - either a philosophical sequel to The Forest Passage or a stand-alone novel about the apocalyptic city-state of Eumeswil. Instead, we received both in one, and it is up to the reader whether these two halves work together.

Eumeswil pertenece a ese curioso género literario que cultivan los autores a quienes, sin falta, termina por traicionarlos la inteligencia. El resultado parece ser siempre el mismo: malas novelas que pueden o no contener ideas brillantes. Por fortuna, Jünger tenía cosas importantísimas que decir sobre la relación del hombre con la historia. El anarca es la figura del desengaño y de la supervivencia. Es la respuesta individual a lo que se ha perdido bajo la égida liberal: el héroe y el mártir.