Benek Babalon Benek Babalon

Unsolicited Recommendations 6

Recently I've been too busy with other work-related activities and the national American sport of dodging bullets to consume a ton of culture from outside my little world. But what I tend to do in those time is reread and rehear stuff I already enjoy, so you know these two books have an unsolicited stamp of approval that has stood the test of time-

Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Ernst Jünger's "Storm of Steel"

You might've noticed a certain uptick in movies and TV being made about the First World War. My gamble is that it's less difficult to create a relatable struggle when there's no unambiguous evil. Barring the Ottomans, who were trying their damndest to get in on it early.

That being said, knowing the events is half the struggle and getting a grip on the feeling on each side is a very different game. The American and British novelists have quite a few famous ones (like T.E Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" or Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms"  to name two) but the German ones are known mainly by name rather than by people having actually read them.

This is a shame, as these books show the other side of this world changing conflict. "Storm of Steel" in particular has a lot of insights into the different divisions in the German forces (Lower Saxons and Prussians for eg.) It's hard to imagine but both Germany and Italy were united countries for about 50-60 years at the time The Great War broke out. It was all duchies, kingdoms, palatinates and presumably Palpatine-nates before that.

Meanwhile " All Quiet on the Western Front" is one of the greatest anti-war novels of the modern age. Unlike Jünger's book, it is a less complex and less flowery book, but the way it talks about the feelings and trauma of Paul Bäumer and company is both fascinating and hits home very hard. I believe many of the characters in the book are archetypes of people we see around us, and Remarque's insight can teach us a lot. We all know an armchair Kantorek, a dry and witty Westhus, or an overcompensatory Himmelstoß.

The books serve as interesting counter pieces to each other. Jünger was a more philosophical, more decorated soldier while Remarque was more sensitive and more clearly scarred by what he endured. Reading both, while not providing a complete education, definitely gives a better center to understanding this conflict.

P.S

Remarque's followup, "The Way Back" is also an excellent read. The Netflix movie for All Quiet is also pretty damn good.

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Benek Babalon Benek Babalon

Unsolicited Recommendations Part 1

As you could tell from my previous post wherein I opened saying I have no right to tell anyone how to write and spent the whole  blogpost telling you how to write, I'm very fond of giving unsolicited recommendations (and hypocrisy in general.) Usually this totals in Metal music recommendations, but in this new segment, we're going to talk about everything but metal. Two to three unsolicited recommendations a week of what scholars and learned men in far off shores call "cool stuff."

  1. The art of Franz Ritter von Stuck

Starting off with something dark but not audible (unless you're listening to Tribulation's The Formulas of Death's included poster somehow) is the art of Bavarian painter Franz von Stuck.

The first thing that always gets me about his paintings is that, if the eyes are the gateways to the soul, then his subjects are some fucked up motherfuckers. Which, granted, is to be expected from his mythological work, but even his more innocuous paintings have a sense of melancholic grandeur to them.

Personal favorites - Pluto, Salome and The Murderer.

2. Rocky Erickson's Don't Slander Me

Alright so anybody who knows their pinky from their ring finger would immediately ask "why not The Evil One? " So here's the deal- The Evil One is the better album, plain and simple, but it's in fact so good that many never talk about Don't Slander Me and that's an act of slander against Rocky. The one thing he expressly said not to do, you heartless bastards.

Whereas The Evil One beautifully captures a sense of paranoid dread and delusion, Don't Slander Me is a more straightforward rock n' roll affair but Rocky's personality shines through in subtler ways. The title track in particular will get stuck in your head for the rest of forever and the snarly, raspy vocals describing everything from Bermuda Triangle legends to particularly foxy apples of his eye lend a sense of attitude to what is a classic record.

TL/DR? No it's not The Evil One but very few (only one actually) records are and it's fantastic in its own right

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