Fire and Blood (Ernst Jünger's WWI Diaries)

Not much I can say. Just another great book by Jünger.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people (you know who you are) found the final section of Storms of Steel to be their favorite. Few writers could describe battle the way Junger could, his intense subjectivity, his lack of a birds' eye (or Gods' Eye) view gives it a different flavor than the usual war memoir. This is just an expanded account of the battle that ends Storms of Steel. It has a lot of the same details (getting lost and getting shelled, Ernst getting overheated and throwing away his coat, the Englishman who shows a photo of his family to avoid slaughter etc) but in some ways feels like the narrative was pared down to Junger alone, few other people seem to appear in this account, scenes from Storms of Steel that featured other players (like throwing away the coat) now feature Junger solo. Read the original version of Storms and then this afterwards since they are products of Junger before he became enamored with the persona of the anarch and began to splice out the rawer and more heated parts of his war experiences and his own notions of the war became more ambiguous and detached. Still waiting for his entire WWI diary in English! Translation is nice and crisp and I had no problems following along.

i wonder about the quality of the translation?

Rangerfield's review is pretty spot on. Much of Fire and Blood will be familiar to those who read Storm of Steel as he covers a lot of the same material again but from a different angle. I would definitely recommend reading Storm of Steel before any of Junger's other works. Copse 125 is a fantastic book (which I consider even better than Storm of Steel) and a deep dive into a lightly covered but very intense period towards the end of Storm of Steel, but many may find it esoteric as 50% of the book is Junger's philosophy and predictions for the the future. Some predictions are shockingly prescient, others not so much. Fire and Blood is much more approachable in that sense and should be familiar to Storm of Steel readers. This is a pretty short book but well worth the $11.00. I highly recommend.