C. Schmitt to E. Jünger
February 25th, 1941
Dear Mr. Jünger!
We were all very happy to hear from you. Your wife also wrote to me several days ago. We’re all waiting for March. At the same time I’m sending you Melville’s “Benito Cereno”. Sadly I can’t find “Moby Dick” anywhere. I hope to acquire “Billy Budd” soon. I am overwhelmed by the unintentional symbolism of the whole situation. […]
E. Jünger to C. Schmitt
March 3rd, 1941
Dear Mr. Staatsrat*!
I have already ordered all the books by Melville and I will gift them away if I get them from you again. I have already heard from my book merchant that “Moby Dick” is currently unavailable. I have read “Billy Budd” years ago. It’s about chercher quelqu’un, looking for somebody — like an evil supervisor might do with a subordinate — to destroy him. […]
*”Councilor of State”, Schmitt’s government position at that time.
C. Schmitt to E. Jünger
July 4th, 1941
Dear Mr. Jünger!
I would be extraordinarily happy to meet you at the Ritz in Paris and drink a bottle of wine with you. The yearning for such pleasures grows; wine and friends become rare. All of us want to go to Kirchhorst when the holidays begin at the end of July.
I have read Giono’s book about Melville. Its beginning is beautiful. At first one is delighted by the French art of painting through which everything is seen. But then comes the privatization and in the end I found the book to be effeminate, vain and anodin. This mixture of sensualism and anarchism disgusts me. It makes Melville seem like kitsch, even though his matchless greatness lies in the power to create an objective, elementary and concrete situation. “Benito Cereno” is thus greater than the Russians and all the other writers of the 19th century, even Poe shrinks next to him. “Moby Dick”, as an epic of the sea, can only be compared to the Odyssey. Only Melville can make the sea as an element palpable. A very relevant topic for our times. […]
E. Jünger to C. Schmitt
August 28th, 1941
[…] I am still reading “Moby Dick”. The book has a truly cosmic outline. I often remember the line “and Leviathan playeth”, I think it was from Klopstock. The interest of the economic world in these majestic animals is that of a knacker. The lowly-demonic plays a role and becomes visible in the dim fires of the sperm oil boilers. I cannot agree with your judgment of Poe in comparison to Melville. Poe is, and will be, the great master, who paints the outline and the inner mathematics of dangerous worlds. He radiates in many directions — he touches on this one, for example, in “Maelstrom”, “Gordon Pym” and in his cosmography.
C. Schmitt to E. Jünger
September 17th, 1941
[…]
[If we manage to meet] I would like to explain to you my view of Melville. I did not mean to sound bossy or to belittle Poe. I think of “Benito Cereno” as a symbol of the situation. This is an inexhaustible topic! Is “Moby Dick” available in French?
E. Jünger to C. Schmitt
April 8th, 1943
Dear Mr. Schmitt,
Your letters from March 16th and March 21st have reached me. I want to thank you and your wife for the cordial congratulations for my birthday. The day began symbolically: the state, by moving the clock forward, stole an hour of my life. Afterwards I had an important dream about Eva and her progeny. It fit the mood of the day and turned into the first note I wrote down at the beginning of the new year of my life. The first one to congratulate me was general Speidel; he called me from Poltava.
I liked the connection between the imagery of Poe and Melville in your dream — while Poe sees as an individual, Melville sees politically and socially. By merging them you reach the behaviour of an individual against the cabal of conspirators.