Between the Storms and the Revolt

Ernst Jünger and Curzio Malaparte after WWI

Abstract

This article examines and compares Ernst Jünger’s In Stahlgewittern (1920) and Curzio Malaparte’s Viva Caporetto! (1921), two works that, from different points of view and with different results, offer an account of the Great War and attempt to circumvent its irredeemable irrepresentability through the literary mise-en-intrigue. The two works are inserted in a heuristic scheme that traces a continuum between the direct and immediate representation of the conflict and its interpretation, mediated by the thought and ideology of the author.