Eumeswil or Die Schere?

[Guenter Rebing <Rebing@compuserve.com>]

Though I agree that Eumeswil is a highly fascinating book I am not
convinced either whether this work would be the right choice for a
collective enterprise. The book is too long, the text selections to be made
cannot be but subjective, and who on the list would like to assume the role
of master censor? On the other hand, I am well aware that Die Schere can be
a daunting text even for native speakers of German. But this is precisely
what made me propose this little book in the hope that our discussions
would help towards a better understanding of it. 
And isn't this list with its impressive mix of lingustic backgrounds
extremely well equipped to tackle this task? If some members say, and I
agree with them, an English translation would be an absolute prerequisite —
why don't we take this as an additional challenge? My own experience with
literary translation (from English into German) is that this job forces you
relentlessly to understand what your author really meant, and wherever you
don't understand you are forced to formulate your questions and doubts. And
for such questions and doubts the Jünger list could be an excellent forum,
as I believe. 
It could also be an excellent reservoir from which to recruit a small team
of English and German natives that would, in cooperation via e-mail,
translate one section from Die Schere at a time and then publish it from
time to time on the list together with the original text and with those
questions and doubts which they were unable to resolve. I am sure that
often such questions might be clarified by referring to passages in other
works of EJ. Here the collective erudition of the list should be
invaluable.
To get things moving I volunteer to find out if Klett, the copyright owner,
might be willing to grant permission to use the text in this way, morever
to distribute it to the translation team. But certainly a native German
would be unfit to produce anything but a rough first draft of a
translation, and so I would need the cooperation of some who are by birth
more qualified than myself. 
Who out there would like to go along?
Günter Rebing
Rebing@compuserve.com