Aladdin's Problem (12 page)

Nevertheless, he is left with the feeling that all earthly things suffer from the imperfectness of Creation. The final station on this road is death. Death claims not only the individual existence but also the historical eras:

After all, historical, especially archaeological interests are closely woven with graves; basically, the world is a grave...

Such are Baroh's musings when he is about to do commerce with the human need for permanence. "A resting place
ad perpetuitatem":
the formula pops up again. As a narrative,
Aladdin's Problem
elaborates on the insight that even "eternal" rest is disrupted by the incessant hustle and bustle, the endless upheavals in the Age of Titanism. Actually, Junger has been explaining this theme since his early journals. Thus, in September 1943, he talks about a book he has perused, Maurice Pullet's
Thebes, Palais et Necropoles
(Thebes, Palaces and Necropolis):

While reading, I again realized how thoroughly, albeit on a lower level, our museum-like existence corresponds to the cult of the dead among the Egyptians. Our mummy of culture parallels their mummy of the human image, and our anxiety about history matches their anxiety about metaphysics: we are driven by the fear that our magical expression could go under in the river of time. Our resting in the bosom of the pyramids and in the solitude of caverns amid artworks, writings, implements, icons of God, jewelry, and rich funereal goods is aimed at eternity, albeit in a more subtle fashion.

His awareness of being involved in a gigantic historical catastrophe led Junger's reflections toward an "anxi
ety about history." Exactly forty years later, he was as agitated as ever about the "chassis" of civilization. However, by the time he penned
Aladdin's Problem
at the age of eighty-five, this angst had gained a sharper metaphysical, and ultimately also a personal profile. The author's own mortality was casting its shadow, as he implies in 1984, in
Author and Authorship:

Time is the great, indeed the only source of tragedy. The vanquishing of time is the great task, one that only leads to symbols. Time overpowers, it cannot be overcome.