The Bow and the Club

by Julius Evola, Sergio Knipe (Translator)

The Bow and the Club stands in many ways as the culmination of an exceptional life of deep study, meditation, and experience. This volume, first published in 1968 by Traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola, includes the author’s final and most concentrated statements on some of the great themes of his career, and must be regarded both by the student of Evola and by the newcomer to his ideas as an indispensable work from the hand of one of the profoundest and most challenging thinkers of our time. In this brilliant series of dense and beautiful essays, Evola lays bare the illness of his day, and suggests a way forward for those who are willing and able to pursue it. The issues he treats are various and diverse—from East to West, from initiation to sex, from Black America to Hyperborean Rome, from ‘the evasive man’ to skiing—but the theme is the urgent necessity to come to grips with the fatal decadence of an age, and to rise to the challenge it represents.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction

338 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Julius Evola (19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974), born Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esoteric scholar. Born in Rome to a family of the Sicilian landed gentry, Evola was raised a strict Catholic. Despite this, his life was characterised by 'an anti-bourgeois approach' hostile to both 'the dominant tradition of the West—Christianity and Catholicism—and to contemporary civilization—the 'modern world' of democracy and materialism'.

By turns 'engineering student, artillery officer, Dadaist poet and painter, journalist, alpinist, scholar, linguist, Orientalist, and political commentator', he has been described as a 'rare example of universality in an age of specialization'. Yet behind it all lay a singular emphasis on, and pursuit of, a 'direct relationship to the Absolute'. For Evola, 'the center of all things was not man, but rather the Transcendent.' This metaphysical conviction can be seen to have determined both Evola's stance on socio-political issues, and his antipathetic attitude towards 'all professional, sentimental and family routines'.

The author of many books on esoteric, political and religious topics (including The Hermetic Tradition, The Doctrine of Awakening and Eros and the Mysteries of Love), his best-known work remains Revolt Against the Modern World, a trenchant critique of modern civilisation that has been described as 'the gateway to his thought'. Since his death, also in Rome, his writings have influenced right-wing, reactionary and conservative political thought not only in his native Italy, but throughout continental Europe and, increasingly, the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, he should not be considered primarily as a political thinker, but rather as an exponent of the wider Traditionalist School that encompasses the work of such individuals as René Guénon, Titus Burckhardt and Frithjof Schuon.

Reviews

[Hank · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Bow and the Club (Arktos, 2018), skriven av Julius Evola (1898-1974) utgavs för första gången 1968. För ovanlighetens skull vill vi inleda med en kommentar på bokomslaget som är otroligt estetiskt tilltalande för den inbundna version vi läst. Fint där Arktos.

Detta verk, som består av 19 essäer av varierande längd, har en röd tråd som utgörs av en kritik av den moderna civilisationen och av dess subversiva element utifrån ett Traditionalistiskt perspektiv. Vi noterar att Evola i denna bok tar på sig rollen som kulturkrigare och vis läromästare och därigenom levererar en dräpande och laddad kritik som skiljer sig markant från hans vanliga iskalla avskildhet. Troligtvis handlar detta retoriska grepp om att provocera fram en reaktion hos läsaren, någonting underlättas av en precis och kraftfull prosa. Vi vill även lyfta fram John Bruce Leonard för det kompetenta förordet och de utmärkta förklarande noterna som underlättar läsningen (eftersom boken är kryddad med en hel del Franska, Tyska och Latin).

Angående titeln så representerar klubban ett verktyg för destruktion. En destruktion som bör riktas både mot defekta delar av den egna personligheten men också mot moderniteten i sig. Bågen står för riktning, mål och precision.

Vi håller med Leonard om att The Bow and the Club fungerar som en utmärkt introduktion till Evolas (mer avancerade) övriga verk. Avslutningsvis bjuder vi på ett smakprov från essän The breed of the evasive man :

“Plato has stated that those who have no master within themselves at least ought to have a master outside them. But what has been extolled as the ‘liberation’ of this or that people and its ‘democratic progress’, which is brought — often even through the use of violence (as occurred after the World War) — by doing away with all principles of sovereignty, all genuine authority and all order from above, is matched today in a significant number of individuals by a ‘liberation’ amounting to the elimination of any inner ‘form’, any sort of character, any kind of rectitude. What we find, in other words, is the decline or absence in the individual of that central power which I have already referred to with the evocative Classical denomination of hegemonikon. This does not apply to the ethical sphere alone, but also to the field of common behaviour, of individual psychology, and of one’s existential structure. The result is the spread of an unstable and formless type — what may well be described as the breed of the evasive man.”

s.11

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"CHAPITRE IX - LE GOÛT DE LA VULGARITÉ" est un excellent chapitre à faire lire par tout le monde... spécialement à tout prétendu "artiste" que vous croisez et tout ceux qui aiment justifier la crasse et la médiocrité. Une projection assez hilarante peut être faite, d'après mon contexte, de tout ce chapitre sur la littérature et les films marocains.

Le reste, caveat lector.
Evola semble est un constateur et un commentateur social brillant - mais pas plus. Il peut faire des diagnostics, mais n'a lui même pas les remèdes - puisqu'il se borgne à "constater", à "rester debout au milieu des ruines" - son pessimisme, utile pour diagnostiquer, le rend totalement aveugle concernant les chemins et l'action à prendre. (= Voir son interview en français sur youtube)

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philosophical book composed of a series of essays on the way forward for the betterment of civilization.

[Volbet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This very much reads like a summary of Julius Evola's previous works. The majority of these essays touch on topic already dealt with in Evola's previous books. As such, The Bow and the Club share all of the good and bad from Evola's bibliography, as well.

The Bow and the Club certainly contains essays with a lot of insights and critiques. Evola's analysis of initiation rituals is till poignant, and Evola's critiques of the youth culture of the '60's is very well argued.
But you still have essays and passages, where Evola sees fit to abandon his metaphysical and esoteric methodology to make a point based entirely on material arguments, and I'm pretty sure that Evola's arguments don't stand up to scrutiny when opened up to material critiques.

[no.stache.nietzsche · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book by Evola, one of his more topical, less systematic works- although there remains a persistent theme of "setting the record straight" on the central issue, of answering "what is Tradition?"

There is a lot of commentary and criticism of Evola's contemporaries, which may make this one of his texts less "timeless" and more situated in his own particular circumstances, but we enjoyed it! Evola's persistent persnicketyness is entertaining and humorous to our mind, so even where we don't resonate with his positions, we enjoy learning about his reasons for propounding them. And his wealth of knowledge synthesized into kshatriya criticism is always enlightening. The chapter on Latin etymologies was particularly useful, and the chapter in skiing was hilarious!

[Weston Newbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relatively easy and accessible read for an author who's known to be convoluted. I disagree on many, many of the things he has to say in this book, and I find SOME of his ideas borderline incomprehensible, but still good.

[Edward Yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

will write review after read again..

[Oolalaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

6/20

[Jack The Heathen Castellano · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the weaker side of Evolas works