MAX BENSE
173
The style I calI lucid has about it nothing elementary or naive.
Its optics are highly complicated. In contrast to the lucidity of mathema–
tics, which remains as it were one-dimensional, this kind of clarity is
three-dimensional, stereoscopic. All good writing is distinguished by
contour, depth and clarity-and clarity is the greatest virtue of the
three, and the one most difficult to acquire. In developing a particular
project, a writer will try to find a personal
equation-his
personal equa–
tion-among these three terms.
It
is quite possible, however, by cun–
ningly sharpening stylistic contour to suggest more depth-or more
clarity-than is actually there. And it is equally possible by hammering
out the filigree of images and ideas to achieve a decorative charm that
oppresses. This is what Ernst Junger has done. But his artistry does
not stop there. He also manages to invest his 'clear and profound con–
tours with such an air of debility that the reader is made to sense under–
neath that style something at once dark and opalescent.
(Holding Converse with the Philosophers)
