The Glass Bees (German: Gläserne Bienen) is a 1957 science fiction novel written by German author Ernst Jünger. The novel follows two days in the life of Captain Richard, an unemployed ex-cavalryman who feels lost in a world that has become more technologically advanced and impersonal. Richard accepts a job interview at Zapparoni Works, a company that designs and manufactures robots including the eponymous glass bees. Richard's first-person narrative blends depiction of his unusual job interview, autobiographical flashbacks from his childhood and his days as a soldier, and reflection on the themes of technology, war, historical change, and morality.
In recent years, Jünger's prognostications on the future of technology, variously interpreted as technophobic allegory or insightful critique into the altered relationship between technology, nature, and the human, have received renewed enthusiasm. American science fiction writer Bruce Sterling composed an introduction for the New York Review Books edition in 2000, saying that "its speculations on technology and industry are so prescient as to be uncanny."
Read more about The Glass Bees: Historical and Literary Context, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes and Motifs, Critical Reception
Famous quotes containing the words glass and/or bees:
“It is difficult to read. The page is dark.
Yet he knows what it is that he expects.
The page is blank or a frame without a glass
Or a glass that is empty when he looks.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“We say
This changes and that changes. Thus the constant
Violets, doves, girls, bees and hyacinths
Are inconstant objects of inconstant cause
In a universe of inconstancy.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)