"You might think of Werner Herzog's new book, The Future of Truth, as the story of two animals. On the front cover, you see the silhouette of a lone penguin, somewhere in the middle distance, setting off from icy tundra to the mountains. While never made explicit in the text, this image is an obvious reference to a memorable vignette from Herzog's 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World."
"Herzog sees something romantic in this penguin, something admirable. The penguin is about to experience something that no ordinary penguin ever would. The penguin has managed to liberate itself from, to transcend, the penguin-everyday. And so it has launched itself, I think Herzog must believe, into a different, higher strata of meaning, and of truth. Herzog and the mad penguin are a kindred pair."
A lone penguin on the cover signifies a penguin that walks away from its colony toward the Antarctic interior, an act that dooms it yet signifies transcendence. Dr. Engli notes that returning the penguin would not stop its heading for the mountains. A sober view calls the animal disoriented and doomed; a romantic reading sees liberation from ordinary penguin life and an ascent to a higher meaning. Comparable human figures pursue quixotic, often futile projects driven by urges beyond rational justification, embodying a search for enchanted or transcendent truth.
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