1. being exactly what is mentioned or suggested
There's no dining room as such, but we've made a dining area just outside the kitchen.
2. considered alone or by itself
The size of their family as such is not a factor in our decision to give them financial aid. (
www.thefreedictionary.com)
I don't see any difference in the meaning of 'as such' in those two sentences or in the Brech sentence that follows the OALD definition. I could accept per se in all three.
The Oxford ALD gives: 'as the word is usually understood; in the exact sense of the word'. That definition is close to my own idea.
"What it seems at least fair to say is that Weimar gave Brecht an unalloyed experience of modernity
as such - from Lindbergh to the great industrial city, from [...]"
I am not clear what the writer is trying saying in your last example.
Does the 'as such' go with 'appetite' or 'monster of appetite'? In either case, I am still not clear what is meant.
"Baal the monster, in other words, but the monster of appetite
as such, which seems to me a more satisfactory word than the current "desire" "