Elias Canetti

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Unsuspected Vibrations

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In Der Ohrenzeuge Elias Canetti has gone back to a literary form at least as old as Theophrastus. He describes fifty "Characters" or types. He too is protesting against the rigidity of outlook which can turn a human creature into a pathetic or dangerous insect. Not that he raises his voice in protest. He never raises his voice; the dagger effect of these studies comes from detachment and the restraint of prose, unsurprised as absurdity follows absurdity. Like several other recent German writers, Canetti is a scientist by academic training. This comes out in his work. There is no stated moral judgment; the facts are left to speak for themselves. We seem to be reading through a handbook of scientific information, told in the simple prose which occasionally occurs in handbooks of scientific information. No names are given, no personal names, only strange generic titles, male and female, for specimens pinned and delineated….

This literary form depends on the existence of fixed ideas—and Canetti is a specialist in the observation of fixed ideas, as we know from the protagonists of his novel, Die Blendung. He is fascinated by the delusions of people who live in capsules. Now, in different words and different people, he presents fresh variations on the selective blindness of Peter Kien and the paranoia of Therese and Pfaff in that novel.

If the prose of this primer seems appropriately naive, the "facts" are extraordinary….

Canetti furthers the alliance between science and art as he realizes the utmost potential of any visible situation and finds the unsuspected behind the familiar. He is an admirer of Gogol. In these portrayals we find a similar touch of mad exuberance, like the Gogol description of a character who gets up from the gaming table and stands for a while "in the posture of a man who has no handkerchief in his pocket". Such writers surprise us into belief, largely because they show no surprise at all. They are merely telling us the irrational facts of their life. In such moments we can believe there are vibrations which have always existed but have not been registered up to now: we needed instruments of new-found sensitivity called writers.

Idris Parry, "Unsuspected Vibrations," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1975; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3801, January 10, 1975, p. 38.

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Elias Canetti's Reflective Prose