Canetti's Cahiers
Between 1942 and 1948, Elias Canetti kept a kind of psychological and moral breviary, jotting down thoughts, feelings, nightmares forced on him by war and exile. Having denied himself recourse to imaginative writing, and turning more and more to the mythography and sociology of Crowds and Power, this fiercely intelligent, self-fascinated man sought to understand … the nature of the political catastrophe and of his own marginal condition. He wrote down his meditations only for himself, "in order not to suffocate".
Naturally enough, the result [Aufzeichnungen 1942–1948 (The Human Province)] is rather a rag-bag. There is a sprinkling of witty maxims…. There are various somewhat Kafkaesque germs for future stories or plays…. Then there are lengthier notes, sketches of consequent argument, dealing mainly with the soul-rending effect of war and of the destruction of central European values on Elias Canetti the writer and the Jew….
Mr. Canetti wondered also about the continued viability of literature, about the place of poetic form in an age of bestial turbulence…. A good deal of what Elias Canetti jots down about the intolerable weight of vain words, about the root mystery of the existence of different languages, about the danger of living a life in which verbal abstraction is master, is acute and moving. He touches on a central nerve when he remarks: "As a profession, literature is destructive: one should have greater fear of words." But being so incomplete, and at times banal, these Aufzeichnungen suggest that there is no great gain in making public, in solemnizing, what was meant to be intimate and provisional, a necessary striving to keep aloud the echo of the threatened self.
"Canetti's Cahiers," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1965; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission). No. 3306, July 8, 1965, p. 577.
Get Ahead with eNotes
Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.
Already a member? Log in here.