Customer Reviews

Party in the Blitz: The English Years

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I worship the late Elias Canetti. If nobody's heard of him, it's because we live in a culture that is fundamentally ignorant and under-educated. CROWDS AND POWER should be required reading in every school in this nation. Canetti's cycle of memoirs collectively comprises some of the best intellectual history of the twentieth century. PARTY IN THE BLITZ is the great man's last piss-blast in the face of a world he saw as hostile, stupid, and bent on destruction. The price of this book is justified alone by what Canetti says about T.S. Elliot. Elliot was one of the biggest anti-semites of all time, a cold prude who hated Jews, wrote bad pretentious poetry so arcane it needed footnotes (which he himself supplied), and desperately wanted to be an Englishman when in fact he was from St. Louis, Missouri. Canetti recognized what a sham Elliot was, and doesn't hesitate to let us know what Elliot was really like, through the eyes of an objective observer and not some fawning Catholic biographer.

It's true that Canetti rips just about everyone to shreds in this book, but he has some amazingly kind things to say, too. He remembers, for instance, a mere street sweeper, who he talked to just in passing for many years, and whom he considered one of the most intelligent men he ever met. Canetti was a man who refused to suffer fools; he despised airs and pretentiousness. He was probably one of the most intelligent men of his age, which was almost certainly his great curse. He saw through the masks people wear, the illusions they use to disguise their flaws and insecurities, with ease. It was this great lucidity of his, this ability to perceive and understand things as they really are, that made him impatient, and ultimately, incredibly bitter.

I would wager that this is a Nobel Prize winning author most Americans (including me, prior to reading this book) have not heard of, let alone read. And from this memoir of that part of his life while living in England-- mostly during World War II--, it will probably stay that way.

Elias Canetti comes off as an arrogant, dour, and self-centered intellectual with brutal views of some women and fellow authors and no discernable concern that-- apparently-- he made no meaningful contribution to the war effort of that good country which hosted and protected him during a time of extreme trials.

He seems to me an example of the type of high intellectual who thinks nothing of being utterly cruel toward individuals in print, then wonders why countries so stupidly go to war.

From this patched together book, one can appreciate the essence of Mr.Canetti's fine writing skills without being brought to liking this now deceased author.

The useful afterword by Jeremy Adler is very good in that it puts both the book and the author into some context for the non-expert reader.