Auto-da-Fe (Paperback)

by Elias Canetti (Author), D. V. Wedgewood (Translator) "'WHAT are you doing here, my little man?'..." (more)
Key Phrases: book racket, greatest sinologist, twenty schillings, Stars of Heaven, Passport Joe, The Baboon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"In Auto-da-Fé no one is spared. Professor and furniture salesman, doctor, housekeeper, and thief all get it in the neck. The remoreseless quality of the comedy builds one of the most terrifying literary worlds of the century."--Salman Rushdie
-- Review

Novel by Elias Canetti, published in 1935 in German as Die Blendung ("The Deception"). The translation into English that was published as Auto-da-Fe (also published as The Tower of Babel) was done in cooperation with Canetti. Originally planned as the first in a series of eight novels examining mad visionaries, the book deals with the dangers inherent in believing that rigid, dissociated intellectualism and detached, dogmatic scholarship can prevail over evil, chaos, and destruction. Set in Vienna and Paris, the novel tells the story of Peter Kien, an internationally respected scholar of Chinese studies who maintains a personal library of 25,000 volumes. After dreaming that the books are burned, Kien marries his housekeeper Therese, believing that she will preserve his beloved library should disaster befall him. Therese throws him out of his book-filled apartment, however, and Kien, now homeless, enters the grotesque underworld of the city. Delusional, he fluctuates between horrifying hallucinations and an unspeakable reality. Kien's disintegration finally leads him to set fire to his precious books and to await his own death in the ensuing inferno. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Review

"In Auto-da-Fé no one is spared. Professor and furniture salesman, doctor, housekeeper, and thief all get it in the neck. The remoreseless quality of the comedy builds one of the most terrifying literary worlds of the century."--Salman Rushdie

See all Editorial Reviews

---

Product Details Paperback: 464 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reissue edition (December 1, 1984) Language: English ISBN-10: 0374518793 ISBN-13: 978-0374518790 Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,735 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in this category: (What's this?) #58 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German

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First Sentence:
'WHAT are you doing here, my little man?' Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
book racket, greatest sinologist, twenty schillings, superior young man, magnificent hips, hundred schillings, schilling note, pawnbroking establishment, beautiful money, starched skirt, divan bed, neighbouring room

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Stars of Heaven, Passport Joe, The Baboon, Benedikt Pfaff, Ehrlich Strasse, George Kien, Mut Strasse, New York, Peter Kien, Siegfried Fischer, Baboon Palace, God Almighty, Holy War, Immanuel Kant, Sistine Chapel, The Trousers of Herr von Bredow

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2 books cite this book:

• An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology by Dale Mathers on page 231
• Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers by Gary Giddins on page 226

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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews 5 star:  (11) 4 star:  (6) 3 star:  (3) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (2)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 99 of 105 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A strangely purifying book, October 17, 2003 By  Gulley Jimson (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews I sympathize with the people who wrote bad reviews: this is not a book for many, many people. If you value reading books that seem to take place in the same world that we live in, with plausible human beings who act in ways that make quick sense - stay away. If you prefer to avoid the grotesque, the violent, and the disturbing, this book is also probably not for you. None of these things, however, have anything to do with whether a book is good or not. A few people have said that Canetti's prose is difficult to understand: that is nonsense. You are allowed not to like this book, but if you can't comprehend prose of such clarity, the problem is yours, not the author's. The book reads like a hallucination, but the lines of the image are sharp, like Kafka's. Someone else wrote that the book is a glimpse into the mind of a psychotic: this is also not true. The world that the author describes may be insane, but the characters all live and think with a strange internal logic that is completely coherent with their environment. A character deciding to become immobile to fend off the corrupting presence of his wife seems, here, to be a perfectly appropriate response. In this world, it makes sense; in our world, it does not, and if you like reading books that breathe the same air as you, don't bother with Auta da Fe. But if you can accept this world, which is at a very disturbing angle to our own, then you will live through a strangely purifying experience. I can't explain why it happens, but encountering the horrible and comic events of this book, the greed and blindness of the characters, leaves you better in some way: freer of ambition and stupid vanities. Read it: you'll see what I mean. 28 of 28 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars "I ask you, he's not even a man!", March 19, 2004 By  Clay - See all my reviews I finished Auto Da Fe last night, and still can't decide whether it's the most nihilistic book I've ever read or one of the most humanistic. On one hand, Canetti treats his characters with unflinching (and, at times, comic, due to its extremity) brutality; they're all repugnant at best (lecherous murderers at worst), their desires are pitifully shallow, and, on the whole, they're painfully unintelligent. One might say that Canetti is the anti-Sherwood Anderson in this regard. Whereas the latter author strives to make the lives of his characters more significant through their "grotesqueness", the former uses said grotesqueness to render them less than human. Despite all this, Canetti's humanism shines through due to the fact that Auto Da Fe is, ostensibly, a modern morality play. Human virtue would be rewarded, were there any to be found in the novel; as it stands, vice is clearly spelled out and its practitioners are punished. For instance, Canetti is obviously not suggesting that the reader should relate to or sympathize with the character of Peter Kein; he exists merely as an unfortunate example of intellectualism (and egoism) gone awry. At the same time, we shouldn't relish his downfall, but learn from it and apply its lesson (and the lessons of other characters) to our own lives. This is why it's hard for me to call Auto Da Fe nihilistic. While Canetti doesn't have much sympathy for fictional people, he seems to have boundless sympathy for the real ones which comprise his audience. Also of note: earlier reviews have cited problems with the translation. This is absolutely not the case. Aside from a few errors here and there in grammar and tense, the novel reads very lucidly in English. 20 of 20 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars The bizarre Homeric odyssey of a reclusive bookworm, April 8, 2006 By  D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    The history of Canetti's odd, inventive novel provides clues to its understanding. According to his memoirs, Canetti originally conceived the "Human Comedy of Madmen," a fictional cycle portraying eight characters. Of these, only one character lived on in his imagination: Brand the Book Man. Inspired by Gogol, modeled after Stendhal's "The Red and the Black," and informed by Jacob Burckhardt's "History of Greek Civilization," Canetti's surviving portrait is an allegorical odyssey of a recluse who lives only for his books. Yet those already familiar with "Auto da Fe" know that there is no character named Brand in the book. During the year (1930-31) that Canetti finished his novel, he changed the main character's name from Brand [German for conflagration] to Kant and the novel's title to "Kant Catches Fire." Canetti explains in the second volume of his memoirs that the lingering emotions he felt from his presence when a mob burned down Vienna's Palace of Justice in 1927 made this new title "hard to endure." And so "Kant became Kien [German for resinous pinewood]; the ignitability of the world, a threat that I felt, was maintained in the name of the chief character." Likewise, he changed the title to Die Blendung [The Blinding], a reference to the biblical legend of Samson. It was under this title that the book was published in 1935, but it was soon banned by the Nazis. The main character is a leading Sinologist whose meticulous scholarship and linguistic expertise make him famous among an elite group, but Kien's lack of social skills ultimately defines him: he refuses to be part of the crowd (the dynamics of which is one of Canetti's real-life intellectual preoccupations). Kien's 25,000-volume library overtakes his entire apartment, the 40,000 characters of the Chinese alphabet challenge his intellect, and his only human relationships are daily contacts with a housekeeper of eight years and morning ventures to the bookshops that dot the city of Vienna. His cloistered life is shattered, however, when he decides to marry the housekeeper; her conniving greed is eventually wedded to the brute force of the building's superintendent, a retired police officer whose nascent fascism finds full expression in his treatment of Kien. Eventually, Kien conflates his fear and hatred of his wife with the misogyny he has learned from his vast readings. Simultaneously bizarre and uncomplicated, the story reads like a 450-page Homeric epic filtered through the psychoses of the Brothers Grimm. Expelled from his book-dominated oasis, Kien descends into the underworld of Vienna, a journey that results in the destruction of the world as he knows it. Dwarfs, prostitutes, blind men--each of the major and minor characters develops his or her own perspective of the events through which they live; when their internally consistent yet outwardly incongruent worlds clash, the results alternate between absurdity and madness. What it is all supposed to mean will engage the patient reader's imagination for weeks.		Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Way to post a spoiler review Amazon Does Amazon really have to post a review that's just a summary of the entire plot of this amazing novel? Read more Published 1 month ago by Tom Pitsis 1.0 out of 5 stars blah Dont buy this book.I am very disappointed.It is a waste of time and money, what is more important? Published 3 months ago by Mr book 4.0 out of 5 stars A Nightmare The first part of the book reminded me of some familiar dark comedy, maybe an early Nabokov or the neglected American author Russell Greenan. Read more Published 9 months ago by W. M. Shackleford 5.0 out of 5 stars Very pleased I received this book in a timely manner and in very good condition. Published on November 3, 2006 by L. Williams 5.0 out of 5 stars Auto-Da-Fe Took me several months to read this book. The story crept through me and began to take over my thoughts--as schizophrenic as that appears, it's how I felt. Read more Published on October 8, 2006 by bstrue 4.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece without human feeling This work is considered a great twentieth- century masterpiece. Written in 1931 when Canetti was twenty-six it is the story of the booklover and Sinologist Peter Kien who lives... Read more Published on March 19, 2006 by Shalom Freedman 4.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Enjoyable Like many of the comments before mine, this book is not for everyone. The narrative structure is a slight bit challenging and all of the answers are not straight forwards. Read more Published on December 15, 2005 by A. Hawley 1.0 out of 5 stars Arguably the worst book ever written As far as I can tell, the only reason anyone has ever bought this is because it's cheap in the used book stores and sez "Nobel Prize Winner" on the outside. Read more Published on April 29, 2002 5.0 out of 5 stars Tour de force I knew next to nothing about Canetti's fiction when I decided to sink deep in this surprising, extraordinary well developed story about a man who is ruined by his illiterate wife... Read more Published on December 23, 2001 by Santiago Cobo 3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult Canetti's prose is difficult to read in English. The translation is a little wooden, and you have to devote your concentration to the structure of the sentences more than you... Read more Published on April 3, 2001 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reissue edition (December 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374518793
• ISBN-13: 978-0374518790
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,735 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #58 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > German

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A strangely purifying book, October 17, 2003

By	Gulley Jimson (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews

I sympathize with the people who wrote bad reviews: this is not a book for many, many people. If you value reading books that seem to take place in the same world that we live in, with plausible human beings who act in ways that make quick sense - stay away. If you prefer to avoid the grotesque, the violent, and the disturbing, this book is also probably not for you.

None of these things, however, have anything to do with whether a book is good or not. A few people have said that Canetti's prose is difficult to understand: that is nonsense. You are allowed not to like this book, but if you can't comprehend prose of such clarity, the problem is yours, not the author's. The book reads like a hallucination, but the lines of the image are sharp, like Kafka's.

Someone else wrote that the book is a glimpse into the mind of a psychotic: this is also not true. The world that the author describes may be insane, but the characters all live and think with a strange internal logic that is completely coherent with their environment. A character deciding to become immobile to fend off the corrupting presence of his wife seems, here, to be a perfectly appropriate response. In this world, it makes sense; in our world, it does not, and if you like reading books that breathe the same air as you, don't bother with Auta da Fe.

But if you can accept this world, which is at a very disturbing angle to our own, then you will live through a strangely purifying experience. I can't explain why it happens, but encountering the horrible and comic events of this book, the greed and blindness of the characters, leaves you better in some way: freer of ambition and stupid vanities. Read it: you'll see what I mean.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I ask you, he's not even a man!", March 19, 2004

By	Clay - See all my reviews

I finished Auto Da Fe last night, and still can't decide whether it's the most nihilistic book I've ever read or one of the most humanistic. On one hand, Canetti treats his characters with unflinching (and, at times, comic, due to its extremity) brutality; they're all repugnant at best (lecherous murderers at worst), their desires are pitifully shallow, and, on the whole, they're painfully unintelligent. One might say that Canetti is the anti-Sherwood Anderson in this regard. Whereas the latter author strives to make the lives of his characters more significant through their "grotesqueness", the former uses said grotesqueness to render them less than human.

Despite all this, Canetti's humanism shines through due to the fact that Auto Da Fe is, ostensibly, a modern morality play. Human virtue would be rewarded, were there any to be found in the novel; as it stands, vice is clearly spelled out and its practitioners are punished. For instance, Canetti is obviously not suggesting that the reader should relate to or sympathize with the character of Peter Kein; he exists merely as an unfortunate example of intellectualism (and egoism) gone awry. At the same time, we shouldn't relish his downfall, but learn from it and apply its lesson (and the lessons of other characters) to our own lives. This is why it's hard for me to call Auto Da Fe nihilistic. While Canetti doesn't have much sympathy for fictional people, he seems to have boundless sympathy for the real ones which comprise his audience.

Also of note: earlier reviews have cited problems with the translation. This is absolutely not the case. Aside from a few errors here and there in grammar and tense, the novel reads very lucidly in English.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The bizarre Homeric odyssey of a reclusive bookworm, April 8, 2006

By	D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The history of Canetti's odd, inventive novel provides clues to its understanding. According to his memoirs, Canetti originally conceived the "Human Comedy of Madmen," a fictional cycle portraying eight characters. Of these, only one character lived on in his imagination: Brand the Book Man. Inspired by Gogol, modeled after Stendhal's "The Red and the Black," and informed by Jacob Burckhardt's "History of Greek Civilization," Canetti's surviving portrait is an allegorical odyssey of a recluse who lives only for his books.

Yet those already familiar with "Auto da Fe" know that there is no character named Brand in the book. During the year (1930-31) that Canetti finished his novel, he changed the main character's name from Brand [German for conflagration] to Kant and the novel's title to "Kant Catches Fire." Canetti explains in the second volume of his memoirs that the lingering emotions he felt from his presence when a mob burned down Vienna's Palace of Justice in 1927 made this new title "hard to endure." And so "Kant became Kien [German for resinous pinewood]; the ignitability of the world, a threat that I felt, was maintained in the name of the chief character." Likewise, he changed the title to Die Blendung [The Blinding], a reference to the biblical legend of Samson. It was under this title that the book was published in 1935, but it was soon banned by the Nazis.

The main character is a leading Sinologist whose meticulous scholarship and linguistic expertise make him famous among an elite group, but Kien's lack of social skills ultimately defines him: he refuses to be part of the crowd (the dynamics of which is one of Canetti's real-life intellectual preoccupations). Kien's 25,000-volume library overtakes his entire apartment, the 40,000 characters of the Chinese alphabet challenge his intellect, and his only human relationships are daily contacts with a housekeeper of eight years and morning ventures to the bookshops that dot the city of Vienna. His cloistered life is shattered, however, when he decides to marry the housekeeper; her conniving greed is eventually wedded to the brute force of the building's superintendent, a retired police officer whose nascent fascism finds full expression in his treatment of Kien. Eventually, Kien conflates his fear and hatred of his wife with the misogyny he has learned from his vast readings.

Simultaneously bizarre and uncomplicated, the story reads like a 450-page Homeric epic filtered through the psychoses of the Brothers Grimm. Expelled from his book-dominated oasis, Kien descends into the underworld of Vienna, a journey that results in the destruction of the world as he knows it. Dwarfs, prostitutes, blind men--each of the major and minor characters develops his or her own perspective of the events through which they live; when their internally consistent yet outwardly incongruent worlds clash, the results alternate between absurdity and madness. What it is all supposed to mean will engage the patient reader's imagination for weeks.