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Product Description
Product Description
In The Torch in My Ear Elias Canetti, Nobel Prize winner, towering intellectual figure and polymath, gives us his second volume of autobiography. Using as a framework his admiration for his first great mentor, the Viennese writer Karl Kraus, and his passion for his first wife, Veza, Canetti seamlessly incorporates a profoundly perceptive portrait of Vienna and Berlin in the 1920s. Here are the voices of Brecht, Isaac Babel, George Grosz, and many others. This is autobiography redefining itself.
About the Author
Elias Canetti (1905 - 1994), winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the major intellectual figures and polymaths of the twentieth century. A master of many genres, he is known espeically for his novel, Auto Da Fe, and his great work of social theory, Crowds and Power. But Canetti's genius is perhaps nowhere more evident that in the three volumes of his autobiography, now reissued by Granta Books - The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear and The Play of the Eyes.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Of Canetti's three volumes of memoirs, this is the most useful and widely appealing. The first volume is strictly about his family--well written but of narrow interest. This second volume covers the artistic ferment of 1920s Vienna and Berlin. Everything is fresh and beautifully rendered, but the finest section concerns his time in Berlin in 1928. At that point Canetti was a humble unpublished writer lucky enough to meet everybody. His profiles of Brecht, Grosz, and Isaac Babel are extraordinary, particularly because there is so much action and dialogue to supplement his acute judgments. But in the third volume, "Play of the Eyes," he is now an ambitious writer and completely full of himself. The tone becomes sour and self-referential and his portraits of other writers like Broch and Joyce say little and do so patronizingly. If you want anything beyond Canetti himself, the third volume is worthless. For best results, concentrate on the Berlin section of this second volume: a really tasty slice of life in that time and place.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
BEST OUT OF THREE
28 Oct 2007
Format:Paperback
Of Canetti's three volumes of memoirs, this is the most useful and widely appealing. The first volume is strictly about his family--well written but of narrow interest. This second volume covers the artistic ferment of 1920s Vienna and Berlin. Everything is fresh and beautifully rendered, but the finest section concerns his time in Berlin in 1928. At that point Canetti was a humble unpublished writer lucky enough to meet everybody. His profiles of Brecht, Grosz, and Isaac Babel are extraordinary, particularly because there is so much action and dialogue to supplement his acute judgments. But in the third volume, "Play of the Eyes," he is now an ambitious writer and completely full of himself. The tone becomes sour and self-referential and his portraits of other writers like Broch and Joyce say little and do so patronizingly. If you want anything beyond Canetti himself, the third volume is worthless. For best results, concentrate on the Berlin section of this second volume: a really tasty slice of life in that time and place.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
on the trail of the Noblists
6 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
Very good writing.Intellectually stimulating.Great deal of philosophy and study of human nature.Just a bit too much of literary rambling but in 85% keept my attention properly.I liked the insider scoop on the 1920s art scene of Berlin and Vienna.I don't like tha he doesn't hint the outcome of his only true romance in this book ( in real life he marries her).
ps
Even with his fascination with the "crowd" one feels that deep down he never belonged to any.And good for him...:)
ps
Even with his fascination with the "crowd" one feels that deep down he never belonged to any.And good for him...:)
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