Party in the Blitz
2003
First Published
3.28
Average Rating
250
Number of Pages
Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti’s sensational a frank, acerbic, and cranky way his years of British exile. Elias Canetti originally intended Party in the Blitz to capture an image of his time in post-war London. Well known throughout Europe, Canetti scorned British intellectuals who weren’t familiar with his work. By force of will alone he accumulated English followers, but not before being christened “the godmonster of Hampstead.” Canetti’s memories of various people in his social circle are brief and scathing brimstone sketches. T.S. Eliot, Iris Murdoch, Wittgenstein, Herbert Read, Bertrand Russell–Canetti rakes them all over the coals. To Canetti, T.S. Eliot was nothing more than an American emigrant trying desperately to act British, and Canetti’s portrayal of Iris Murdoch, with whom he had an affair, is nothing short of brutal. Michael Hofmann’s translation pulls no punches, delivering the goods on Canetti’s searing “when you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.”
Avg Rating
3.28
Number of Ratings
184
5 STARS
12%
4 STARS
30%
3 STARS
38%
2 STARS
14%
1 STARS
6%
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Author
Elias Canetti
Author · 21 books
Awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power." He studied in Vienna. Before World War II he moved with his wife Veza to England and stayed there for long time. Since late 1960s he lived in London and Zurich. In late 1980s he started to live in Zurich permanently. He died in 1994 in Zurich. Author of Auto-da-Fé, Party in the Blitz, Crowds and Power, and The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit
