Volume 33, Number 12 · July 17, 1986
Chastisements
By D.J. Enright
The Play of the Eyes
by Elias Canetti, Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 329 pp., $22.50
Our attitude toward the great European thinkers and writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can be a distinctly mixed one. In their high seriousness and somber admonition, they seem to have said virtually everything there was to say, charting the disintegration of values and prophesying the doom that was soon to follow. So thorough and authoritative were their diagnoses and prognoses that we begin to wonder whether in some way they weren't partly responsible for what they described and foretold.
Review, 2535 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |