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The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free/The Torch in My Ear/The Play of the Eyes
A compelling account of the development of a great artist, and a portrait of the tragic character of an entire era
The uncompromising achievement of Elias Canetti has been matched by few writers this century. Canetti worked brilliantly in many forms, but the three volumes that comprise his autobiography are where his genius is perhaps most evident. The first volume, The Tongue Set Free , presents the events, personalities, and intellectual forces that fed Canetti's early creative development. The Torch in My Ear explores his admiration for the first great mentor of his adulthood, Karl Krauss, and also describes his first marriage. The final volume, The Play of the Eyes , is set in Vienna between 1931 and 1937, with the European catastrophe imminent; here he vividly portrays relationships with Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, among others.
The uncompromising achievement of Elias Canetti has been matched by few writers this century. Canetti worked brilliantly in many forms, but the three volumes that comprise his autobiography are where his genius is perhaps most evident. The first volume, The Tongue Set Free , presents the events, personalities, and intellectual forces that fed Canetti's early creative development. The Torch in My Ear explores his admiration for the first great mentor of his adulthood, Karl Krauss, and also describes his first marriage. The final volume, The Play of the Eyes , is set in Vienna between 1931 and 1937, with the European catastrophe imminent; here he vividly portrays relationships with Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, among others.
840 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Elias Canetti
108 books617 followersAwarded 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 18, 2022
Autobiography, when written well, is thrilling. If an author understands their craft and knows how to present their journey, there is a surprising unfolding of the realizations that life brings.
But this effect is even more intense when the author writes so well that he can credible make a claim of beginning the book with a scene from when he was two years old!
Of course Canetti could be making the whole business up, but the wealth of details by which he colors his events and the ensuing realizations etched with the acid derived from memory create a remarkable picture. This ephiphany about his mother, from when he was about eleven years old and living in Zürich, illustrates a critical realization he has about not just her nature and his own, but the nature of the world:
It was no wonder that at such moments, feeling myself her mute equal, I loved her the most. She was certain that she had once again concealed her distrust from me; I perceived both things: her ruthless acumen and her magnanminity. At the time I didn’t know what vastness is, but I felt it: being able to comprise so many and such conflicting things, knowing that seeming incompatibles can all be valid at once, being able to feel that without perishing of fear, having to name that and think about it, the true glory of human nature—that was really what I learned from her.
This takes patience, but my patience was rewarded. Canetti's scenes of his life and insights in Europe, children, teachers... just about anything imaginable, are remarkable. I highly recommend this book
But this effect is even more intense when the author writes so well that he can credible make a claim of beginning the book with a scene from when he was two years old!
Of course Canetti could be making the whole business up, but the wealth of details by which he colors his events and the ensuing realizations etched with the acid derived from memory create a remarkable picture. This ephiphany about his mother, from when he was about eleven years old and living in Zürich, illustrates a critical realization he has about not just her nature and his own, but the nature of the world:
It was no wonder that at such moments, feeling myself her mute equal, I loved her the most. She was certain that she had once again concealed her distrust from me; I perceived both things: her ruthless acumen and her magnanminity. At the time I didn’t know what vastness is, but I felt it: being able to comprise so many and such conflicting things, knowing that seeming incompatibles can all be valid at once, being able to feel that without perishing of fear, having to name that and think about it, the true glory of human nature—that was really what I learned from her.
This takes patience, but my patience was rewarded. Canetti's scenes of his life and insights in Europe, children, teachers... just about anything imaginable, are remarkable. I highly recommend this book
October 1, 2012
Thought provoking, e.g. this:
„Furthermore, the caste in which my mother ranked herself was a caste of Spanish descent and also of money. In my family, and especially in hers, I saw what money does to people. I felt that those who were most willingly devoted to money were the worst. I got to know all the shades, from money grubbing to paranoia. I saw brothers whose greed had led them to destroy one another in years of litigation, and who kept on litigating when there was no money left.“ P. 6 in Elias Canetti: The Tongue set free, Picador, 1979
„Furthermore, the caste in which my mother ranked herself was a caste of Spanish descent and also of money. In my family, and especially in hers, I saw what money does to people. I felt that those who were most willingly devoted to money were the worst. I got to know all the shades, from money grubbing to paranoia. I saw brothers whose greed had led them to destroy one another in years of litigation, and who kept on litigating when there was no money left.“ P. 6 in Elias Canetti: The Tongue set free, Picador, 1979
May 14, 2021
Fascinating memoir of a very European childhood in the early 20th century. The earlier sections focusing on earlier childhood are stronger and more imaginative, the later ones get a little bogged down into the details of the author's literary fascinations and can be a little impenetrable (with all respect to the Swiss authors that are discussed at length).
April 14, 2014
I really loved reading this book though the third and final section was not as good as the first two. One of the best memoirs I have ever read.
March 25, 2019
Amazing mind/ life/book. This covers the early years of Canetti- until about age 30- ending before World War II. But what it covers, and how it does! The development of a consciousness, observing his parents, mostly mother, himself, others, the world through each of these and the world through books. His struggles to engage and observe, to analyze his world is presented so honestly, and in such a wonderfully flawed way. He is always missing the mark , then slowly, subtly, coming back to himself and his flaws and his flawed vision, and then his writing about it. There is the intellectual gossip angle as well- a European People magazine of a different time- when the stars were not Kardashians but Mahler, Thomas Mann, Brecht, Musil, and primarily, Karl Kraus.
Living in this world, this depiction of this world, was / is needed for me.
Living in this world, this depiction of this world, was / is needed for me.
October 10, 2022
What a reading feast. Canetti's family, his friends and acquaintances, all so brilliantly drawn. This is a book of character portraits, and of a time and place long gone. Everyone from Canetti's mother to his best and wisest friend gets their due in this book, and of course Canetti himself emerges: arrogant as the young can be, but also self-reflexive and with enough humility to learn from his betters. I liked very much that he could admire people without failing to notice their egotistical maneuvering (and his own). I especially enjoyed the accounts of his Bulgarian childhood, his Sephardic family, his equally nourishing and toxic mother . . .
March 19, 2023
Elias Canetti ate and drank ideas like they were food and water. In Auto-da-Fa, the main character inserts a substantial library into his head before venturing out. The young boy who grows into a man in these three volumes has done the same. He is made of ideas more than blood and bones. But it's a an abstraction and a porous shield and the world has other plans and sadness and loss close in and permeate it. In truth, he and his ideas were inside the eye of a hurricane. Susan Sontag's essay on the author is the best place to begin (before reading his memoirs). There, you're left feeling Canetti may have have come closer to anyone in knowing everything past and present and knowing it well. These memoirs fill in the blanks.
April 22, 2024
Elias Canetti's Memoirs - three volumes in one - are a monumental work that I thoroughly enjoyed for several reasons. I learned so much about the personalities comprising the cultural life in Vienna and Europe. I saw in impressive detail Canetti's evolution as a thinker and a writer. I better understood his novel, Auto-da-Fe, which I read earlier in the year when I found it one of the most bizarre and oddly mesmerizing novels I've read. I would love to live the kind of life he did in Vienna, surrounded by writers and artists consumed with their creative work and contributions to a literary and artistic community. In two weeks of reading, these 840 pages were like traveling to another time and place. I'll miss it.
August 13, 2024
Mid term review after I have finished the first book. The beginning was well written and very interesting. Early20th century descriptions that we hardly even encounter currently. But as soon as the boy goes to Switzerland it’s a little bit harder to take him seriously because he takes himself so serious. Curious to see what will happen in the next
December 17, 2024
See my review of this here.
November 5, 2018
Se dice que Canetti es un "escritor para escritores", su forma de escribir es magnifica y sus obras son garantía. Se trata de tres libros; la lengua absuelta, la antorcha al oído y juego de ojos (va en ese orden) en donde Elías Canetti, escritor de origen búlgaro nos narra los acontecimientos más relevantes de su vida. Su relación con su madre y la educación estricta que recibió por parte de ella. Como surgió la idea de su primer libro, su amistad con otros artistas y escritores. Canettí fue ganador del Premio Novel de Literatura en 1981.
March 25, 2016
Had a harder time with this - the third part of Canetti's autobiography - than I did with first two parts. I'm unfamiliar with many of the writers, artists and musicians he writing about. (The first two volumes had, I remember, more of a focus on his family.) But he writes beautifully and carefully about the people and events in his life. The mentions to the turbulent times - Vienna in early and mid-1930's were - to me - surprisingly oblique. But always present.
October 7, 2015
Actually, I read these in French translation in the late 1980s, and I loved it. I have dipped into English version, and it doesn't grab my attention the same way. Perhaps we need another translation?
May 8, 2008
Strange fellow, honest account, sensitive soul.
Currently reading
July 30, 2008this is a book I have a lot to learn from. his readings when he was a child, his relationship with his mother, it's all sheer poetry
August 13, 2012
An extraordinarily honest biography
June 1, 2016
Valuable, eloquent, a superb guide to those years artistically.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews