Party in the Blitz

I worship the late Elias Canetti. If nobody's heard of him, it's because we live in a culture that is fundamentally ignorant and under-educated. CROWDS AND POWER should be required reading in every school in this nation. Canetti's cycle of memoirs collectively comprises some of the best intellectual history of the twentieth century. PARTY IN THE BLITZ is the great man's last piss-blast in the face of a world he saw as hostile, stupid, and bent on destruction. The price of this book is justified alone by what Canetti says about T.S. Elliot. Elliot was one of the biggest anti-semites of all time, a cold prude who hated Jews, wrote bad pretentious poetry so arcane it needed footnotes (which he himself supplied), and desperately wanted to be an Englishman when in fact he was from St. Louis, Missouri. Canetti recognized what a sham Elliot was, and doesn't hesitate to let us know what Elliot was really like, through the eyes of an objective observer and not some fawning Catholic biographer. It's true that Canetti rips just about everyone to shreds in this book, but he has some amazingly kind things to say, too. He remembers, for instance, a mere street sweeper, who he talked to just in passing for many years, and whom he considered one of the most intelligent men he ever met. Canetti was a man who refused to suffer fools; he despised airs and pretentiousness. He was probably one of the most intelligent men of his age, which was almost certainly his great curse. He saw through the masks people wear, the illusions they use to disguise their flaws and insecurities, with ease. It was this great lucidity of his, this ability to perceive and understand things as they really are, that made him impatient, and ultimately, incredibly bitter.