Auto-Da-Fé

by Elias Canetti | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0374518793 Global Overview for this book
Registered by woosang of Campbelltown, New South Wales Australia on 4/7/2006
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
This book is in the wild! This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by woosang from Campbelltown, New South Wales Australia on Friday, April 7, 2006
My copy is much older than the one pictured, but I sourced it for only $6 so who is complaining. :)

Novel by Elias Canetti, published in 1935 in German as Die Blendung ("The Deception"). The translation into English that was published as Auto-da-Fe (also published as The Tower of Babel) was done in cooperation with Canetti. Originally planned as the first in a series of eight novels examining mad visionaries, the book deals with the dangers inherent in believing that rigid, dissociated intellectualism and detached, dogmatic scholarship can prevail over evil, chaos, and destruction. Set in Vienna and Paris, the novel tells the story of Peter Kien, an internationally respected scholar of Chinese studies who maintains a personal library of 25,000 volumes. After dreaming that the books are burned, Kien marries his housekeeper Therese, believing that she will preserve his beloved library should disaster befall him. Therese throws him out of his book-filled apartment, however, and Kien, now homeless, enters the grotesque underworld of the city. Delusional, he fluctuates between horrifying hallucinations and an unspeakable reality. Kien's disintegration finally leads him to set fire to his precious books and to await his own death in the ensuing inferno.

Lisa Simpson quotes from this novel in Season 13 "Sweets and sour Marge" episiode "Lisa: "but the books i dont save will be chopped up and fed to pigs!"
This is the most obscure reference i have ever come across in the Simpsons. This line is a reference to the novel "Auto de Fe" by the bulgarian, nobel prize-winning (Literature - 1981) author Elian Canetti. In the novel, the main character spends his fortune buying books from vagrents to "save" them from being shredded and fed to demonic pigs in a central Vienna pawn shop."

RELEASE NOTES:

Released at the 2007 Australian Bookcrossing convention

Journal Entry 3 by woosang at The Beach Hotel in Albert Park, Victoria Australia on Saturday, October 6, 2007

Released 16 yrs ago (10/6/2007 UTC) at The Beach Hotel in Albert Park, Victoria Australia

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

On the Mantlepiece in the beach hotel

Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.