Die Befristeten

“It’s as if people talk to each other in foreign languages – without knowing them; only they believe they know them, which creates a new dimension of not understanding.” (Elias Canetti about Hochzeit)
Babylonian confusion not only dominates the language, but also the minds of the people who meet this day, connected socially or because of family ties, closely or loosely, in the home of old Gilz.
Downstairs someone is dying, upstairs a new-born is crying and in the middle every wedding guest reveals their true desires. Claims of ownership, of the material and physical kind, abound. Almost no one still deems it necessary to at least keep up the charade of bourgeois decency. The façade is no longer simply crumbling, huge chunks are falling off. The round dance of desire, suppression and hypocrisy doesn’t even spare the weakest members of the party. Au contraire. And the parrot of old Gilz comments on everything by screaming: “House. House. House.”

The house will really come down, and with it the foundations of a whole society. Written shortly before the Nazis’ rise to power, Hochzeit describes in absurd dialogues how egotism and the moral decay resulting from it can lead to a complete loss of control. What’s left is the catastrophe.

Written as soon as 1933, under the influence of Hitler’s ascent to power and the ensuing flood of prohibitions “which were suitable for the creation of enthusiastic masses”, the Komödie der Eitelkeit is much more than the satire of manners suggested by the title. Starting with the basic idea of a general ban of mirrors and its effect on the human psyche, Canetti goes on to create a satirical, philosophical parable of totalitariansim generally and the mass psychoses which result from it. “I have succeeded in grabbing the century by the throat.” (Canetti)