EUGENE GOODHEART
621
that the "writing," "the script," had been so important to me; they
were Jews, and "Scripture" meant a great deal to all of them, but
there had
to
be something very bad and dangerous in me to the
point of wanting to murder my playmate.
When Canetti told Broch that his lifework would be crowds, Broch
responded that there was nothing to learn from a study of mass behavior.
"You can't discover [its laws], because there aren't any. You'd be wasting
your time. Better stick to your plays. You're a writer." Canetti had no
answer, but he stuck to his guns, because it was in crowds that he could
best express the violence that he found in life, in books, and in himself.
His claim to distinction does not rest on a set of original or com–
pelling ideas. He is not a master of a particular genre, though he was the
author of many plays, essays, "jottings," and a singular (in more than
one sense) novel.
Crowds and Power
eludes generic definition and lacks
the intellectual or scholarly substance of other works on the subject. (A
recent scholarly introduction to Le Bon's work provides an extensive list
of books and articles on crowds but makes no mention of Canetti's
book .) His is an achievement of sensibility, which has its fulfillment in
the memoirs. He is an obsessively patient observer and listener, always
at an odd angle
to
events, alert to what is strange, weird, and frighten–
ing in his and our experience.
C OMING SOON IN
P ARTISAN
REVIEW:
• Cushing Strout
on William James
• Social Constructionism:
Mark Bauerle in
• Kenne th Sherman's
"The Necessity of Poetry"
• Reviews by
Walter Laqueur, Paul Hollander,
and
Nicole Krauss
• Fiction by
Ivo Andric
and
Sharona Ben-Tov
• Poetry by
Stephen Sandy, Rebecca Seiferle,
William Logan,
and
Hans Koning
