Auto Da Fé

In the vile portrayal of Benedikt Pfaff, the ex-police officer who is the janitor of Kien's appartment block, Canetti parodies the Nazi regime's abuse of power and justification of senseless violence. Surrounded by cheats and amoral characters, the naive Kien has no chance. Kien and his beloved library perish in a fire which mirrors the book burnings of the Nazi regime. Canetti's theory that the using of people in pursuit of a greater goal leads to society disintergrating. The Nazi's banned the novel when it was first published. This bleak and dense work was first published by Herbert Reichner, in Zurich, 1936, under the title 'Die Blendung'. Canetti's only work of fiction was reprinted in the 1960's.