Structures of Disintegration: Narrative Strategies in Elias Canetti's Die Blendung By David Darby

This study examines the narrative structure of Elias Canetti's novel Die Blendung (Auto-da-Fe). The author first provides a survey of the reception of the novel and then examines its structural forms primarily on the basis of an intertextual analysis of three major episodes. He questions the capacity of sign systems to produce meaning. Finally, he compares Canetti's novel with the modernist urban novel and the French nouveau roman in terms of the representation of chaotic worlds.
"Darby proves that keeping Die Blendung apart from Masse und Macht and analyzing it on its own terms yields valuable results that can contribute to a reevaluation of the novel." Monatshefte