Briefe an Georges by Veza and Elias Canetti (review)

“Die Jaqueline . . . sagte plötzlich, ich soll ihr doch meine Lebensgeschichte erzählen, immer wird von Canetti gesprochen, nie von mir. Ich hab ihr dann weiter von Canetti erzählt” (317). This collection of letters—discovered among the posthumous belongings of Canetti‘s brother Georges in 2003, first published by Hanser in 2006, and reissued by Fischer Taschenbuch in 2009—illustrates, but also poignantly illuminates, the persistent subordination of Veza Canetti to the poetic genius of her husband Elias. She was his scribe, secretary, literary agent, manager, life coach, personal assistant, lector, proofreader, translator, critic, research assistant, ghostwriter, and advisor in romantic matters. Above all, she writes, she strove to be his “mother.”

In this one-way correspondence with Georges (for this is essentially what this book is), she comes to see herself as her husband’s biographer, too—or at least as a privileged source for that future work—yet also as an author in her own right. Veza views her letters as a kind of literary testament—possibly her most significant. She instructs Georges to archive them carefully and even copies out a few for herself. Her intention to control the posthumous image of Elias and herself is evident also in her insistence that Georges destroy a couple of particularly unvarnished and revealing letters immediately after reading them. Thankfully, Georges honored only her request to save them. As a result, we possess a fascinating self-portrait of Veza and a far richer, more nuanced understanding of Elias as well. These letters tell the story of a talented woman writer in exile who both longs for her own success and yet perpetually casts herself as helpmate. In these pages we discover a more opinionated, politically astute, socially aware, impertinent, funny, angry, and erudite Veza than we could ever have known from Canetti’s stylized and idealizing portrait of her in his widely acclaimed autobiography. Here she speaks for herself.

It is emblematic of their relationship’s asymmetry, however, that Fischer Taschenbuch chose to give Elias the first byline on the cover of the book, even though the vast majority of these letters are Veza’s. It is furthermore indicative, I think, of an ongoing quandary as to how to market her. Embarrassingly, the book is advertised thus: “Während Canetti wechselnde Geliebte hat, verfällt Veza dem homosexuellen Georges—ein Dreiecksroman in Briefen” (back cover and frontmatter). Yet it is really nothing of the sort. Georges is apostrophized and of course referenced but is not directly present, except for a very few drafts of letters at the very beginning of the collection. I think it is fair to assume that Canetti destroyed Georges’s letters to Veza, as they undoubtedly contained—as we can conclude from various entries in this corpus—sharply critical views of Canetti, ones Canetti himself hotly disputed in some of his responses to Georges that do survive. The blurb awakens precisely the wrong expectations and, in the process, manages to objectify both Georges and Veza.

Who are the readers of Veza’s letters? The press does not appear to have an academic audience in mind. Though equipped with a useful “Namensregister,” the book lacks a proper index. So if one wanted to quickly revisit the paramount role that Veza plays, for example, in the British edition of Die Blendung, one would be at a total loss, (unless one can rely on a memory as prodigious as the one Veza says Canetti possessed). Indeed, we are offered no help in locating the scattered references to Canetti’s novel, which is a major topic throughout these letters; the primary source of Canetti’s gathering fame in postwar Britain, France, and the United States; and a not insignificant source of income for both Elias and Veza. Nor is there any guidance in finding references to Masse und Macht—of which Veza appears to have been virtually a coauthor and for which Canetti felt he deserved the Nobel Prize—possibly even for...