The Tortoises

by Veza Canetti, Ian Mitchell (Translator)

Spare, dark, and cinematic, The Tortoises describes life in the Nazi reign of terror. A renowned writer and his wife live quietly in a beautiful villa outside Vienna, until the triumphant Nazis start subjecting their Jewish "hosts" to ever greater humiliations. Veza Canetti focuses on seemingly ordinary people to epitomize the one flag-happy German kills a sparrow before a group of little children; another, more entrepreneurial Nazi brands tortoises with swastikas to sell as souvenirs commemorating the Anschluss.

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Veza Canetti wrote her semi-autobiographical The Tortoises at a furious pace in early 1939, not long after her arrival in England in flight from the Nazis. It’s a meticulously-detailed account of Vienna after the Anschluß, when the city and its environs were overwhelmed by hordes of German soldiers posted there to carry out Hitler’s wishes. Set in late 1938, the narrative spans the weeks up to, and including, November and the now-infamous Kristallnacht when Jewish buildings from synagogues to shops and offices were destroyed, and Jewish people were slaughtered on the streets or rounded up en masse, bound for camps already waiting at Dachau and Buchenwald.

For a large part of her life, and for years after death, author Veza Canetti was known only as the woman behind a “great man,” her husband, Noble Prize winner Elias Canetti. Veza Canetti spent most of their marriage taking care of his every domestic and professional need, even facilitating and supporting him through his many affairs with other women - including Iris Murdoch and Alma Mahler. But Veza’s own creativity was more or less forgotten, until her work was gradually rediscovered in the 1990s. Canetti was Austrian-Jewish, a radical playwright and short-story writer. In Austria, she regularly contributed to socialist publications including the Viennese Daily Worker, silenced only when the huge lurch to the right in the mid-1930s led to a crackdown on left-wing groups and publications.

Unpublished in her lifetime, Canetti's novel centres on a small group of Viennese Jews, Eva and her poet husband, Andreas Kain (Veza and Elias), Hilde their neighbour, Andreas’s brother Werner, and his flatmate the hapless, older Felberbaum, all desperate to find a way out of the nightmare unfolding around them. Eva and Andreas live in an apartment in a mansion just outside Vienna, but their time there is limited, their landlady overjoyed at the thought of Austria and Germany uniting has let the building’s vacant spaces to Nazi officers, and a giant flag adorned with a swastika now obscures its frontage. In the local town Aryan Austrians wear swastikas, and Jews are fast becoming outcasts. Among the German officers taking over the house is Pilz aptly named after a mushroom, he and his kind are spreading across the country. Pilz delights in killing animals for audiences of local children, demonstrating the necessity of ruthlessly rooting out the frail or the injured to ensure a healthy Aryan future. Later Eva and Andreas flee to Vienna to room with Werner and Felberbaum, just in time to witness the destruction that was Kristallnacht.

I found Canetti’s novel quite uneven, especially in some earlier episodes which were often stilted, laced with overly-mannered dialogue, and awkwardly-framed scenes. But surrounding these, particularly in the far-superior second half, were some excellent descriptive passages and a series of grippingly intense, chilling, extended sketches. Overall, Canetti has constructed a convincing portrait of fear, displacement and loss of identity, a moving depiction of what it was like to witness your entire country, a culture and a society, become unrecognisable and hostile, a whole world turned upside down. For me the most memorable elements were the sections featuring Felberbaum, a kindly, ordinary man, who can’t believe others aren’t like him. His experiences are depicted in a series of vignette-like chapters, similar to the vignettes that made Canetti’s name in her newspaper pieces– slightly reminiscent of Vicki Baum’s approach in Grand Hotel. She faithfully reproduces the sights witnessed on the streets of Vienna in her last days in her home country, the feverish survival strategies of the Jewish community, paying Aryan foreigners to move into homes to protect against looting - although some were more valuable commodities than others, a Czech was more or less worthless, but an American worth their weight in gold. Not a perfect novel but a completely fascinating one, as much a slice of history as fiction. Translated by Ian Mitchell.

[Thomas Hübner · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=1939

Austria 1938. Andreas Kain, a renowned writer and his wife Eva, live in a beautiful villa just outside Vienna. What could be a normal and fulfilled life in the "loveliest city of Central Europe" turns for Kain, Eva, and Werner - Kain's brother with whom he has a loving but nevertheless troubled relationship - into a nightmare: it is the time of the Anschluss, the Nazis are triumphing also in Austria, and for Jews like the three main characters of Veza Canetti's novel The Tortoises (Die Schildkröten) a time of growing humiliations and deadly dangers has begun. The bank accounts of the Jews are frozen, those among them who have a regular job are dismissed, and the homes and furniture of Jewish households are being "requisitioned". And that will be just the beginning.

While Kain and Eva have to leave their home, they have nowhere to go and visas are getting unattainable. Hilde, a Jewish girl from the neighborhood, tries to find a rather grotesque way out of this situation: with her father's money and her charms for whom one of the new Nazi neighbors falls, she intends to hire or even buy a private airplane with which the whole group could possibly leave Austria (illegally), a project that is obviously doomed from the very beginning.

The Tortoises is a brilliant novel. Not only because of Veza Canetti's ability to describe her own ordeal - the book is autobiographical - in an elegant, beautiful prose (well translated by Ian Mitchell). If you ever asked yourself how it was possible that the Nazis took hold of the big majority of Germans and Austrians within such a short time and how - at least on the surface - normal and otherwise decent people turned into Nazis or willing followers seemingly out of the blue then you should read this book. It gives a haunting description of the paranoid atmosphere in Vienna after the Anschluss.

Veza Canetti's language is Viennese - elegant and always slightly ironic. The plays of Johann Nestroy, the prose of Arthur Schnitzler, the satiric furor of Karl Kraus, they all resonate in her writing. And she can write exceptionally well dialogues that sound as if they come directly from a Volksstück of Ödön von Horvath. The Nazis are ridiculous and pathetic figures; the name of the main villain in the book is Pilz (=mushroom), and this gives Frau Wlk (whose Czech name means "wolf"), the cleaner, an opportunity to denigrate this man but at the same time we readers get an insight in the mentality of even good-natured people like the landlady who is suddenly impressed by the Nazis:

"His name is Pilz-Mushroom! Toadstool, Mould, Fungus, Frau Wlk goes through all the variations. He lives down there where she lives, he's a brownshirt, a bigwig, because he has a low number. Having a low number means he was one of the very first to be in the National Socialist Party....It seems that this low number exudes a fascinating effect. Because Frau Wlk was complaining. Even the landlady, here in this house, who is so kind, for whom she cleans the house, even she has been taken in. She who, after all, goes to church every Sunday. Who puts her last penny into the collection box to pay for a new figure of the Holy Virgin. Here in this house, the right atmosphere reigns to corrupt the landlady. The Mushroom came up and immediately won her over. And, simply because he has promised her South Tyrol, the landlady, who is so persnickety, is letting him move in here."

Another "horvathesque" element are the dialogues between Pilz and Kain and his wife - on the surface polite ("Herr Ingenieur!" "Herr Doktor!") and considering the changed circumstances even funny - but there can be no doubt that the new rulers will ruthlessly execute their program of extermination of the weak and of the "inferior" races, particularly the Jews.

While this is at least in the first days after the Anschluss not yet visible in the bourgeois villa neighborhood where Kain - the name is alluding not only to the biblical Kain but also to Peter Kien, the main character of Elias Canetti's novel Auto-da-fé - and Eva are living, the open brutality of the new regime is evident from the very beginning in less privileged areas of the city. But also in the villa suburb, the signs are clear: a sparrow, and later a dog are killed by one of the new Nazis in front of a group of children to "teach" them that the weak and the useless have to be wiped out mercilessly. And the Tortoises to which the title of the novel is referring, are branded with a swastika by another Nazi and sold as souvenirs, but some of them can be saved by the good-hearted Andreas Kain. As Schopenhauer says in The Basis of Morality:

“Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”

The novel is also a book about the relationship between the brothers Andreas and Werner, and is mirroring the relationship between Elias Canetti, Veza's husband, and his brother Georges. In this respect it is not only interesting to read Elias Canetti's autobiography (which mentions Veza's great importance for Elias Canetti's intellectual development, but doesn't say a word about the fact that Canetti's first wife was an exceptional author in her own right), but also the correspondence between Elias, Georges, and Veza Canetti that was published a few years ago.

The Tortoises was completed after the Canettis could escape to England in the very last moment, but never published during Veza's lifetime. She published very little during her life and in a bout of depression destroyed the manuscripts of most of her unpublished works. During the last years of Elias Canetti's life, he published/re-published her remaining works. Veza Canetti is one of the greatest prose writers of the 20th century in German language. It is high time to discover her.

Veza Canetti: The Tortoises, translated by Ian Mitchell, New Directions Books, New York 2001; Die Schildkröten, Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1999

Veza Canetti / Elias Canetti: "Dearest Georg!": Love, Literature, and Power in Dark Times, The Letters of Elias, Veza, and Georges Canetti, 1933-1948, translated by David Dollenmayer, Other Press, New York 2010; Briefe an Georges, Carl Hanser Verlag, München 2006

For German speakers I recommend also the performance "Der Herr Karl" by Helmut Qualtinger, a truly revealing portrait of a (fictional) Nazi follower in Vienna - where until today a considerable part of the population views itself - quite in contrast to the overwhelming and frenetic support of the biggest part of the Austrian population for the Nazis after the Anschluss - as "the first victims of the Nazis".

[Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

1939, wenige Monate nach der geglückten Flucht vor den österreichischen Nazischergen hat die Frau von Elias Canetti diesen Roman geschrieben, der Roman ist erst aus dem Nachlass 1999 erschienen. Packend und bedrückend schildert Canetti hier am Beispiel des Ehepaares Kain die Tage nach dem Anschluss an Deutschland in Wien, die Tage, in denen den hier lebenden Juden der Boden unter den Füßen entzogen wird, die Tage, an denen sich die Fratze des Antisemitismus in ihrer vollen Gewalttätigkeit entblößt. Wie den Canetti selbst gelingt auch den Kains die Flucht erst im letzten Moment, v.a. auch deshalb, da viele Länder die Visumvergabe sehr restriktiv handhaben. Der Stil ist ein dokumentierender, in der Sprache meiner Meinung nach durchaus künstlerisch etwas verfremdet, was aber die seltsame Stimmung nur noch steigert.
Hervorragend kann Canetti herausarbeiten, dass menschliche Noblesse einem entfesselten Mob vollkommen unterlegen ist.
4 Sterne für ein wichtiges schriftstellerisches Zeitzeugnis.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/2011...

L’autrice, come si può intuire dal cognome nel caso non lo si sapesse già, è stata la prima moglie di Elias Canetti; il suo nome da ragazza era Venetiana Taubner-Calderón. Ebrea sefardita, nasce a Vienna nel 1897 da una famiglia di origine spagnola, e nella stessa città passa tutta la vita fino all’esilio forzato in seguito all’Anschluß dell’Austria alla Germania. Scrive molto sotto vari pseudonimi, il più usato dei quali è Veza Magd; pubblica qualcosa sull’Arbeiter Zeitung ma, dopo anni di rifiuti, distrugge buona parte dei suoi manoscritti.

Questo romanzo era stato accettato per la pubblicazione in Inghilterra ma, a causa dello scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale, non se ne fece più niente, e il libro fu pubblicato soltanto sessant’anni dopo grazie agli sforzi di Elias Canetti, ormai anche lui deceduto come Veza.

Il romanzo è ambientato a Vienna proprio nel periodo dell’Anschluß e ha tratti autobiografici, non solo per questo motivo. Ad esempio, la figura del marito Elias è ben tratteggiata nel personaggio di Andreas Kain, scrittore che vive in città con la moglie Eva. Ma non è l’unica nota conosciuta che risuona all’orecchio di chi si sia occupato in qualche modo di Elias Canetti.

Lo dico subito: tutto questo riecheggiare canettiano disturba un po’, perché dà l’impressione di una scrittrice che non sa staccarsi dall’ombra del marito famoso e che, di conseguenza, non sa crearsi una personalità propriamente sua. Immagino non debba essere stato facile, soprattutto se si considera che, all’inizio del loro rapporto, l’intellettuale fra i due era Veza, mentre Elias era ancora un ragazzo sconosciuto.

Se si esclude comunque questa punta di malessere, unita anche al fatto che la scrittura di Veza mi sembra buona, ma senza essere neanche lontanamente eccezionale, Die Schildkröten. Roman. è un bel libro, che colpisce soprattutto come documento, più che come opera letteraria.

I protagonisti sono Andreas ed Eva Kain, una coppia che vive in una bella casa a Vienna, casa che i due sono costretti a lasciare a causa delle persecuzioni che stanno colpendo gli ebrei dopo l’Anschluß. Oltre alla coppia, protagonista è anche la follia che colpisce un intero popolo, che improvvisamente decide di rivoltarsi violentemente contro una parte della popolazione, colpevole solo di avere un credo religioso diverso.

Die Schildkröten. Roman. è il ritratto dell’accanimento, della lucidissima follia collettiva che ha poi portato alla Shoah. Lucidissima, perché si vede già delinearsi a chiari contorni ciò che accadrà in seguito.

Le violenze quotidiane, molto spesso vere e proprie sopraffazioni psicologiche prima ancora che fisiche, arrivano da ogni dove, anche da quelle persone di cui sembrava di potersi fidare. I coniugi Kain vengono scacciati dalla loro casa, che occupano ancora in attesa del visto per scappare in Inghilterra. Ma piano piano i nuovi inquilini, di pura “razza ariana” e per di più di una certa importanza all’interno del partito, li scacciano completamente, impossessandosi dei loro mobili e relegandoli in una stanzetta. I due infine se ne vanno a vivere da Werner, fratello di Kain, in compagnia di un altro ebreo anch’egli in attesa di visto. Werner sembra essere l’opposto del fratello, sebbene in fondo non siano così diversi: non vuole andarsene, perché l’Austria è la sua patria e non ha alcuna intenzione di abbandonarla. Del resto, lo stesso Andreas vive con rassegnazione la decisione di andarsene, e cerca fino all’ultimo di isolarsi nel suo mondo fatto di scrittura per non dover pensare a quello che gli accade intorno. Nel frattempo, infatti, hanno inizio i veri e propri pogrom: gli ebrei vengono licenziati, sfrattati, i loro mobili requisiti, le sinagoghe bruciano, ci sono arresti, violenze.

I pogrom, la discesa continua e decisa verso il male assoluto: tutto questo viene raccontato con grande precisione e lucidità. E quando documenta questi avvenimenti, Veza raggiunge dei toni di passione lirica che altrove non sfiora neppure.

Infine, io credo che il libro vada assolutamente letto, ma che l’approccio migliore sia avvicinarsi a esso con l’idea di leggere un documento, per quanto appartenente al filone letterario.

Ciò che colpisce soprattutto, e con questo spirito andrebbe letto, è il tono lucidissimo dell’analisi: Veza parla di Buchenwald e di Dachau, e sono due dei pochissimi luoghi chiamati per nome, parla dei lavori forzati a cui erano costretti i prigionieri, parla delle torture, di campi di concentramento (e li chiama proprio così, Konzentrationslager), dei carri di bestiame e della morte, sebbene non ancora per gas.

Non l’ho ancora detto, ma la cosa sconvolgente è che questo romanzo è stato scriutto nel 1939, a guerra non ancora scoppiata. Per questo dico che il libro va letto come un documento, e che va senz’altro letto. Perché di fronte a questo libro del 1939 cade tutta la finzione, di carta, a cui nessuno ormai più crede, che la gente non sapesse quel che stava avvenendo. Perché se una donna ebrea viennese nel 1939 conosce Dachau e Buchenwald come campi di concentramento, vuol dire che tutti sapevano. Certo, a quell’epoca i nazisti non usavano ancora il gas, i campi di concentramento non erano ancora diventati campi di sterminio ma, leggendo questo libro, è ormai impossibile continuare a far finta di credere che la gente non sapesse che l’obiettivo finale di tanta violenza fosse proprio lo sterminio. Tanto che Veza mette in bocca alla camicia nera che ha requisito la casa dei Kain, nel 1939, parole che profetizzano esplicitamente un angelo della morte che scenderà sugli ebrei.

Insomma, un documento di cui non si può pensare di poter fare a meno.

Su Veza Canetti, con breve bibliografia.

[Andi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nicht meine Sprache...Und zu viel Stress in der Schule für diese Thematik.

[Joanneke Balfoort · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written account of the difficult times for Jews in Vienna after Anschluss. Incredible that this book only got known after both Veza’sand her husband Elias Canetti’s death.

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Veza Canetti was Nobel laureate Elias' first wife, born in Vienna at the turn of the century to a Sephardi-Jewish background similar to Canetti's own. She met Canetti at a Karl Kraus lecture, as he recounts in one of his memoirical essays. There are rumours going around to the effect that she has read more than anyone there; intriguing, a threat to the Kraus disciples, a female one at that! But Canetti, notorious for being a womanizer, would make no haste to tame this intellectually intimidating woman - and degrade her to his personal typist, if we follow the en vogue scholarship about the Canetti network. Veza had only one arm, which makes either him all the more evil, or her dedication to typing out her husband's manuscripts all the more admirable. I wish I knew, but it gets so stuffy at some point that I will stop here.
Her works were gradually rediscovered in the wake of her husband's growing popularity in the latter part of the 20th century. She mainly wrote short stories, a couple of plays, and this novel, which did not exactly inspire me to continue down this path. The story is about the gradual takeover of the married Jewish protagonists' household by a Nazi officer, and their eventual escape to London, very much inspired by the Canettis' own fate. There are some touching passages, and the subject matter is quite moving, but unfortunately the title tells you all you need to know about the kind of rapture you can expect from the book.

[Birthe Trchl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not easy and unusual but I love Canetti and her style