The Mystery of Death in Elias Canetti’s Notes and Aphorisms

Abstract

In this article, we propose a thorough and systematic revision of Elias Canetti’s Notes grounded in the hypothesis that death appears there as what we call a “mystery” or “radical fact.” This reading deliberately distances itself from the hegemonic interpretations that have prevailed over recent decades, which tend to treat death as an instrument of politics or as one element operating within its own field, rather than as the irreducible and unsolvable mystery that necessarily surrounds it. Against these approaches, we argue that the radical nature of death in Canetti’s Notes—which explicitly resists biological, sociological, psychoanalytical, and even philosophical interpretations—forces politics to confront a series of ethical questions. These concern the absolute loss implied by death, the demand for the salvation of the other, and the ethical primacy of the other’s death.