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From: blp Category: Books Date: 29 August 2006 Time: 07:02 AM Review: Elias Canetti's bumper book of literary madness from the interwar years, detailing the complete mental breakdown of leading sinologist (expert on Chinese literature) Peter Kien in a series of scenes of bubbling derangement, full of frantic wordplay, violence, neurotic obsession and descriptions of hallucinations that are extraordinarily similar to depictions of insanity and the oneiric in films from the period. I found it hard to get into at first, but it completely won me over and I miss it now I'm done.