Abstract

«The history of one's own youth cannot lessen into a catalogue of what became important next. It should also include dissipation, failure and wastage». This is Elias Canetti's personal commandment, the rule that leads the project of his huge autobiography, where resonates the echo of Benjamin's Philosophy of History Theses. According to Canetti, the trajectory of a life is not straight and does not follow the arrow of the vocation. In order to contrast the causal power of the vocation, the writer breaks its connections, recalling the souvenirs of what is free of consequences. He chases other possible directions and gives to each minor event, mistake or deviation its own value. He undoes the trajectory of his life. He brushes existence against the grain.