Earwitness Fifty Characters Author:Elias Canetti This unusual book combines criticism, literary invention, and social psychology. Earwitness displays Canetti's innovative approach to character description which was originally created by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus and later practiced by the English character writers of the seventeenth century. Relying on po... more »etic imagery, singular insights, and unabashed word play, Canetti displays fifty characters, fifty ironic paradigms of human behavior, to demonstrate how man's individual and social being frustrate rigid psychological or sociological categories.« less