{"id":258076,"date":"2007-11-27T14:21:40","date_gmt":"2007-11-27T14:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2007\/11\/27\/read-stanley-elkin\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T17:34:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:34:53","slug":"read-stanley-elkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2007\/11\/27\/read-stanley-elkin\/","title":{"rendered":"Read Stanley Elkin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Granted, this is a bit outside of our normal purview, but Stanley Elkin was such an amazing writer that I can’t help but mention the “In Retrospect” look at George Mills<\/i> currently going on at Critical Mass<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The current post is from Abby Frucht about Elkin’s writing classes—which were classically humiliating and funny:<\/p>\n

\n

Then he\u2019d read aloud from one of our own manuscripts before asking, \u201cNow, can anyone tell me what THIS<\/span> piece a shit is about?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cA man throwing up in a sauna,\u201d one of us might hesitantly offer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cEmbarrassment?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cSome middle-aged guy who \u2013\u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the idea of humility,\u201d the bravest of us might interject. [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cWill someone tell me what this story is REALLY<\/span> about? I\u2019ll tell you what it\u2019s not about. It\u2019s not about some loser asshole sitting around pondering the idea of humility. It\u2019s about some loser asshole who is going to die,\u201d he\u2019d say. \u201cYou know how I know that?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Nobody spoke, because we knew he wanted to be the person to tell us the answer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cI know that this story is about some loser asshole who is going to die because we\u2019re all loser assholes who are going to die and that\u2019s what every halfway decent story is ever about. Should be, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If you read The Franchiser,<\/i> or The Magic Kingdom<\/i>, you’ll see how this grumbling perspective can be transformed into verbal fun and games on the page. And his best books all happen to be about loser assholes who are going to die . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Granted, this is a bit outside of our normal purview, but Stanley Elkin was such an amazing writer that I can’t help but mention the “In Retrospect” look at George Mills currently going on at Critical Mass. The current post is from Abby Frucht about Elkin’s writing classes—which were classically humiliating and funny: Then he\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[1836,8306],"class_list":["post-258076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-cwp","tag-stanley-elkin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360866,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258076\/revisions\/360866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}