James Elkins
@purelyfiction.bsky.social
I teach at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago. Here for writing: experimental, fictional, constrained, with images, with music. My book reviews are on Goodreads. All the art stuff is over on Academia.
Pinned
James Elkins
@purelyfiction.bsky.social
· Nov 16
Schmidt reading resources
School of the Art Institute of Chicago reading group 2023 Histories of the mega-novel: Schmidt, Bottom’s Dream; Joyce, Finnegans Wake; Perec, La Vie mode d’emploi; Beckett, Watt Reading resources fo...
docs.google.com
For everyone here who talks about reading, literature, and attention spans: join the world's hardest reading group: Arno Schmidt's "Bottom's Dream" (google it). We've been going three years and we're halfway through. Immerse yourself in the opposite of ADHD & social media tinyurl.com/SchmidtBotto...
Jacob Elordi reading Weak in Comparison to Dreams while he’s being made up as Frankenstein, reposted by the wonderful translator Max Lawton. In the original novel, the Creature reads Paradise Lost, Plutarch, and some other classics, so I'm in good company
November 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Jacob Elordi reading Weak in Comparison to Dreams while he’s being made up as Frankenstein, reposted by the wonderful translator Max Lawton. In the original novel, the Creature reads Paradise Lost, Plutarch, and some other classics, so I'm in good company
A list of 10 books that haunt me the most. I wrote this in response to a list of 10 books that are most influentual. It's also different, I think, from a list of 10 favorites, or 10 most canonical...
www.instagram.com/p/DQCRuVuDphG/
www.instagram.com/p/DQCRuVuDphG/
October 20, 2025 at 3:19 PM
A list of 10 books that haunt me the most. I wrote this in response to a list of 10 books that are most influentual. It's also different, I think, from a list of 10 favorites, or 10 most canonical...
www.instagram.com/p/DQCRuVuDphG/
www.instagram.com/p/DQCRuVuDphG/
Finally got my notes together on Schattenfroh and its companion book Innehaben. All comments welcome! open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
October 13, 2025 at 6:13 AM
Finally got my notes together on Schattenfroh and its companion book Innehaben. All comments welcome! open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Essay on Substack about this novel, which has been described as astonishing, important, and yet unreadable. But the reception depends on assumptions about what constitutes profound, innovative, or radical writing.
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
August 19, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Essay on Substack about this novel, which has been described as astonishing, important, and yet unreadable. But the reception depends on assumptions about what constitutes profound, innovative, or radical writing.
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
On Nabokov's famous and seldom read 1,200 page commentary on Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." Among (many) other things, it's a model and example of postmodern experimentation with footnotes. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
August 12, 2025 at 1:34 AM
On Nabokov's famous and seldom read 1,200 page commentary on Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." Among (many) other things, it's a model and example of postmodern experimentation with footnotes. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Pondering the strange reception of Gaddis's "Recognitions." At first it was poorly read; then, mysteriously, it became canonical. Most recently it was the subject of a fierce and largely persuasive review by Adam Mars-Jones. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
August 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Pondering the strange reception of Gaddis's "Recognitions." At first it was poorly read; then, mysteriously, it became canonical. Most recently it was the subject of a fierce and largely persuasive review by Adam Mars-Jones. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Anyone interested in a reading group on Beckett’s “Watt”? It would start in January, and it would include a close reading of his notebooks, secondary sources, scholarship, etc. — every bit as compulsive and slow as my groups on Perec and Schmidt. If you might be interested email [email protected]
August 6, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Anyone interested in a reading group on Beckett’s “Watt”? It would start in January, and it would include a close reading of his notebooks, secondary sources, scholarship, etc. — every bit as compulsive and slow as my groups on Perec and Schmidt. If you might be interested email [email protected]
Here's an essay on how contemporary novelists might use parallel columns. It includes a brief description of a new 6-volume novel in Croatian, which might just be one of the most intricately formatted novels ever--much more complex than Danielewski for example
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
August 4, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Here's an essay on how contemporary novelists might use parallel columns. It includes a brief description of a new 6-volume novel in Croatian, which might just be one of the most intricately formatted novels ever--much more complex than Danielewski for example
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Advertising my book, using some fabulous reviews from social media. Thank you @unnamedpress.bsky.social ! www.instagram.com/p/DMx5fyLp2i...
July 31, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Advertising my book, using some fabulous reviews from social media. Thank you @unnamedpress.bsky.social ! www.instagram.com/p/DMx5fyLp2i...
The enormous A3 (16" x 12") edition of Dieter Stündel's German translation of Finnegans Wake. Also his modest A4 printing, the paperback, and the French for comparison.
Stündel will be our guest later in August in the Schmidt reading group. Everyone is welcome, email for details [email protected]
Stündel will be our guest later in August in the Schmidt reading group. Everyone is welcome, email for details [email protected]
July 29, 2025 at 11:52 PM
The enormous A3 (16" x 12") edition of Dieter Stündel's German translation of Finnegans Wake. Also his modest A4 printing, the paperback, and the French for comparison.
Stündel will be our guest later in August in the Schmidt reading group. Everyone is welcome, email for details [email protected]
Stündel will be our guest later in August in the Schmidt reading group. Everyone is welcome, email for details [email protected]
A short essay for writers who feel the magnetic pull of Thomas Bernhard, including three possible escape routes. All comments welcome. jameselkins.substack.com/publish/post...
July 24, 2025 at 5:31 PM
A short essay for writers who feel the magnetic pull of Thomas Bernhard, including three possible escape routes. All comments welcome. jameselkins.substack.com/publish/post...
Thanks everyone who participated in the weekly literary contest for A Short Introduction to Anneliese! Books for the winners are on their way. In case anyone is as OCD (or completist) as I am, here are the answers to all the puzzles:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
July 22, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Thanks everyone who participated in the weekly literary contest for A Short Introduction to Anneliese! Books for the winners are on their way. In case anyone is as OCD (or completist) as I am, here are the answers to all the puzzles:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Arguing against the usual readings of Dick's Exegesis: it's not as simple as a religious experiene (R. Crumb), an archive for psychoanalysis, a trauma narrative, or a glimpse of philosophy (Critchley). It's logically at odds with itself about what counts as reality open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
July 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Arguing against the usual readings of Dick's Exegesis: it's not as simple as a religious experiene (R. Crumb), an archive for psychoanalysis, a trauma narrative, or a glimpse of philosophy (Critchley). It's logically at odds with itself about what counts as reality open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Rewritten in response to readers’ comments. Thanks everyone! Focused now on the difficult subject: the representation of incomplete minds, aside from trauma or neurodivergence: just the ordinary disturbing awareness of our incomplete awareness of ourselves. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
July 13, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Rewritten in response to readers’ comments. Thanks everyone! Focused now on the difficult subject: the representation of incomplete minds, aside from trauma or neurodivergence: just the ordinary disturbing awareness of our incomplete awareness of ourselves. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
New installment on unusual formatting in contemporary experimental fiction. This is about marginal notes: how are they used in fiction? Can past uses provide strategies for current writing? Looking for examples of marginal notes in fiction
jameselkins.substack.com/p/experiment...
jameselkins.substack.com/p/experiment...
Experimental formats in fiction, 3: Marginal notes
I’m writing a novel in InDesign—that is, writing and arranging the layout at the same time.
jameselkins.substack.com
July 10, 2025 at 5:41 PM
New installment on unusual formatting in contemporary experimental fiction. This is about marginal notes: how are they used in fiction? Can past uses provide strategies for current writing? Looking for examples of marginal notes in fiction
jameselkins.substack.com/p/experiment...
jameselkins.substack.com/p/experiment...
If you're thinking of joining the group reading Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual, I'm running a "catch up" Zoom tomorrow (good whether you've read the book already or not), email for details [email protected]
July 8, 2025 at 5:11 PM
If you're thinking of joining the group reading Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual, I'm running a "catch up" Zoom tomorrow (good whether you've read the book already or not), email for details [email protected]
And now, join the world’s most OCD reading group!
We’re reading Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream. Each page has dozens of allusions to literature, and full of typographic and orthographic experimentation. We’re halfway through the book after just 5 years.
Everyone is welcome [email protected]
We’re reading Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream. Each page has dozens of allusions to literature, and full of typographic and orthographic experimentation. We’re halfway through the book after just 5 years.
Everyone is welcome [email protected]
July 5, 2025 at 6:17 PM
And now, join the world’s most OCD reading group!
We’re reading Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream. Each page has dozens of allusions to literature, and full of typographic and orthographic experimentation. We’re halfway through the book after just 5 years.
Everyone is welcome [email protected]
We’re reading Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream. Each page has dozens of allusions to literature, and full of typographic and orthographic experimentation. We’re halfway through the book after just 5 years.
Everyone is welcome [email protected]
Join the world's 2nd-most-OCD reading group!
We are reading Perec's Life: A User's Guide, using some brilliant graphics made by the artist Julie Boldt.
Our group is very friendly, international, and diverse, including artists and writers. More info email me, [email protected].
We are reading Perec's Life: A User's Guide, using some brilliant graphics made by the artist Julie Boldt.
Our group is very friendly, international, and diverse, including artists and writers. More info email me, [email protected].
July 5, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Join the world's 2nd-most-OCD reading group!
We are reading Perec's Life: A User's Guide, using some brilliant graphics made by the artist Julie Boldt.
Our group is very friendly, international, and diverse, including artists and writers. More info email me, [email protected].
We are reading Perec's Life: A User's Guide, using some brilliant graphics made by the artist Julie Boldt.
Our group is very friendly, international, and diverse, including artists and writers. More info email me, [email protected].
Last in a series on the problem of writing fictional characters who will not permit free access to their minds. Camus’s “The Stranger” is a prototype, but as Genette pointed out, it’s inconsistent and implausible. The problem remains unsolved in contemporary fiction
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Writers who won't tell us what's in their characters' minds, No. 5: Toward a theory of flat affect and lack of emotion
How to write characters who "prefer not" to say what's in their minds
open.substack.com
July 3, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Last in a series on the problem of writing fictional characters who will not permit free access to their minds. Camus’s “The Stranger” is a prototype, but as Genette pointed out, it’s inconsistent and implausible. The problem remains unsolved in contemporary fiction
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Literary contest! Closing on Friday. Spot the allusions, win a free copy. Test your knowledge of fiction, poetry, songs, and philosophy. Over 20 unsolved puzzles. PS, if you won one of these, but didn't send me your postal address, now's your chance. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
July 2, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Literary contest! Closing on Friday. Spot the allusions, win a free copy. Test your knowledge of fiction, poetry, songs, and philosophy. Over 20 unsolved puzzles. PS, if you won one of these, but didn't send me your postal address, now's your chance. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
(Almost) reviewing a novel that hasn’t been reviewed even once, even on Amazon, even on Goodreads. It has an interesting preface about radical writing in English from Chaucer to Finnegans Wake open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Review of the Preface of an Unreviewed Book
A novel with a nonfiction preface that includes Milton, Dryden, Spenser, and Finnegans Wake
open.substack.com
June 29, 2025 at 6:03 AM
(Almost) reviewing a novel that hasn’t been reviewed even once, even on Amazon, even on Goodreads. It has an interesting preface about radical writing in English from Chaucer to Finnegans Wake open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Why Jon Fosse is not a major writer. I don't think he pays the kind of attention to structure that is necessary to make a persuasive whole, even (or especially) when that whole represents a damaged or ruined world. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Why Jon Fosse is Not a Major Writer
I'd like to offer corrections to two ideas that are common in reviews of The Other Name and the Septology as a whole, then propose a critique of the way the book is written.
open.substack.com
June 21, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Why Jon Fosse is not a major writer. I don't think he pays the kind of attention to structure that is necessary to make a persuasive whole, even (or especially) when that whole represents a damaged or ruined world. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
An idea about literary fiction in the age of the internet: we are all isolated, esecially if we spend time trying to connect. That feeling needs to be in the work itself.
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
Embracing the Isolation of Social Media
Or, Why writers do not need to meet other writers
open.substack.com
June 18, 2025 at 1:55 PM
An idea about literary fiction in the age of the internet: we are all isolated, esecially if we spend time trying to connect. That feeling needs to be in the work itself.
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
What is complexity in a novel? In what sense are Agathe Christie or Ellery Queen complex? What literary fiction is the most complex?
On Substack substack.com/@jameselkins...
On Substack substack.com/@jameselkins...
June 9, 2025 at 10:01 PM
What is complexity in a novel? In what sense are Agathe Christie or Ellery Queen complex? What literary fiction is the most complex?
On Substack substack.com/@jameselkins...
On Substack substack.com/@jameselkins...
Advertising my new novel. All sufficiently long books are insane. If books appear sane, that is because they end quickly. www.amazon.com/Short-Introd...
June 8, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Advertising my new novel. All sufficiently long books are insane. If books appear sane, that is because they end quickly. www.amazon.com/Short-Introd...