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James Elkins

@purelyfiction.bsky.social
1.7K followers 3.9K following 154 posts

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.

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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 1h
Literary contest! I am posting excerpts from "Stories, Like Illnesses." The passage alludes to a novel, short story, song, film, or poem. Free copy to the first correct answer! More information at docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Preorders are open now on Amazon or Unnamed.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Literary contest! I am posting excerpts from "Stories, Like Illnesses," the first book in the five-book novel "Five Strange Languages," coming out October 20. Preorders open now. Spot the allusions in this passage, and win a free copy. Rules at docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Interview with Lori Feathers at the Big Book Project. About the whole project, the new novel "Stories, Like Illnesses," and the first conversation about the novel's nonfiction companion book, "Ideas and Materials" thebigbookproject.substack.com/p/one-novel-...
thebigbookproject.substack.com
One Novel, Five Books, Twenty Years of Work
Stories Like Illnesses, with James Elkins
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Ideas and Materials now open for pre-orders. Full description on the webpage. $25 for all the literary theory, history, and speculation a healthy person could ever want. www.unnamedpress.com/all-books/p/...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
First long review of Stories, Like Illnesses, and the entire project! by the dedicated follower of "monsterpieces," Tom LeClair. "Five Strange Languages belongs up on monsterpiece mountain with Gravity’s Rainbow and Underworld." tleclair.substack.com/p/hyperparas...
tleclair.substack.com
Hyperparasitism
James Elkins’ Stories, Like Illnesses
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
What counts as real complexity in a novel? It is plot? Length? Obscure references? Here’s an essay on that oddly under-theorized topic, with some proposals, and glimpses into several years spent reading Finnegans Wake, Arno Schmidt, and others. www.themontrealreview.com/Articles/Fou...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
First draft for the cover of "Ideas and Materials"! This is the nonfiction companion to the novel. It's a 120 page booklet, all-color, and it will be an optional bundle with the novel "Stories, Like Illnesses." A new kind of reading, I hope: fiction together with theory and criticism. October 6.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
There's going to be a nonfiction companion volume to go with the novel "Five Strange Images." Introduction and sample pages here. More info: jameselkins.com, click on "Lots of information" and scroll to the bottom. Pub date c. 2028. Meanwhile preorder "Stories, Like Illnesses" on Amazon.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Literary contest! I am posting excerpts from "Stories, Like Illnesses," coming out on October 6 from @unnamedpress.bsky.social See the link for the questions; a free copy for the first correct answer. tinyurl.com/storieslike2.... The book is out October 6. Preorder from Amazon or Unnamed.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Pages from "Stories, Like Illnesses," out in October from Unnamed Press. In one chapter the narrator sits at a large laboratory microscope and imagines his wife and his daughter Fina as parts inside the microscope. Literary contests for the book coming soon. www.unnamedpress.com/all-books/p/...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Suffering from media overload and ADHD? Join the world's most difficult reading group. Arno Schmidt's "Bottom's Dream," a book harder, longer, and less read than "Finnegans Wake." Everyone is welcome! More information tinyurl.com/Meganovels or jelkins@saic.edu.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Cover for the new novel! It’s the opening book of "Five Strange Languages." Guaranteed to be as strange as the other two. Sets the stage for the entire project. I'll be posting puzzles from the book. Free copies to the winners. Preorder at Unnamed books www.unnamedpress.com/all-books/p/...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Join our international reading group! Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual. We are reading everything: his notes, his lists of self-imposed constraints, the scholarship, the translations, books he read. "Fun." It's an informal group, for everyone—readers, writers, artists, scholars. tinyurl.com/SAICreading
tinyurl.com
Schedule
School of the Art Institute of Chicago reading group Histories of the mega-novel: Perec, La Vie mode d’emploi, Schmidt, Bottom’s Dream, Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Beckett, Watt Schedule (Short URL for ...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
A short piece on Handke's fascinating 1970 novel, which continues to be misunderstood as the story of an affectless murderer, à la Camus's The Stranger. I'm interested characters who do not give us full access, perhaps because they can't. jameselkins.substack.com/p/characters...
jameselkins.substack.com
Characters with parts of their minds missing, 5: Complex mental states masquerading as flat affect
Peter Handke’s The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The best summary of definitions of autofiction: an essay by Tim Bewes, summarizing Moi, Jameson, and others, and concluding, with Bakhtin, that autofiction is best imagined not as a new genre, but as an extension of the novel. tinyurl.com/Bewesessay
tinyurl.com
The Novel as a Challenge to the Concept of Literature
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Novel coming from Unnamed Press in October! I'll be posting contests soon. The first winner of each contest gets a free copy. Last year there were over 25 winners. More information jameselkins.com
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Given the many books & essays on the decline of literacy, it's interesting to find this book on close reading at university and professional levels. It begs the question: is there anything after close reading? Or is that the end of literature pedagogy? open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
open.substack.com
Is There Anything Beyond Close Reading?
This is a review of an unusual book that proposes to define and explain close reading.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
First look at the cover of Five Strange Languages, book 1, out in October! This time it's an ugly mushroom, surrounded by stars — an appropriate emblem for the narrator, who is haunted by his mother's two obsessions: mushrooms, and the orbits of comets. On Amazon now for Preorder.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
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
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
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/
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
Finally got my notes together on Schattenfroh and its companion book Innehaben. All comments welcome! open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
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 jelkins@saic.edu
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Advertising my book, using some fabulous reviews from social media. Thank you @unnamedpress.bsky.social ! www.instagram.com/p/DMx5fyLp2i...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
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 jelkins@saic.edu
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
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
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.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
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 jelkins@saic.edu
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
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 jelkins@saic.edu
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
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, jelkins@saic.edu.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
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
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
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
(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...
open.substack.com
Review of the Preface of an Unreviewed Book
A novel with a nonfiction preface that includes Milton, Dryden, Spenser, and Finnegans Wake
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
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...
open.substack.com
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.
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
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
Embracing the Isolation of Social Media
Or, Why writers do not need to meet other writers
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
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...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
What is the most interesting way to write fictional characters who have no depth, or uncertain depth—characters whose inner lives seem to be largely missing, but not from trauma or neurodivergence, simply because their authors refuse to go there. open.substack.com/pub/jameselk...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Literary contest! Find the hidden allusions in the new novel, "A Short Introduction to Anneliese." Thirty contests still unsolved. Contest ends July 4. tinyurl.com/anneliesecon....
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
A Short Introduction to Anneliese! First copies out today! Two down, three (plus a guide) to go. Thank you @unnamedpress you people are amazing. Authors don't usually know exactly what they have made, but I'll bet this is the strangest novel of 2025. www.amazon.com/Short-Introd...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Two things about rants and monologues in fiction: (1) they do not represent thoughts or consciousness—they’re written forms; (2) the most interesting ones are very long and unpleasant. With reference to Lucy Ellmann, Beckett, Bernhard, Jonathan Buckley, and Emily Hall. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Literary contest! A Short Introduction to Anneliese, is out in a few weeks! It’s about long, complex books, and it has hundreds of allusions to other books, plays, novels, songs, and films. The first person to identify this one gets a free copy. All info is here: tinyurl.com/anneliese13
tinyurl.com
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A Short Introduction to Anneliese Literary Contest Number 13 May 23 Literary contest! This is a passage from A Short Introduction to Anneliese, a novel about the fascination of long, complex books...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Ideas about how to put mathematics into fiction. (As in Pynchon's rocket equation.) Not so much writing about mathematics, as ways to have equations work alongside prose. (Here, a graph about how to lose friends.) substack.com/home/post/p-...
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James Elkins @purelyfiction.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Trauma narratives and memoirs are about events and decisions that changed people’s lives, and they focus on the recovery of health and memories. What if our lives divide naturally from themselves, without trauma or illness? How could that be shown in fiction? jameselkins.substack.com/p/is-a-life-...
jameselkins.substack.com
Is a Life a Single Story? A Problem for Writers
A series of posts on the contemporary novel, no. 5
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