Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 61, Stanley Elkin - 0 views
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It’s a rare joke that is funny. Only situations are funny.
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Aelius Rusticus on 25 May 12I asked my cat why he didn't help me with the elaborate vegetable soup I was preparing. When he had no quick answer, I suggested it was because he had no stock in it. My wit, pedestrian in the grand scheme, nonetheless amused me in the moment. Funny situation or funny word-play? or neither?
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“The point of life was the possibility it always held out for the exceptional.”
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to do the kinds of things which people don’t really do in real life but which they do do in fiction—to follow their own irrational—but sane—obsessions which, achieved, would satisfy them. Alas, these guys never catch up with their obsessions.
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