Customer Reviews

Boswell

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Elkin's Boswell is not an antihero, rather an almost-hero. Diagnosed by a 'legendary' vocational counselor (a psychologist who almost mystically predicts people's future vocations--a touch of prognostication disguised as science) to be a bum, a social climber, a hanger-on--and not just any bum, the best bum, Boswell survives as a strongman. In this guise he fights death embodied in the form of a professional wrestler. He meets millionaires, scientists, and the cream of society in his quest for social acceptance. Of course, even in his first novel, Stanley Elkin would never stop with a mere character study. Biting satire is the norm here. The novel's finale (which I will refrain from spoiling) is as witty, acerbic, and quirky as anything written in the English language.