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Living End

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A very strangely constructed little novel, Stanley Elkin's "The Living End" is both an afterlife fantasy and a secular meditation on the meaning of God's creation. It's interesting that most authors who write fiction about the state of death portray it as simply a transcended, and usually idealized, form of life, but then again from what other source can they draw their material? Death is the one thing that can't be researched.

"The Living End" begins with what looks like a conventional plot, telling the story of a hapless ordinary man named Ellerbee who owns a liquor store in Minneapolis, has a nagging wife whom he loves nonetheless, and is loyally charitable to his employees. One day he is shot and killed by armed robbers and is spirited away to Heaven--which, although every bit the antiseptic paradise it is rumored, appears in the form of a theme park, like an ecclesiastical Disney World--and then is told, without explanation, that he is being sent directly to Hell.

Hell is total anarchy and chaos, people constantly brutalizing each other or wandering around aimlessly with no structure or schedule to their existence, ultimately desensitized to their environment. After sixty-two years in the inferno--long enough for a guy to deserve to know why he's been sent there--Ellerbee learns that his sentence is a result of having broken some of the more easily breakable commandments, leaving him to ponder the absurdity of having to spend eternity in the abyss for having operated his business on the Sabbath.

In Hell, Ellerbee eventually meets his murderer's accomplice, a man named Ladlehaus who made a great living as a criminal but met his end when the plug was pulled on him while he was in a coma. Through an odd set of circumstances his grave was located in a high school stadium, where the groundskeeper, a man named Quiz, believed the dead man was speaking to him. Quiz, the hilariously perverse protagonist of the novel's second act, imagines the Twin Cities are engaged in a civil war and persuades little boys to play soldiers for him.

The novel comes full circle in Heaven, where Mary, who contemplates the experience of having borne a child while remaining a virgin, and Joseph, who feels cuckolded by God over said child, have reunited with Jesus in a skewed family portrait. God, frustrated with the empty and vain tributes of religion, man's idea of adoration of the divine, gives a "gala" in which, like a temperamental and narcissistic artist berating a public apathetic to his work, he explains the rationale behind his universe and makes his fearsome final decision. Elkin surely wishes he knew the secrets he pretends God to disclose, but he doesn't cheat his reader--the force and style of his expression are more than worth the time and trouble of "The Living End."

Unlike the last review on this short novel, I will refrain from giving away the story, in that it's the twists and exchanges that make the novel hunorous. The reader is best off receiving those twist and exchanges from Elkin himself, a master of the english language, of communication and of the humor that can be elicited from words. If for no other reason, you should read this novel to see that skill at work.

All said, I admit that I'm not really sure what this novel is about. I think its purpose is to make us question some of the basic foundations of our existence; why we do what we do each day, why we believe what we believe. It surely pokes some fun at our conceptions of religion, history, politics, morals, values and the role of God. It is so ludicrous at times that it seems, at first glance, quite meaningless. But I could not help but think about it long after I finished it. (Certain images and exchanges lingered for years). In total, I have read The Living End maybe a dozen times, and each time I read it, I pick up something new.

Read this book with an open mind. And then read it again.

This is Elkin's best work in my opinion. It is sad, funny, chewy, and ridiculous. The humor is so dark you might need a flashlight to make your way but is worth it. Elkin paints hysterical portraits of all your favorite New Testament all-stars. I am so glad that this is back in print and you should be to. If you like Elkin please buy this so his work will stay in print.

This is one of the best books ever written. Elkin hilariously dissects and explodes every tenant of Christianity by slamming the contradictions into one another with perfect timing and accuracy. He paints the dilemmas faced by all believers through the incredibly credible characters he creates : Ellerbee is a good man who didn't believe and so goes to hell, for that and some other petty omissions and indiscretions, while God, thoroughly imperfect as well as a pompous egotist, is a supreme being who likes to be idolized and entertained certain he does not have to defend his inhumanity to man. In Heaven, Joseph does not believe his son, the cripple, is the messiah. This and so many other contradictions and paradoxes roll lightly across the eyes in this little book leaving you to believe you just read a book bigger than any bible. It is a book that you can read in a sitting, but I guarantee you will sit again and again as you reread it finding something new and delightful every time you turn a page.

Wait, is that a compliment or a putdown?

Stanley Elkin's deceivingly short novel is not a quick read. I made the mistake of reading it to and fro my train rides to work and at lunch, and, I must say, the life around me was something of a distraction from Elkin's humurous and terrifying depiction of the afterlife. Imagine reading run-on sentences like the above over and over again, thinking to yourself, "It's short... it's short... just finish reading out of respect and move on to the next book." And then imagine sentences, unlike the aboves, fill'd with wacky words that make you wish you spent more time doing crossword puzzles and that little Quiz at the end of Reader's Digest.

I'm not saying that Elkin was laboriously thesauring away, trying hard to impress the reader with his vocabulary, or syntax, or ideas, but I am saying that this book requires something of a commitment.

So I gave it one.

I reread the novel, and I picked up on some of what I was missing before. "Oh, THAT'S who Lesefario was...".

And I looked down upon my finish'd book. And it was good.

My advice follows: keep reading 'till the end. The last few lines are killer. If you feel disheartened, imagine C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" and what a bore that was. Then imagine Woody Allen writing it, without slapstick, and get back to the novel at hand, my boy... And if you want to feel good about yourself for reading a book of some substance, remember that Oprah will never, EVER, recommend this one...

Stanley Elkin is one of the masters of twentieth century prose. His dialogue is completely believable and the language never comes across as pretentious. The characters in "The Living End" are both realistic and humorous, while the novel explores dark themes. Elkin's vision is a pessimistic one but he never comes across as too "preachy." All in all, an enjoyable read.

And you thought Job had it tough? Meet poor Ellerbee, the liquor store owner murdered during a hold-up, who arrives at the Pearly Gates with what the reader thinks has to be a terrific resume. In life, he looked out for the underdog, did the right thing always, even when haggled by his wife. Now, much to his dismay, and the reader's, Ellerbee is rejected and sent to Hell. Was it because he thought heaven "looked like a theme park," or were greater, more obscure cosmic forces already at work? Despite the steady presence of Elkin's sense of humor, one remains troubled and anxious through-out the three stories that comprise the novel. Surely, a just God will appear to render the ethical Ellerbee his due, but when? The author's tone is too light and off-hand for this to be another Kafkesque descent into random madness. Yet when Ellerbee finally gets an audience with the Lord, it doesn't go well. You sold liquor on Sunday, you swore, you even once got an erection from looking at your neighbor's wife, God says. Ellerbee is dumbfounded. For this? I'm going to burn forever for this, he wonders? God is more even more implacable than in the Old Testament. We'd almost prefer the silence of the almighty we've come to expect in the literature of the absurd; at least it leaves open the possibility of wagering on his benign existence. Here God appalls us with his ego-mania and absence of empathy. At the same time we laugh, as God and Ellerbe trade one-liners like an experienced team. The Living End is a hard novel to stop thinking about although the reader would like to. Its implications for resurection and eternal bliss aren't good, but the author's delivery keeps you smiling - and turning the pages.

This novel is one of the liveliest and funniest novels I've ever read; all this, while remaining riveting and intelligent, too. Can it be true?

Divided into three parts, this novel starts off highly realistic, much like a story by Bernard Malamud or Philip Roth, but funnier; the second section, while dealing with the improbable or the unlikely (we're talking what it's like to live in Hell, folks), is still made plausible by the skillful direction of the author himself; but then, in the third section, the author does a metaphysical jazz riff, having trained his audience to this point in his rhythms, stoppages, swift changes of pace and direction, and it's now a medieval pageant of theater and music that's shown here with Jehovah's Hollywood filled with stars like Mary, Joseph, Christ and a couple of earthlings. Eerily, perhaps like the author's own works in relation to the public and its tastes, the author states that God never found his audience and so end's literally everything, closing the third section and the entire novel (and its world) with these words.

Stanley Elkin is a modern audience's Shakespeare here. If you've got brain, let Elkin use it for a while; he'll entertain you and translate you out of your dull routines of thought and imagination. This novel is not for the deliberately naive or the sanctimonious Christian. Stanley Elkin is more entertaining than even Gore Vidal at his most irreverent strikes at the Judeo-Christian doctrines -- without insult.

My 1979 copy of the "The Living End" has three pages in the back of advertisements for other books published by Warner Books, books called "Provocative Reading." Five novels are by Stanley Elkin himself. Then there are four more books advertised, including "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" by Robert S. Mendelsohn. All of the Elkin novels and the other books published by Warner Books cost no more than $2.95. "The Living End" by Stanley Elkin sold for $2.25 when Warner Books published it in its 1980 paperback.

The cover art for this novel is by Don Ivan Punchatz, depicting a man with angel wings, a cowboy hat and boots and holding the horn of a golden calf as he rides a wispy white stallion through the universe and over the fires of hell from which three dark-skinned beings with fiery hair reach out to him as he passes overhead. On the back cover is another advertisement for Stanley Elkin's novels -- four of them -- the same ones mentioned on the first two of the last three pages of this book.

It's hard to believe that more than three decades have elapsed since Stanley Elkin published The Living End, his dark satire of religion, death and what may come next. I read it when it first came out and was enthralled. That's why I approached re-reading it with a degree of nervousness. Would it remain relevant? Would it still pack the wallop it had 30 years ago? Would I still laugh out loud at some parts (and then wait for a lightning bolt to strike me)?

The answers are a resounding yes, yes and YES! This book is not for everyone. Devout Christians, be forewarned: Elkin's reinvention of Dante's hell, purgatory and heaven will most definitely offend you. But for those who can approach The Living End in the spirit of satire will be rewarded.

The story begins with an everyman named Ellerbee who owns a liquor store in Minneapolis. Ellerbee, the kind of man who loves his wife and kids, is generally kind and appears to be an all-round great guy, is shot during a robbery and dies. His soul is whisked away to the outskirts of Heaven (which he describes as looking a bit like a theme park) but he doesn't quite make the entrance requirement. Because Ellerbee was adopted he only honored his step-father and step-mother ... a violation of the commandment to "honor your father and your mother." Also, he operated his business on the Sabbath. God, it seems, runs the afterlife like a traffic court. For his sins Ellerbee is cast into hell.

Eventually Ellerbee manages to escape the torments of hell, but it's only to find himself laying in his grave. He manages to communicate with a groundskeeper who convinces the hapless Ellerbee that civil war has broken out between the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. While the heaven and hell portions of the book are flashy, it's this center part of the novel stripped of God and angels and the devil and demons that gives The Living End its heart and soul.

By the final part of the novel Ellerbee finds his way into heaven. Elkins turns the satyrical heat way up in this, his version of Dante's Paradiso. The Virgin Mary shows up but seems obsessed with contemplating her eternal virginity. Meanwhile Joseph wrestles with the idea that his wife has been unfaithful to him with God. See what I mean about portions of this book being offendsive to more conservative Christians? That doesn't even take into account God's appearance in the final part of the book where he offers a bit of explanation and shares his plans.

There is much to produce laughs in The Living End. There are also places that will produce winces. On the whole, I am very glad to re-discover this book and find it back in print again.