Stanley Elkin's The Magic Kingdom | Literary Precedents
An interviewer once asked Elkin what other writers were doing the kind of thing he was doing, and Elkin answered that, as far as he knew, none was; he continued, "I hope nobody else is doing what I'm doing. I hope I'm doing what I'm doing." The Magic Kingdom is like that. Although it resembles other traditional and modern novels in minor ways, it is a thoroughly original and unique work of fiction.
The hard fates of children was a popular subject in Victorian fiction, and Dickens portrayed child victims sentimentally, as, to a lesser degree, did Hardy. Elkin's child...
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