Her Sense of Timing by Stanley Elkin
"Her Sense of Timing" by Stanley Elkin is a novella that delves into themes of dependency, resentment, and the complexities of personal relationships, particularly in the context of chronic illness. The narrative centers on Jack Schiff, a political geographer who finds himself grappling with his increasing helplessness after his wife, Claire, decides to leave him following years of caregiving. This poignant scenario unfolds against the backdrop of Schiff's struggles with heart disease and multiple sclerosis, leading him to confront his vulnerabilities when left alone.
Elkin skillfully balances elements of comedy and tragedy, illustrating Schiff's attempts to exploit his situation for personal gain and the absurdity of his reliance on others. As Schiff navigates his loneliness and feelings of abandonment, the story captures his internal conflict and the farcical nature of his predicament. Elkin’s portrayal of Schiff's character is both convincing and emotionally resonant, emphasizing the pettiness that can accompany deep-seated feelings of powerlessness. Through a blend of humor and pathos, "Her Sense of Timing" invites readers to reflect on the intricacies of human relationships and the often painful realities of vulnerability.
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Her Sense of Timing by Stanley Elkin
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1993 (in Van Gogh’s Room at Arles)
Type of work: Novella
The Work
Best known as a novelist and frequently anthologized as a writer of short stories, Elkin also produced a significant body of work in a form, the novella, that most contemporary American writers have, perhaps for commercial reasons, avoided. That Elkin found the novella form so appealing is understandable, for it allowed him to combine the emphasis on situation and acute character that typifies his short stories with the spatial freedom of the novel so necessary to the development of his poetics of resentment and obsession.
What especially distinguishes Her Sense of Timing is how painfully close Elkin—never an autobiographical writer but always willing to draw on personal material—is working to the autobiographical bone. He takes his own increasing state of helplessness and dependency (on the drugs used in the treatment of his heart disease and multiple sclerosis, on his wheelchair and stair-glide, and, above all, on his wife, Joan) and asks a simple question: What would happen if a character who is not the author but who is like him in terms of age, personality, academic affiliation, and medical history suddenly found himself home alone, abandoned by a wife who, after thirty-six years of marriage and a decade or so spent caring for her disabled husband, decided that she had had enough?
Although he can understand Claire’s leaving, political geographer Jack Schiff greatly resents her going and resents most her leaving on the very eve of his annual party for the graduate students whom he, in fact, does not particularly like. With Claire gone, Schiff must, quite literally, fall back on his own limited resources and abilities (including his ability to exploit others). Forced to “shift” for himself, he will come to understand better than ever before not only his humiliating helplessness but also the farcical nature of his situation. He takes pratfalls despite the presence of an expensive medical alert system, which he has installed the day Claire leaves and which the cunning, conniving Schiff will abuse, claiming a medical emergency when, in fact, he wants only someone to empty his urine container and close the front door.
Schiff is adept at beating the system, at taking revenge by taking advantage. Elkin makes Schiff’s situation at once convincing, comical, and emotionally affecting. “’I’d like,’ said Schiff, sorry as soon as he permitted the words to escape, ’for my life to go into remission.’” Failing that, the coward will once again turn bully, playing his handicap as if it were a trump card. In doing so, he seeks not just to assert himself but also to avenge himself, though invariably in petty ways. In Elkin’s fiction of obsession and resentment, the ways are always petty. The pettiness serves as further proof of the powerlessness that his characters feel so acutely and struggle against so mightily.
Bibliography
Bailey, Peter J. Reading Stanley Elkin. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Bargen, Doris G. The Fiction of Stanley Elkin. Frankfurt, West Germany: Lang, 1979.
Dougherty, David C. Stanley Elkin. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
Gass, William. Afterword to The Franchiser, by Stanley Elkin. Boston: David Godine, 1980.
MacCaffery, Larry. “Stanley Elkin’s Recovery of the Ordinary.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 21, no. 2 (1978): 39-51.
Pughe, Thomas. Comic Sense: Reading Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth. Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1994.
Salzman, Arthur, ed. Review of Contemporary Fiction 15, no. 2 (1995). Special Stanley Elkin issue.