CHRISTIAN LORENTZEN

Book cover: Transparent Things, by Vladimir Nabokov

"She answered in fluent but artificial English that she detested surrealistic novels of the poetic sort. She demanded hard realistic stuff reflecting our age. She liked books about Violence and Oriental Wisdom. Did it get better farther on?"

“A routine would be too much like work, and I don’t really like to work, even though I work a great deal. All the things I do that might be considered work are really a form of play.” —Jamaica Kincaid buff.ly/BQ4wuZY

Thomas Meaney, Law Man — Sidecar Ramsey Clark (1927-2021).

Glad you enjoyed the piece, fellas, and Lance I greatly enjoyed your book.

Yes, the Clark analogy is a bit hyperbolic, but those were hardly his only clients. I had in mind Meaney's characterisation of him here. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Glad the loggerheads brought some cheer.

EP.8: THE TRAGEDY OF HAMNET | Quality Lit Game Get more from Quality Lit Game on Patreon

QUALITY LIT GAME PODCAST EPISODE 8:
THE TRAGEDY OF 'HAMNET'

www.patreon.com/posts/ep-8-t...

I read it regularly between 2006 and 2009 when I was doing Readings at Harper's and would put poems from PN in. Haven't read it much since.

I hear you. I've been between apartments, so I'm psyched for a cycle of print re-upping next month.

Which ones?

MAILER 2 MAMDANI | Quality Lit Game Get more from Quality Lit Game on Patreon

Election day afternoon listening . . .
www.patreon.com/posts/mailer...

Christian Lorentzen · It’s for dorks: Michael Clune’s ‘Pan’ When Michael Clune’s character in Pan alights on Proust in the course of his daily writing practice, he learns a mode...

‘The two memoirs together with “Pan” – which is autobiographical, though there are some deviations from his life – form a trilogy about the derangements of youth.’

@xlo.bsky.social on the relationship between Michael Clune’s debut novel and his memoirs of addiction.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

IN DEFENSE OF DIANE KEATON: QUALITY LIT GAME PODCAST EPISODE 3

www.patreon.com/posts/episod...

Alice Spawls · On Nicholas Lanier The Nicholas Lanier portrait that I came across so unexpectedly at Frieze Masters doesn’t have the prestige of the Van...

‘Lanier’s songs moved many of his contemporaries. Herrick called him “rare Laniere” while John Donne said he “gave a life and harmony to all that he set”.’

Alice Spawls on the rediscovery of a portrait of one of the most intriguing figures of the 17th century.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

PANIC IN THE GIFTSHOP On Michael Clune's 'Pan' and against the verb 'to gift'

A couple of new pieces I wrote on a book and a word. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/panic-in-t...

Quality Lit Game Podcast Episode 2

christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/quality-li...

Today Is My Birthday ‘When I noticed an English writer using the transitive ‘gift’ in a prestigious paper, I took the usage up with one of its editors, a Scotswoman whose fastidiousness is notorious.’

A noun that becomes a verb is like a cat that's gone to the dogs.

Against 'to gift'.

granta.com/today-is-my-...

William Gaddis heads will recognize that Trump is engaged here in a frolic of his own

QUALITY LIT GAME PODCAST Episode 1: 'One Battle after Another'

Recorded a podcast with some friends about the PTA picture. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/quality-li...

MY BOOK PRIZE BETTING ADDICTION In anticipation of tomorrow's Nobel Prize in Literature

An old column about my gambling addiction from which I've finally recovered after years of intensive therapy. open.substack.com/pub/christia...

If the Gumshoe Fits The Thomas Pynchon experience – Christian Lorentzen

Lorentzen on the new Pynchon is pretty good:

www.bookforum.com/print/3202/i...

If the Gumshoe Fits The Thomas Pynchon experience – Christian Lorentzen

“Along with Don DeLillo, he survives as one of the granddaddies of the paranoid systems novel, and we are unlikely to read many or any more new novels from the pair.”
In @bookforum.bsky.social‬‬, Christian Lorentzen reviews Thomas Pynchon’s new novel “Shadow Ticket” www.bookforum.com/print/3202/i...

STONED BUSTER KEATON, DOMESTICATED PYNCHON, AND THE PERMANENT HOLLYWOOD (NON-)REVOLUTION On Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘One Battle after Another’

Wrote on the Anderson picture. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/stoned-bus...

‘LIAM, NONE OF THESE AMERICAN CUNTS KNOW WHO YOU ARE!’ Reflections on seeing Oasis Live ’25 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey

Went to the Oasis show, wrote a sentence about it. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/liam-none-...

On the end of Oranginas and the perpetuation of auras! Spoiler alert: yes can be smarter than no!

we will miss glossy magazines when they’re all gone

THE GLOSSY AGE On a history of Conde Nast

Special offer within. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/the-glossy...

A Juicy Chronicle of the Fat Decades at Condé Nast

Wrote a book review. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/b...

WHO IS THE GOAT OF AMERICAN FICTION? With apologies to the two other members of my NBA/literature group chat, to the players selected last week in the NBA draft, to Stephen A. Smith, and to my dearly departed high school English teachers

Wrote about the GOAT debate. christianlorentzen.substack.com/p/who-is-the...

Once more for the weekend crowd.

Thank you for informing us that we have finally achieved a classic-noir-level murder rate. I expect the genre now to enter a new golden age.

“I have some new poems, a rash, and a lover. I’ll send them (the poems that is) to you in a couple of days.”

Letters from Jack Spicer. buff.ly/3XRcS00

ELEGY FOR A NUCLEAR PROGRAM WITHOUT A BOMB & a baptism of fire in New York City

I reviewed 'Megalopolis'. open.substack.com/pub/christia...