Author
Born 4 Feb 1979
13 works
13 editions
12 editions
9 editions
7 editions
3 editions
2 editions
1 edition
4 editions
2 editions
1 edition
1 edition
1 edition
1 edition
Readers in conversation
Public notes, reviews, lists, and conversations around Ben Lerner.
An ornately sculpted, highly enjoyable, and sometimes infuriatingly opaque novel-shaped object. I call it that because the more I think about it the less it seems like a "novel" as a straightforward story. You can definitely retroactively extract a story from…
A reader-curated list
I stayed away from Ben Lerner for a long time because of all the connotations of the "autofiction" label. But I was really surprised. I think this is a really funny, pleasurable book; I think it does interesting, "new" things with narrative; and I think what…
To derive your understanding of a word by watching others adjust to your use of it: Do you remember the feeling that sense was provisional and that two people could build around an utterance a world in which any usage signified? I think that's poetry. And whe…
Poets are liars not because, as Socrates says, they can fool us with the power of their imitations, but because identifying yourself as a poet implies you might overcome the bitter logic of the poetic principle, and you can't. You can only compose poems that,…
Compiled by yours truly. https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1fwciah/truelits_100_best_books_of_the_quarter_century/
