If you keep up with academic chatter in English literature, there’s a debate going around about the versatility of English degrees, and of the fairly insular nature of literary criticism that comes out of academia. A piece in the New Yorker earlier this year, titled The End of the English Major, prompted me to do some thinking about the world of literature itself and the people in it. I wanted to speak to someone who has been immersed in the literary world for years, and has done a great deal of thinking about trends in contemporary literature.
Christian Lorentzen is a freelance literary critic whose work appears in several publications including Harpers, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review and The London Review of Books. In addition to writing book reviews, he’s published extensively about the state of the industry. From pieces about taste-making in popular culture, to covering underground art and dramatic movements in New York City, it’s easy to see that Christian he cares deeply for the project of literary criticism.
We started off talking about a journalistic assignment Christian had last year. He covered the merger trial between the two publishing houses Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House. His piece titled “At Random” dissected the true motivations behind these companies as arguments were made for and against merging. The Harpers piece also offered a broad view on corporate motivations behind the publication of both popular and literary fiction.
After speaking about the trial, Christian and I launched into a discussion of American literature of the past 50 years or so. Using writers such as Philip Roth, Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon as benchmarks, we attempted to understand the dialectical nature of trends in art and criticism, and create a healthy literary discourse that is often unseen outside of the written word.
In a way, this conversation was a work of literary criticism in the audio form, and Christian simultaneously offered a bird’s eye view, and a heavily specific read of where his field is going.
Christian's MUCKRACK & Substack
"The Vying Animal" (On Philip Roth)
"Like Rain on Your Wedding Day" (On literary style and American Politics)
"Like This or Die" (On contemporary tastemaking)
BOOKFORUM Profile
Authors Mentioned
Philip Roth
Don DeLillo
Thomas Pynchon
W.G. Sebald
Elizabeth Hardwick
Ryan Ruby
Recommendations
Dead Babies - Martin Amis
The Names - Don DeLillo
High And Low & Stray Dog - Akira Kurosawa