Critical Review: Lisa Robertson's Riverwork Explores Paris, Desire, and Literary Form

John Douglas Millar

13h ago· 5 min readenReview

Summary

A critical review of Lisa Robertson's new novel, which the critic describes as a constellation of the author's preferred words (desire, baroque, form, artificial, ornament, etc.) and a pantheon of writers she engages with (Chateaubriand, Baudelaire, Leduc, Rousseau, Arendt, Stein, Carlyle, Poe). The piece explores how Robertson's work orbits around the city of Paris, examining her literary style and influences through a dense, scholarly lens.

Source

Twitter / XCritical Review: Lisa Robertson's *Riverwork* Explores Paris, Desire, and Literary Forme-flux.com

Key quotes

· 3 pulled

Lisa Robertson's new novel might be reduced to a lexicon of the author's preferred words, a constellation.

There is a constellation of writers whom she explores and thinks with and through too—Chateaubriand, Baudelaire, Leduc, Rousseau, Arendt, Stein, Carlyle, Poe.

And then again, like a star or a black hole pulling both lexicon and pantheon toward it, there is a city, Paris.

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Lisa Robertson’s new novel might be reduced to a lexicon of the author’s preferred words, a constellation. Some words that h

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