[11/10/26] Finkelstein, Norman: Wanderlust

Black Square Editions, paperback

Publication Date: November 10, 2026

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Between Kafka’s Prague and Lovecraft’s Innsmouth, between the pages of the Zohar and The Faerie Queene, lies the mysterious estate of the Immanent Foundation, where “The horns of Elfland and the summons / of the shofar echo throughout the grounds. / Myth calls to counter-myth, song suggests / song, fallen \ forms rise again…” The Foundation, as one of its operatives describes it, “is a network of spies and secrets, / an infinite arcanum of hierophants and fools, / residing in a mansion of closets and trapdoors, / stairways and hallways, nested studies surrounding / a library where the scholars sleepwalk forever / and the catalogers despair.” At the heart of the Foundation—and of the poem—is the alchemically created androgyne Pascal Wanderlust. A reluctant knight-errant who would rather “sit quietly in a room alone,” the young Pascal is charged with the task of restoring the Foundation after its servitors revolt and the organization implodes.

Composed in a variety of verse forms, in a space between narrative and lyric, Wanderlust: The Complete Files weaves together all of Norman Finkelstein’s Immanent Foundation and Pascal Wanderlust poems from four previous volumes, now transformed into an uncanny, elliptical quest-romance, a dark, gnostic vision, a prophetic work of pathos, humor, and magic. As David Bentley Hart observes, “There is a hermetic splendor in these verses, as well as mystery and enchantment. It is a delight to have this entire cycle, complete and in its final form, in a single volume. It is something of a labyrinth, but one in which a reader will be happy to become lost for a time.” Or as Nathaniel Mackey said of the poem’s first installment, “Immanence’s openly secret accord with emanation seems to be at issue or at least at work. I read it wishing it would never end.”