Jorie: Kissinger is heinous in many respects but he is more complex than simply being a monster. He promoted realpolitik, which is ruthless but also realistic. Power isn't democratic. Why must everything you write be so draconian -- either rapturous or condemnatory?

The trouble w/ Twitter as I see it, on this beautiful Sunday morning, is that unless you're faithfully bien-pensant you're seen as a traitor to humanity. No wonder so many have fled.

Why does everyone rapidly seem to be turning into "the late..."? I guess this is what happens if you stick around long enough. I'm thinking nostalgically of my lunches at his favorite run-down diner with Bob Gottlieb, who called himself Piglet to my Eeyore.

It's very laudable for Obama to observe the discrepancy in wealth on Amanpour & point out (correctly) the massive media exposure given to the doomed submersible versus the 700 Greek immigrants but his own pursuit of money seems enthusiastic, to say the least.

Feeling the tragedy of Israel's devolution today, despite all the protests & resistance. Fodder for anti-Zionists everywhere, beyond the national consequences...

Feeling terribly sad about Sinead O'Connor. I remember 1st coming upon her in my 20's, w/ that heart-rending voice and those enormous liquid eyes, singing "Nothing Compares 2 You," stopping short on the "You", unexpectedly. She seemed ahead of so many things in the culture.

I'm tired of reading posts about Barbie and have but a scintilla of interest in seeing it. Tired of the pinkness and the heavy irony & the of-the-moment diversity & trans-ness. Makes me think of the early love of "signifiers". Move on, folks!

I'm reading an excellent book called WIFEDOM, about George Orwell's first wife -- as opposed to his 2nd wife, Sonia, to whom he was married for about 10 minutes. Revelatory & sad...Altho we know that it continues to exist,I wish we could come up w/ a new word for "patriarchy".

I've been working on this piece for over a week, getting totally entangled with her. Such an admirable, wounded creature. : newrepublic.com/article/174876…

I stayed up late into the morning 2 read the NYRB piece on Israel,full of the usual bien pense sentiments about The Occupation (as if all of Israel were the occupation) & the sad Palestinians whose lives are ruined& only want peace, only 2 wake up 2 the news this morning of war

The writer of the essentially anti-Israeli piece at the NYRB is David Shulman.

I wonder how long it will take before the Israelis are seen as the oppressors despite the fact that they have been the victim of wholesale terror in this instance & whether the issue of civilian casualties, always made so much of when Israel counter-attacks, will be sidelined...

I am writing in as the author of the rave Helen Garner review. What amazed me was that I, as a voracious & wide-ranging reader, had never heard of her -- yet another sign of the insularity of American book publishing...

Israel has been given a pass for a few days in which it can elicit sympathy, before the country is demonized again as the sole aggressor in the region and Jews fall victim to open, unbridled declarations of anti-Semitism, writes Daphne Merkin on.wsj.com/48TX9Ae

It takes grit and a certain amount of single-mindedness on the part of an author these days to write a very long novel that tries to encompass an entire world, writes Daphne Merkin. All the more reason to be impressed with the work of Nathan Hill. theatlantic.com/books/archive/…

"From the first paragraphs on, it is clear that we are in the hands of a gifted stylist and an original thinker on whom, as Henry James had it, nothing is lost." Daphne Merkin makes the case for Nathan Hill as an heir to Pynchon and DFW. theatlantic.com/books/archive/…

An Israeli Painter’s Broad-Minded Brush by Daphne Merkin wsj.com/articles/an-is… via Wall Street Journal Opinion

A Master Anatomist of Ordinary People in Difficult Times nytimes.com/2023/10/10/boo…

There is no way of understanding pro-Hamas & anti-Israel sentiment w/out understanding that anti-semitism always has been & will always be here to stay. Most of these protesters don't know the difference between a Palestinian civilian & a Hamas terrorist. It's yet 1 more tragedy.