Co-Inky-Dinks

Peggy Noonan, as usual had a great op-ed in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. Near the end of that op-ed, she had a long piece on Mike Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, c. 1975, one of the best books ever written on war, this one about WWI. Perhaps MDW will come back to it later.

Coincidentally, I was reading Michael Gorra's new biography of Henry James, a particularly excellent book, and highly recommended for readers. Almost at the same time I was reading Peggy Noonan's most recent op-ed, I happened to read the following written by Michael Gorra:

That buoyancy could not last. In that same year the lights went out across Europe, and he saw the proud tower of his seemingly stable civilization topple. The guns began to flame on the Continent, their report heard across the Channel in Rye, and in August 1914 he wrote that the start of the Great War seemed to "undo everything ... in the most horrible retroactive way." The long peace had made him believe that such a wreckage had become impossible, but that faith now lay in ruins, and this sink of blood stood revealed as "what the treacherous years were all the while really making for and meaning." -- Portrait of a Novel, Michael Gorra; hardcover, 2012; p. 322

Without much editing:

That buoyancy could not last. In that same year the lights went out across the Mideast, and he saw the proud tower of his seemingly stable civilization topple. The guns began to flame on the embassies, their report heard around the globe, back to Washington, and in September, 2012, I wrote that the start of the Great War seemed to "undo everything ... in the most horrible retroactive way." The long peace had made me believe that such a wreckage had become impossible, but my faith in hope and change now lay in ruins, and this sink of blood stood revealed as "what the treacherous years were all the while really making for and meaning." -- Portrait of a Presidency, Barack Obama, soft cover, 2022; p. 322.

After perhaps the four worst years for any US president in recent history in the minds of some (certainly not me), or at least since George Bush, the war breaking out across the Mideast seems a fitting capstone.