Exceptionally estimable, good, nice, dear people they all were but they all, unluckily, kept asking me about the new novel, and that was excruciating.

Whenever I met an estimable friend on the street, he said and asked: "How's your new novel coming? Countless avid readers are rejoicing in advance and are already eager to see your new novel. You were nice enough to let on that you're writing a new novel, were you not? I hope it'll be out soon, the new novel."

Unhappy me, deplorable wretched me! Read More

Richard Rorty, who died in June, was a private public intellectual. He did not weigh in as often as possible on as many issues as possible. He had a minimalist homepage. If his self-deprecation was an act, it was a very convincing one. His response to the appalling record of the George W. Bush presidency was to be shocked into honorable silence. He had no wars to urge America into or to resonantly recant his earlier support for. It was only in the Clinton years that he found his distinctive public voice: the affable, ironic bluntness of somebody talking at his kitchen table. He could denounce with such verve in those years because he could also be hopeful.