Phil Klay
@philklay.bsky.social
Author of Redeployment, Missionaries, and Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. Teaches at Fairfield University MFA.
Ironic that it is Tolstoy who wrote the best “Guy who thinks he’s gonna get executed” scene in literature though
Phil Klay@philklay.bsky.social · 5d agoJust finished rereading War & Peace and while I love the book it also reconfirmed me in my opinion that if you prefer Tolstoy to Dostoevsky you need your head examined.
Just finished rereading War & Peace and while I love the book it also reconfirmed me in my opinion that if you prefer Tolstoy to Dostoevsky you need your head examined.
“These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed.” —Tolstoy, War and Peace
“I’m also doing this for my students,” Ms. Prabhakar said [of her lawsuit]. “They were robbed — they were excited to come to class.” Disturbing story out of Florida. Educators need to be able to assign challenging work. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...
Florida Professor Fired for Assigning a Profane Story, Lawsuit Says
South Florida State College fired an English professor after she assigned a story about a teacher who talks about sex with her students. Now the professor is suing.
nytimes.com
“Modern people struggle with the idea of true heroes. A figure who identifies what needs to be done and then does it without tremendous inner conflict? What’s the point of that? Such a person will make most modern audiences only feel like failures.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/o...
Opinion | ‘The Odyssey’ Gives Us the Hero We Deserve
Christopher Nolan’s Odysseus is a halfway hero: he wrestles with the problems he creates. That makes him a perfect figure for our modern moment.
nytimes.com
Caudle’s “path to that position is a case study in how the military promotion process at the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth has deviated from tradition, leaving it susceptible in the view of critics to politicization and favoritism” Deeply disturbing, excellent reporting www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/u...
An Admiral’s Rise Reveals the Politics Driving Hegseth’s Pentagon (Gift Article)
Before he was picked to lead the Navy, Adm. Daryl Caudle found ways to signal his support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-diversity goals.
nytimes.com
“They spoke of the war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow about it” —Tolstoy, War and Peace
“Trying to build good will while engaging in gunfights beside people’s homes was profoundly confusing. The killing wasn’t detached; it felt deeply personal.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/w...
Why I Sought Out a Taliban Commander I Had Fought (Gift Article)
First as a Marine and then as a journalist, I spent years tied to Afghanistan. I returned one last time to speak to a former enemy in search of answers, and perhaps closure.
nytimes.com
“writing has always been something of a defiant act against the world’s ceaselessness, even when it is scrutinizing the very same.”
Phil Klay@philklay.bsky.social · 3w ago“His country and beliefs have wounded him. Yet he endures, because he must.” Great Matt Gallagher piece on a great, and ever-relevant novel.
Sometimes the world likes to try and break down those doing something meaningful. “Beer in the Snooker Club” is about what's left after. warontherocks.com/2026/07/how-...
How Revolutions Break Their Believers
Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (Vintage International, 2014) The noise, the noise, the unrelenting noise of the world: How is any writer with an
warontherocks.com
“His country and beliefs have wounded him. Yet he endures, because he must.” Great Matt Gallagher piece on a great, and ever-relevant novel.
War on the Rocks@warontherocks.bsky.social · 3w agoSometimes the world likes to try and break down those doing something meaningful. “Beer in the Snooker Club” is about what's left after. warontherocks.com/2026/07/how-...
This is a good, strong stance by PEN America in defending the free expression of Jewish and/or Israeli writers. Along with supporting the same for Palestinian and/or Muslim writers, they are protecting a cultural commons with room for each and all of us.
Phil Klay@philklay.bsky.social · 3w agoWhen we hear from writers in our community whose voices are being silenced, and who feel unable to write freely and without fear, we won’t let fear of controversy stop us from telling their stories. We reject any attempt to discredit those experiences.” pen.org/a-statement-...
When we hear from writers in our community whose voices are being silenced, and who feel unable to write freely and without fear, we won’t let fear of controversy stop us from telling their stories. We reject any attempt to discredit those experiences.” pen.org/a-statement-...
A Statement to Our Community
A letter from PEN America Co-CEOs Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf in response to the moment.
pen.org
‘Ever since I was in college, I've felt distant from that word "God" which the foreign priests used.’ 'Sorry. If you don't like that word, we can change it to another name. We can call him Tomato, or even Onion if you prefer.’ 'All right, then, just what is this Onion to you?’
“This is the politicization of intelligence, and it’s dangerous because what they’re doing is basically playing partisan politics with counterterrorism, and only looking at a sliver of the overall threat,” said Colin P. Clarke www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Rubio tries to enlist other nations in antifa fight, but some allies recoil
The secretary of state plans to convene foreign ministers in Washington next week. The event has unsettled some U.S. and European officials.
washingtonpost.com
“Jerusalem-based literary agent Deborah Harris represents dozens of leading voices of Israeli literature…Her agency typically sells five to 10 literary novels a year into the United States. Since Oct. 7, 2023, they have not sold a single one.” pen.org/a-silent-mor... @penamerica.bsky.social
‘A Silent Moratorium’
Interviews with Israeli and Jewish writers who report facing rising isolation and exclusion.
pen.org
“Few probably are the minds, even in these republican States, that fully comprehend the aptness of that phrase, "THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE.” —Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas
“But democracy demands its own kind of faith: a consistent orientation toward an ideal—that human societies might be guided by communication among equals rather than by force or fraud.” @commonwealmagazine.org www.commonwealmagazine.org/american-fou...
Rising Above the Slop
The United States, on its 250th birthday, is a country in decline. American Catholics should embrace this sour semiquincentennial as a moment for discernment.
commonwealmagazine.org
Taking to the street corners, he read aloud from his book of protests, so many years in the writing, but found that good reasons and eloquence had little force and that the better part of witness was to stand before his God and grieve. —Richard Greene
After watching us blow all our stockpiles to little effect, get bored, give up, and give away the store just to get away from the headlines I imagine Europe will be working on becoming less reliant on the US entirely of their own accord, no prodding needed
NBC News@nbcnews.com · 2mo agoDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashes out at NATO allies, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe that will depend on how fast they take responsibility for their own security.
This year's Commonweal Prize for Short Fiction goes to Linda Kinstler for 'Waidmannslust.' “Yes, it’s a quiet story," says guest judge @philklay.bsky.social, "But that's what makes [it] so unsettling." Read it here:
Waidmannslust
"There is always the risk that we will forget we are merely playing pretend and begin living inside our own fictions. Or that we become so resigned to this state of affairs that we forget that things…
commonwealmagazine.org
‘In the Marines, Bracknell said, leaders often “fail to discern the difference between tough and cruel.” The skills hardened military commanders rely on to lead a unit are not the same ones needed to help them cope after a fellow service member’s suicide, he said.’
Paul Szoldra@paulszoldra.com · 2mo agoThree Marines in the same unit died by suicide in two years. After the latest death, leaders gathered the Marines and spent hours criticizing troops who had complained about leadership, according to leaked recordings obtained by @thewarhorsenews.bsky.social. Read: thewarhorse.org/secret-recor...
Three Marines in the same unit died by suicide in two years. After the latest death, leaders gathered the Marines and spent hours criticizing troops who had complained about leadership, according to leaked recordings obtained by @thewarhorsenews.bsky.social. Read: thewarhorse.org/secret-recor...
‘Sounds Like a Mutiny.’ Secret Recording Exposes Claims of Toxic Leadership After a Marine’s Suicide
Following a Marine's suicide, members of the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting unit were berated for claiming bad leadership led to his death.
thewarhorse.org
“Whenever liberalism is under threat from fanatical ideologies, The Magic Mountainwill remain relevant—which makes Morten Høi Jensen’s book only too timely” Adam Kirsch on Morten Høi Jensen and Thomas Mann www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
The Siren Song of Illness | Adam Kirsch
In writing The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann struggled to free himself from his artistic preoccupation with sickness and death.
nybooks.com
Gordon Wood: ‘For a half century following the Revolution these common ordinary men stripped the northern gentry of their pretensions, charged them at every turn with being fakes and shams, and relentlessly undermined their capacity to rule…
“You talk of…education and so forth; that is, you want to raise him…from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of.” Prince Andrei defends AI
‘The left has a long tradition of patriotism, using the nation’s founding ideals as both a benchmark against which to measure how far we have fallen short and a means of articulating the Constitution’s vision of “a more perfect union.”’ @mkazin.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
The Left Needs to Rediscover Its Patriotism
A left that rejects a hopeful, empathetic love of the United States can never win the country to its side.
theatlantic.com