The thing that strikes me, from looking at the names so far in the Donald Trump's Cabinet on the foreign policy side, is the one thing that unites them - and that's General James Mattis at the Pentagon, Mike Pompeo at the CIA, even Mitt Romney to become secretary of state - they're all very, very hawkish on Iran.
Geoff DyerLife is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it.
Geoff DyerNever ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to perseverance.
Geoff DyerAll the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge.
Geoff DyerMike Pence came out and said this was a courtesy call, then Donald Trump a few hours later went on Twitter, as is his wont, and essentially linked the call to Taiwan with a whole series of things he doesn't like about Chinese economic and foreign policies and implied that the U.S. views of the status of Taiwan are now up for negotiation, that he wants them to be part of a broader negotiation with China about a whole series of economic and foreign policy issues. So, we just don't really know what exactly they're planing to do with this.
Geoff DyerBeware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.
Geoff Dyer