I was in the middle of Yumna Kassab’s Politica when I had lunch with a friend. What had he been reading? The Iliad. His anger and disgust were palpable—he’d loved The Odyssey but Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan war left him sick. Hostages, revenge, relentless carnage. Wave after wave of bloody violence.

We talked about how reading almost anything at the moment has taken on a new meaning, while Gaza and its people are being destroyed before our eyes. Narratives about war feel especially impossible, like they were written for now and only now. Our discussion made me think about what fiction can and can’t do in times of war, when we’re searching for ways to make meaning out of absolute senselessness.