Reviewing Ruth Wisse’s online course on the great Victorian novelist’s Daniel Deronda, Ian Lindquist writes:

It is important to have an expert guide for this novel, which, however familiar [its themes are] to our times, is also intricate and extraordinarily subtle. . . . While Wisse prepares viewers for her lectures, Eliot throws readers into the deep end. Daniel Deronda opens with a splendid picture of its protagonist. Gwendolen Harleth desires above all else to distinguish herself, to raise herself above the common herd. Yet we quickly learn that Gwendolen, whose beauty and bearing elevate her above her female peers, lacks the foresight and self-control to guide herself. For all her youthful confidence, she is visited in her private moments by a terror of isolation. . . .

To compound this problem, Gwendolen’s circumstances allow her to determine her own destiny and path through life—she is a “new woman,” in Wisse’s phrase, free of the customs that bound previous generations. And yet, her private moments of terror remind the reader that there is an awful emptiness in the lack of custom and social support built into inherited tradition. Sensitive readers will discern a significant challenge in this freedom, and sense that Gwendolen’s predicament is not unlike the predicament many young people face in our own times. Inherited custom is a burden, but it is also a directing force.

[The title character], by contrast, yearns for communion with those around him. Early on, Daniel sacrifices his own studies in order to help a wounded friend obtain a scholarship to college. His ambition, unlike Gwendolen’s, is marked by a desire to emulate the heroes of past ages. He does not wish to be an autonomous individual, determining his fate all by himself. . . .

Gwendolen and Daniel are like exiles in a foreign land, cut off from inherited custom and the guidance that comes with it. They are not in a position to discover their cultural and familial inheritance, a discovery that is a feature—perhaps an essential feature—of life. The rootlessness they experience as a result is disorienting. This “dislocation,” as Wisse puts it, is a feature of our times, too.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.