Grim and intricate realism ...

... LRB: Michael Wood - I really mean like. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Auden’s readings are predicated on a grim and intricate realism about the way he thinks things are. ‘In the real world, no hatred is totally without justification, no love totally innocent.’ Or: ‘The historical world is a fallen world, i.e. though it is good that it exists, the way in which it exists is evil, being full of unfreedom and disorder.’ Even the Christian God is in trouble, because he has created ‘a world which he continues to love although it refuses to love him in return’.