CZESLAW MILOSZ
263
RB:
What happens after you write a poem such as this one?
eM:
As far as I remember, I jotted it down expressing my frustra–
tion and my longing without paying much attention to it. After a
while that poem became very important to me because I noticed that
I have expressed in it something essential to me.
RB:
Let's take this experience as a paradigm.
If
the frustration is not
relieved, how does writing affect you personally?
eM:
We discussed the question of writing as fighting chaos and
nothingness. After having written such a poem I am relieved for the
day. I did my share of fighting nothingness and chaos. For one day
that is enough.
RB:
You have received the Nobel Prize and many other honors and
awards. How does this affect you?
eM:
Those things act on me in a very peculiar way. I am unable to
change the opinion I have of myself because I received the Nobel
Prize. Very often, when I am with other Nobel laureates, I catch
myself thinking that they should be very dignified company. Then I
suddenly recollect that I am one of them. The problem concerning
this is a practical problem, namely that I would like to have my work
assessed not on the basis of being a celebrity but on the basis of its
value. I look for people who are on very close terms with me so that
they would say frankly what they like and what they dislike.
RB:
In the last section of your book you say: "Not to enchant
anybody. Not to earn a lasting name in posterity." Is this a wish or a
resolution?
eM:
It is a good question. To be completely honest, I would like to
enchant but a very selected group of people who are ideal readers in
my mind, not the reading public at large. (There may be a kind of
haughtiness in selecting a very few happy people who would be able
to appreciate my work). But that wasn't what I wanted to say in that
section. What I wanted to say is that if you are going after enchant–
ing people, you may be a little inclined to make compromises, to be
a follower of various fads of a given time. When I say "Not to en–
chant anybody," I mean that I follow my own need for order, for
rhythm and form-here, now, before my own piece of paper-and I
use them as weapons or as instruments against chaos and
nothingness. "Not to enchant" is a concentration upon my own
struggle, not upon my contact with the readers .
