MILOSZ'S WORLD TO DAY
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mind or pi t themselves aga inst reason. They engage hi story or are blind–
sided by it. They sometimes appea r to be playing th eir roles in a morality
play. Milosz the prose wri ter has an eye for the telling detail , th e special
character trait that both defin es the individual and reveals the crushing
weight of hi s time. What noveli st would not have wished to invent a char–
acter such as th e Poli sh stage director Leon Schill er, th e " dogmatic
communi st by day Iwh o l prostrated himself before th e crucifi x at ni ght" ?
Or Stani slawa Umiriska, th e glamorous ac tress whom a French jury refused
to convict for th e mercy- killing of her terminally ill lover, and who then
became a nun and eventuall y the mother super ior of a convent where, dur–
ing the war and in defi ance o f Ges tapo rul es, Leon Schill er's nativity play
was performed in secret by ado lescent pros ti tutes before an audience that
contained Czeslaw Mil osz and Jerzy Andrzej ews ki . T he fin al
desidera tum
for
Milosz's hypo theti cal novel is the charac ter of a wr iter, " presumably glued
together fr om several fa mous names and not trea ted too kindly-for who,
if not writers, all owed th emselves to be dece ived by stupid ideologues and
then excell ed in sedu cing minds?" he writes. Actuall y a pl ethora of writ–
ers inhabit the constitu ent parts o f Mil osz's unac knowledged novel, but the
unifYing character is th e mos t compl ex writer o f all , Czeslaw Mil osz him–
self. Hi s evolving novel of th e twenti eth century, ever a wo rk in progress,
ultimately depends on its creati on's consciousness. He is the authoritative
narrator. Eve n when he admi ts to doubts and regrets, he leaves no room
for an alternative narrati ve. We remain in th e grip of hi s vision: thi s terri–
bl e century, for all its horror, is the bes t of times to remember. N o one has
yet wri tten a fi cti onal account o f it to rival Czeslaw Mil osz's, and it's a safe
bet that no o ne will.
Bronislaw Maj:
To speak abo ut Milosz's presence in Poli sh literature and
Poli sh life, to talk abo ut hi s vari ous and pro found influence on so many
areas of thi s li fe, and to talk about thi s in th e presence of Czeslaw Milosz
is difficult. On e needs eith er extraordinary courage or extraordinary impu–
dence. But I'll try.
To be the poet of a nati o n th at, by decree o f hi story, possesses noth–
ing but " th e words o f the poet" is a strange and pathetically ironic
adventure. If language, speech, is everythin g that a nati o n possesses, then
the fa te of that poet is different than in nati ons w ith a " normal" hi story;
one expects thi s poe t to take on o th er responsibili ties and roles, more spe–
cific fo rms of bein g present. T herefore, Mil osz's presence in Poli sh culture
and in hi story is not just th e presence of a grea t poe t. Surely the puri ty of
Walt Whitman's phrase is not the only reason to be proud o f being
Ameri can; a German does not build hi s des tiny excl usively on the founda–
tion o f Goethe's writin g, nor a Frenchman o n Paul Valery's stanzas.
