Road-side Dog
The Nobel laureate's new book is a collection of reflections, a few dreams, some poems, and, best of all, "Subjects to Let" --ideas and plots that Milosz, at 87, feels he will never develop and presents for others to flesh out. Two themes recur in many of these little writings: the opposition of the inner life of the mind and emotions and the outer life of the body and communication; and the occasionally paradoxical nature of personality that, for instance, allows an aloof, disdainful young man to die heroically for a common cause. Milosz demonstrates, with considerable bemusement, that human beings are always more than they seem to be and that history is always far less than an accounting of what really happened. Those circumstances ultimately enable art, for they imply that there is always another story to be told and pondered. If this proves to be Milosz's valedictory, it is a fine one.Ray Olson--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.