Visions from San Francisco Bay

by Czesław Miłosz, Richard Lourie (Translation)

Interrelated essays by the Nobel Laureate on his adopted home of California, which Lewis Hyde, writing in The Nation , called "remarkable, morally serious and thought-provoking essays, which strive to lay aside the barren categories by which we have understood and judged our state . . . Their subject is the frailty of modern civilization."

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Poland, Literature, Polish Literature, Memoir

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Czesław Miłosz was a Nobel Prize winning poet and author of Polish-Lithuanian heritage. He memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley , and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm . After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934.

After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.

Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."

Reviews

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Czeslaw Milosz is among my favorite poets but he also writes exceptional essays and several years ago I became obsessed with reading them. At the time, I read most of the books of essays that I could find, of which there are many, but I'm still coming across some that I hadn't read yet. This is one that I was especially interested in because it is, mostly, about the many years he spent in Berkeley. Many of the essays talked of the places he went to while living there including San Francisco, Northern California and the Sierra mountains. These are places I am very familiar with because I lived at Lake Tahoe for over thirty years and made frequent trips to these areas. Some of the essays dealt with the history of the areas and one that I found particularly interesting was about a man named Sutter. This is a man whose name has been given numerous times to various places in Northern California but is someone I really had no clue about. It was very eye opening. Milosz also talked about a wide variety of other topics including one he uses in almost all of his essay books and that is religion. I've always been curious about his opinion on the subject because he seems to be a believer but he is constantly talking about things that are counter to religious beliefs. This is something that I think many religious believers have in common and that is an awareness of the evidence against religious ideology but a refusal to accept it. Milosz's essays are always quite interesting but what I like most about them is his exceptional prose. It's almost like reading his poetry.

[Josh]

intensely intellectual, deconstructivist examinations of beautiful things seems somewhat counterproductive to me, no matter how smart you are. no thanks.

[the_deepest_black]

"I jakkolwiek mocno byśmy chcieli uniknąć staroświeckiego antyfeminizmu, niełatwo zapomnieć o chwili elementarnego ujawnienia: że wklęsłość nie jest tym samym, co wypukłość, i że orana rola nie jest tym samym, co orzący ją rolnik

"Nauka i technika, bez których kalifornijscy prorocy nie mieliby co jeść, nie rozwinęła się nigdzie indziej niż tam tylko, gdzie i scholastycy, i ich przeciwnicy zaczynali od wspólnej im przesłanki, postulującej harmonię pomiędzy operacjami rozumu i działaniem świata" (87).

"'Narodziny, kopulacja i śmierć' są udziałem człowieka w ogóle, są kategoriami nieosobowymi, nawet przeciwosobowymi, i nie mają zgody jednostki, bo chce ona więcej, chce być nieśmiertelna i niepowtarzalna" (102).

"Być przestępcą to znaczy patrzeć na społeczeństwo od góry, od podziemia" (134). Jakież antypody Profesora.

"Nie jestem tak nierozsądny, żeby pisać o Czarnych, czyli współzawodniczyć z bardziej niż ja powołanymi, zajmującymi się dostatecznie tym przeklętym spadkiem kolonialnej Afryki" (135).

"Z gniewów, z urazów, z uniesień miłości i nienawiści zachowałem tylko jedno: przekonanie, że co ludzie mówią o ludziach, jest iluzją. [...] Człowiek z dodatkiem przymiotnika nie istnieje. Jest czystą potencjalnością" (140).

"Brzegi Zatoki San Francisco były niegdyś zacienione, w jej wodach Indianin polował na ptactwo, maskując głowę zielenią, podpływając do stada i chwytając kaczkę albo dziką gęś za nogi. Teraz nadzieja zysku nakazuje zasypywać brzegi odpadkami, żeby poszerzać grunt nadający się do zabudowy, a fabryczne ścieki zatruwają wodę" (152-153).

"Doświadczyłem rozdwojenia życia na czas sprzedawany i czas ocalony: ten pierwszy nierzeczywisty, nudny, uciążliwy, ten drugi rzeczywisty, ciekawy, bogaty - co jest przeważnie iluzją, bo zmęczenie nie pozwala zrobić z niego użytku. Nic bardziej poważnego, bardziej elementarnego niż to rozdwojenie [...]" (165).

"Czy poeci i filozofowie, żarliwie oznajmiający równość ludzi, naprawdę wierzyli, że równa jest im służąca, która podaje im kawę, piekarz, kierowca omnibusu, robotnik zakładu asenizacji miasta?" (166).

"W ruchu rewolucyjnym dopatrywał się podstępu, do jakiego ucieka się, choć z dobrą wiarą, nowa kasta sięgająca po władzę: kasta pracowników umysłowych, niezadowolonych ze swojej zależności od kapitalistów. Jej celem było wywłaszczyć kapitał, posługując się masami, i następnie zagarnąć dla siebie zarząd gospodarką, po to żeby i masy czasnoroboczych zaprząc do pracy użytek całości utożsamionej z rządzącą kastą" (168).

"Nie ma we mnie nic z przyjaciela racjonalistów, czy tych osiemnastowiecznych, czy ich następców" (181).

"Wyzwolenie człowieka od podległości rynkowi to nic innego, niż wyzwolenie go spod władzy natury, bo rynek równa się rozciągnięciu naturalnej walki o przeżycie, naturalnego okrucieństwa, na społeczność ludzką" (183).

"Każde z mijanych przeze mnie na ulicy mężczyzn i kobiet czuje się zamknięte granicami własnej skóry, ale w istocie są to delikatne aparaty odbiorcze, których duchowość i cielesność wibruje tak a nie inaczej, bo taka a nie inna tonacja jest nadawana" (186).

"Idee, które są obecnie działającą siłą, pochodzą z rozpadu przedkopernikańskiego układu. Był to układ statyczny: Niebo ciągnęło w nim w górę, Piekło w dół [...]. Zastąpił go układ dynamiczny, w którym wycofanie się Bóstwa nie oznaczało, że wyrzekano się Nieba: przestrzeń stała się w nim ruchem opatrznościowym, zbawiającego czasu, Piekłem teraźniejszość, Niebem przyszłość. [...] Wyobraźnia ucieka się do surogatów. Popycha ją nie tyle wiara w jakąś lepszą ludzkość, ile odraza do nicości i chaosu, w jakich musi przebywać, dopóki nie przeskakuje dystansu między dziś a jutrem. Ta ukryta motywacja może zachęcać do czepiania się czegokolwiek, nawet najbardziej głupawych ideologii" (222-224).

"Co do wpływu nauki, to rządzi nim zasada opóźnienia czy też powolnego rozszerzania się kropli na bibule. Nauka działa na wyobraźnię [...] nie natychmiast, i prawię połową siebie tkwimy w przestrzeni wieku osiemnastego i dziewiętnastego" (225).

"Za każdy razem, kiedy biorę pióro do ręki [...] traktuję to tylko jako egzorcyzm przeciwko złym duchom bieżącego czasu" (226).

postępowcy różnych obediencji
rzeczywistość wykroczyła swoją koszmarną niekongruencją poza najśmielsze fantazje

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My plan with this review was to include several amazing quotes so that the author could speak for himself. As they are all a good paragraph long and I have to return this book tomorrow and I'm too lazy to go to class today, so obviously too lazy to write a longer review, that's not going to happen. So much for grand plans. This is a book about the differences between America and Europe, about how everyone feels trapped in their own skin and helpless and stupid sometimes and how it's so hard to make a lasting impression, to write something worthy of lasting out the generations. He has a theme that, in today's society where the poorest person can make something of himself, it's the people that don't grow bored, that can order their time to their will, that are the true social superiors. Sadly, I'm not one of them. He also talks about the ridiculousness of people that are interested in high culture looking down upon those that aren't. He put it much more eloquently, but these are the people we need to do the dirty work we don't want to do and he can respect them for their work ethic, doing what the surely don't like doing either, brainless work more than all these sissy mama's boys and girls that strive for a revolution but have no idea what that is in their comfortable first world life (he was in Poland during World War 2). Well, that made me think about my snobbish attitude towards people that read Tom Clancy novels or like Lindsay Lohan. I'm forever after a woman of the people! Yeah, right. I can try, though.

[loafingcactus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that Milosz's message is very important and so my deal with myself is that I can still read him and recommend him so long as a moment is always given to the women he harmed. For more on both parts of that see the excellent Milosz: A Biography

Milosz's principle message has been that the physical and intellectual life are tied tightly together and that to unbind them leads to totalitarianism. Artistically, morally, politically... they go together. This book presents thoughts from where he was, at Berkeley in the years leading up to 1975, watching a social transformation that was on the one had decadent and on the other hand required.

If you like this book, a present day book in a similar vein is The View From Flyover Country: Essays by Sarah Kendzior

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some spot-on insights about the US from an immigrant from Poland and then ten years in France. Philosophical meanderings go in circles. Translation seems stilted and interferes with understanding the author's intent. I would not recommend except for the historical perspective.

[Wej · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miłosz was a poet and a Slavic literature professor whose main work The Captive Mind deals with personal choices while living under a totalitarian regime. This collection of essays is a series of musings of the author about the USA, its society, and his place in the Bay Area. He was born into the privilege of Polish/Lithuanian intelligentsia, became a diplomat, and eventually a professor and a poet (not necessarily in this order). The essays describe how these experiences shaped him, and what he discovered in California. Milosz’s observations about race and society are a product of his time and would not fly if published today. Frankly, I am surprised that no one tries to cancel him. The book is probably too niche to be a sore. The most interesting part for me was his appreciation of American meritocracy, practicality, and distrust of intellectuals. The first half of the book was weaker, with more focus on nature and poetry. The second bit, with description of society, was more interesting. Quite a few generalisations in there, but interesting to read about being critical of the American counterculture by someone being in that milieu (Miłosz worked at Berkeley). He mocks the shallowness of ideas of those rebels who lack appreciation of their situation. Also, he is rather scathing of pop culture and creeping Americanisation.
Nice to read, but not for everyone. Seemed a bit repetitive.

[Lazarus-II · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 or 7/10

[Filip Antosik · Rating 3 out of 5]

coś między 3, a 3.5

[Lily Myrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at a lending library and, from the first few lines, was immediately intrigued. I was surprised to find that the author is even remotely mainstream since this book seemed really far out of the box. The specific edition I read was translated by Richard Lourie and published in 1982 — indeed, the long lost bookmark left in it was from a bookstore that closed in 2004 — so perhaps newer translations are more accurate in depicting the author’s native intention. It certainly is deeply intellectual and more of a grandiose, roundabout brain dump than a polished work, where Milosz is attempting to work through his lived experiences and assign virtues and values outside of what he “ought” to think. A quick read that will leave you thinking on it for much longer.

“I am here. Those three words contain all that can be said—you begin with those words and you return to them. Here means on this earth, on this continent and no other, in this city and no other, and in this epoch I call mine, this century, this year. I was given no other place, no other time, and I touch my desk to defend myself against the feeling that my own body is transient. This is all very fundamental, but, after all, the science of life depends on the gradual discovery of fundamental truths.”

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read this. It was a great read. Not only is this written beautifully - but the author also gives one much to think about. He suffered under Nazi occupation (he was in Warsaw) in his native Poland. Many of his insights and contrasts - of this book - relate to what he is seeing in the U.S. and how he sees it in the light of his experience in Europe during the War. His insights are never glib - never easy.