California livin’ …

… CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ: A CALIFORNIA LIFE’ BY CYNTHIA L. HAVEN: THE WEST COAST’S MYTHIC ALLURE.

Much of the biography is thematically centered on four interconnected concepts: être, to be; devenir, to become; esse, being; and natura, nature. While the translations are simple, the concepts are nuanced and dense, grounded in Thomistic theology and serving as lenses through which to understand the world. Haven introduces these concepts in the opening chapter and returns to them throughout, linking the words and their attendant deeper meanings to key parts of Miłosz’s life and analyzing how his poems stem from and respond to each concept. The concepts become a guide for the biography, a heuristic through which the reader begins to gain some insight into Miłosz’s singular mind.