The Year of the Hunter

by Czesław Miłosz, Madeline G. Levine (Translator)

Like Native Realm , Czeslaw Milosz's autobiography written thirty years earlier, A Year of the Hunter is a "search for self-definition." A diary of one year in the Nobel laureate's life, 1987-88, it concerns itself as much with his experience of remembering as with the actual events that shape his days. Shuttling between observations of the present and reconstructions of the past, he attempts to answer the unstated Given his poet's personality and his historical circumstances, has he managed to live his life decently?

From Milosz's thoughts on the Catholic Church and his conversations with Pope John Paul II to his impatience with sixties American radicalism and his reflections on the avant-garde, A Year of the Hunter brims with caustic wit and shrewd observations about people, places, politics, and literature. Milosz also gives us a deeply personal portrait of life in pre-war Poland in which he charts his conflicting feelings about Poland and the Polish people.

Lively in tone, impressive in its intellectual breadth, A Year of the Hunter offers a splendid introduction to Milosz for new readers and, for those who know his essays and poetry, the pleasure of watching him master another genre.

"This lively journal shows Milosz grappling with his thoughts on evil, death, sex, vanity, music and spirituality." - Publishers Weekly

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

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

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1987 was the year Milosz turned 77. His wife of 50 years passed away only two years before, and so did some of his friends. Old age is approaching or maybe already there, so it is a time that induces reflection.
As an explanation for the title, Milosz says that he was given a calendar called “A year of a hunter” once, when he was a boy. It was a collection of advice and reflections over activities or chores that should be considered for changing seasons. This journal, is Milosz’s personal year of a “hunter”. Contrary to its inspiration, the records may not have much to do with changing seasons. They have rather to do with changing moods and the free flow of memory.
The entries are sometimes inspired by current events, like lectures and readings of his poetry and sometimes simply by memories. Sometimes, they are going on through a couple of days, next day's entry inspired by the last. Known and unknown names, musings about the world changing, people, politics, morality, history, and faith, moving between now and his childhood, youth, war, the efter war experience, emigration and the frustrations and difficulties that came with it.
From a young boy in Vilnius to a grown man and an emigré in America in the 60es, from a poet “without a language” in his new country, to a Noble laureate and a respected professor at the university of Barclay.
I liked it and I enjoyed reading it but the records of events and reflections of one year are very personal, obviously not reusable, unless there is another Milosz in the world somewhere that is going to live his life all over again.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some folks write journals for posterity, others give resonance to their own meandering deviation and hope for a loyal Brod: Byron to Renard.

I found this example to be an admixture, a conscious construction towards a legacy but one still wrought with doubts and misdeed.

There’s considerable judgement on display. Mourning for his wife. A quivering acknowledgement of his own destructive nature. There are trips back to Europe and lengthy asides.

There is no quick encapsulation of 20C Polish history. Milosz considers an attempt, if only through his own exceptional experience. I appreciate the reverence for Balzac, the prism of Magic Mountain to gauge the world between the wars; I did steady myself for his harsh words towards de Beauvoir and Brodsky.

I return again to the wonky confessional nature of the tome: regardless of its bent, it penetrates with verve of a poet at work. Early writing from his garden in Northern California, he notes that his childhood was virtually covered with insects, that his dotage thanks to chemical progress is free of such. Perhaps that is but another painful analogy for our age.

[Caedyn Skinner · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t smart enough to appreciate it

[Judith Shadford · Rating 3 out of 5]

The year in the case is 1987-1988, during which the poet and Nobel prize winner Milosz lived in Berkeley, traveled to Paris, and generally annotated more Polish spellings than this Anglo mind could silently hope to pronounce. I learned about the factions amongst the literati of World War II dividing those who fled, those who stayed and published underground, those who were annihilated and whose who, like Milosz survived and paid the price of surviving. Interesting, the rivalries and misunderstandings, the problems with who translates what piece into which languages, his delight in his garden in Berkeley. He seemed to have shifted from a pretty difficult guy at the outset to a much more gentle and tolerant, albeit, old guy at the end of the year. The hunter? Himself.

[Srdjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knjiga je u formi dnevnika za 1987. i 88. godinu, ali sadržaj je uglavnom memoarsko-esejistički.
Miloš se sjeća mladosti u Litvaniji i Poljskoj, teških ratnih godina u Varšavi, poslijeratne diplomatske službe, života u Parizu nakon što je emigrirao (nesigurnog i siromašnog, ali bogatog kontaktima sa brojnom poljskom kulturnom emigracijom), onda odlaska u Kaliforniju (gdje ga čeka duhovna pustoš, ali materijalna sigurnost i književno priznanje).

Teme su uglavnom ekskluzivno poljske (zaista, pomalo je čudna tolika polocentričnost pisca koji je veoma dugo živio u Americi i Evropi), međutim on o svemu piše sa dovoljno univerzalno primenjivih zapažanja da bude zanimljiv i kad čitalac nema pojma o ljudima o kojima se piše. To vjerovatno ima veze s tim što je po vokaciji prvenstveno pjesnik (koji pomalo žali što je slavu stekao prozom). Od ljudi koji su nama poznati, zanimljivo je da se ne izjašnjava baš pozitivno o Gombroviču. Posredno, kao da se proglašava za njegovog antipoda. Malo me to iznenadilo, sjećam se da sam čitao jedan dosta pohvalan Milošev tekst poslije Gombrovičeve smrti, ali to je bilo napisano skoro dvadeset godina ranije.

Iako se svakodnevicom iz dana kada dnevnik nastaje Miloš ne bavi mnogo, jedan zanimljiv zapis odnosi se na međunarodni susret pisca u Portugalu, negdje 1988. godine. Pisci iz SSSR došli su organizovano, u grupi, i našli se sasvim u čudu pred snažnim napadima srednje i istočnoveropskih emigrantskih pisaca. Đerđ Konrad im tako kaže nešto kao "Da, vi ste nas oslobodili, ali to je bilo davno. Vaši tenkovi su predugo kod nas, vrijeme je da odete!" Brodski (iako je u emigraciji) pokušava oprezno da brani Sovjete, ali Miloš (iako mu je prijatelj) žestoko uzvraća. Jer, Miloš nije bio poljski nacionalista ili zadrti katolik (iako duboko pobožan), ali nije imao nikakvih rezervi u svom antikomunizmu.

Tako i u antiratnom pokretu po američkim univerzitetima 1968. godine ne vidi ništa osim komunističke ujdurme. To ga je učinilo prilično izolovanim u kalifornijskoj akademskoj zajednici punoj lijevo-liberalnih profesora koji su podržavali šeszdesetosmu.

Od naših pisaca Miloš na nekoliko mjesta spominje Kiša, čije djelo je očito dobro poznavao i visoko cijenio, a na jedom mjestu kaže da je na onim susretima u Portugalu učestvovao i "pjesnik Lalić" (vjerovatno Ivan V.). Spominje i jedan razgovor sa hrvatskim istoričarem Ivom Bancem (prevodilac ga zove Banać), a u prvim godinama po odlasku u Ameriku dosta su mu značile knjige Luja Adamiča.

[Robert Varik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lootsin raamatust laiemat aastate 1987-88 ajastuvaimu analüüsi. Pigem aga on tegemist kirjaniku sisekaemuste ja ümbritsevate inimeste analüüsiga, kellest 95% olid mulle poola kultuuritegelastena tundmatud. Siiski oli hästi kirjutatud raamat ja ilmselt algusest peale avaldamiseks mõeldud.