Emperor of the Earth

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent collection for serious students of Ideas
Review: This is an eclectic, challenging collection of literary-political essays by renowned poet and political mythologist Czeslaw Milosz. The style is anecdotal and usually restrained in both its employment of irony and vast eruditon. Occasionally, however, the Nobel Prize writer of THE CAPTIVE MIND, "lets-it-rip" in defense of what were once prized as essential (LOGOS-based) values and epistemology of the Judeao-Christian, Western Tradition. MODES of ECCENTRIC VISION is the subtitle to this book. By it, Milosz "concedes" preeminence of Post Modern/Deconstuctionist norms of discourse framing and defining contemporary academic, political, and cultural milieu. That the latter's essence is Nihilism, he allows readers to concede or reject. But the unavoidable consequence of nihilism is, in his opinion, triumph of totalitarian "modes" of personal being and societal structures {Start with PC police mentality pervading USA ). This is the "concentric", anti-communitas vision Czeslaw Milosz opposes....

"Shestov, or the Purity of Despair" (pp.99) is a key essay. This examines writing of Russian "Nietzschean" Lev Issak Schwarzman ("Shestov": wishing he could be Kierkegaard...Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing). These exemplified and glorified turn-of-the-century literary salon ideas which Bolsheviks (predicted by Dostoyevsky in THE POSSESSED) would alchemize into Communist Revolution and 100 years of bood thirsty, world-wide dictatorships. The essay "Dostoyevsky and Swedenborg" (pp.120)discusses once-esoteric themes contraposing radical Christianity against easily recognizable (New Age) concepts of gnosticism and Self-Apotheosis prevailing in many shopping malls and yuppie housing sub-divisions. (cf: AMERICAN BEAUTY) "Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz: A Writer for Today" (p.32)examines anti-aesthetics of Post Modernism. Milosz refers to seminal, THEATER of the ABSURD works by this bizzare "pure(anti-content)form" philosopher-playwright to illuminate such manifestations as PERFORMANCE artists who slather their bodies in everything...food to feces...and term themselves "Organic paintings"; to so-called Mutilation art. And pop culture displays : music; WWA as religious experience; adulation of violence as art form ...(TITUS: starring Anthony Hopkins) and CANNIBALS as hero (Hannibal: starring Anthony Hopkins).

"Science Fiction and the Coming of the Anti-Christ" p.15) engrossed me as most interesting essay of the collection. A work by Russian philosopher-poet Vladimir Solovyov (Three Conversations: 1900) details the rise and "adventures" of The Man of Sin and Great Tribulation. The key insight of the essay proposes the essence of Anti-Christ as self-Love leading to SELF-APOTHEOSIS: "The more powerful, the more splendid an ego...in men of destiny, leaders, dictators...the more it must pay homage to itself" (p.25).

Again: Czeslaw Milosz subtitles EMPEROR OF THE EARTH, "Modes of Eccentric Vision". Much of the book, for me, was very demanding. Additionally, trekking down this "road not taken" requires trust in Milosz' integrity. It will require such judgment from any reader. Milosz, like masters he cites or looks-to for support, believes in a "heirarchy of values; the renunciation of which threatens mankind with madness" (p.80). The values proposed are essentially...for Western men...Judaeo-Christian. The book asserts these values. "Or, to put it another way: (it) reestablishes clear distinction between what is serious in human life; and what is considered serious by 'S ZHIRU BESYATASYA,' ( "people driven out of their minds by good living" p. 80). Milosz is a human voice. Yet in this work (like many of his books and works of poetry) it seems the kind of voice speaking to St. Augustine when he sought Truth: TAKE and READ!