Originally published in Polish in 1969, this carefully orchestrated suite of essays by Nobel-ist Milosz at first seems quite odd--especially when read now, more than ten years after its composition. Meditations on the grandeur and absurdity of California--its harsh geography, its ""edge""-ness--predominate in the early sections. Then, soon after, Milosz is writing about the virtues of traditional Catholicism, about the humility only to be mined by the pious. And then, in the book's last third, he addresses such Sixties social manifestations as psychedelic drugs, Herbert Marcuse, and student unrest. A helter-skelter potpourri? So it may seem. But eventually it becomes clear that Milosz is approaching this oblique, unlikely trio--California, faith, political trends--in order to construct a brief for what he calls ""intentional"" or imaginative space, the sense that we move steadily, if undecisively: ""It may well be that we are healthy only when trying to leap from our own skins, in the hope of succeeding from time to time.""