[Miłosz's poetry] is not readily accessible and … requires a great deal of elucidation via other texts, preferably Miłosz's own; his essays or nonfiction prose …, for example, can be extremely illuminating reading. I would like to propose that this essay, a brief analysis of the novel The Valley of Issa (Dolina Issy, 1955), be considered as yet another oblique angle of approach to Miłosz's poetry…. The "deeply pessimistic Manichean vision" which constitutes the metaphysical underpinning of the novel is simultaneously one of the deepest and darkest currents in Miłosz's work as a whole. It is the sobriety of this vision that I would like to throw into relief, not only because it is essential to understanding Miłosz's brand of existential despair, but because cognizance of this darker strain in his writings should act as an antidote to some of the critical ecstasy that has tended...