A review by lawrence_retold
View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wisława Szymborska

3.0

At its best, reading View with a Grain of Sand made me feel like it was no longer necessary to read philosophy. And that was quite the relief, because Szymborska is the opposite of ponderous. However, I found that best to be rarely achieved. Szymborska’s poems can readily state philosophical conundrums, but are much less apt to try resolving them. Many poems here, I find, take a stance on the human condition that’s so ironically removed as to be patronizing, even when that distance is probably meant to be funny. I really got very little of a sense of a worldview from reading this collection. I didn’t have any faith, I guess, that Szymborska could possibly have meant or believed what she says here.