Milosz

Elie’s cast of characters — an eclectic list that includes Andy Warhol, Sinéad O’Connor, Bob Dylan, Bono, Czeslaw Milosz, Martin Scorsese and Robert Mapplethorpe — were, to varying degrees, children of the church who had internalized its tenets at a time when religion was still a central fact of life in America and Europe in the ’50s and ’60s.

In an eloquent eulogy bookended by the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz and Langston Hughes, he exhorted Americans to “practice the politics of the preamble to the Constitution” as the “only way” to honor Lewis’ life.

Vardiashvili also has captured the winking, world-weary humor and magic-realist touches that mark a lot of literature from Europe’s war-torn corners, from Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry to novels like Téa Obreht’s “The Tiger’s Wife.”

But then, a few minutes later, with as much clarity: “There is this beautiful quote where Czeslaw Milosz says: ‘Before you print a poem, you should reflect on whether this verse could be of use to at least one person in the struggle with himself and the world.’

Milosz Krasinski was on a road trip through Europe this summer when he fell for this swindle: At a gas station, he found a makeshift gift shop selling vignettes at a reduced rate.