Unquiet Days CL

Melding his experience of living in Warsaw during 1980-1982 with return stays in '85, '88 and '90, Swick, travel editor for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel , adroitly succeeds here in capturing the country's ethos, especially--and perhaps remarkably for a non-Catholic--its religious rites. We accompany him to the funeral of cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, buried with the solemn pageantry befitting a primate of the Church; partake of family celebrations of Christmas Eve Wigilia and Easter Wielkanoc , followed by Mass; achieve, with the euphoric if footsore Swick, an epiphany on a nine-day pilgrimage to the legendary Black Madonna of Czestochowa. The author, who taught at the Methodist English Language College in Warsaw and with his native-born wife endured shortages and discomforts on a scale with the average hard-pressed Varsovian, ``adopted the Poles as other writers had the Greeks.'' Readers of this resonant memoir will agree he made a good bargain. (Aug.)