Jerzy Kosinski Books

Siempre recomendaré este libro. Yo que ando viajando por todo el mundo. Es un clásico infaltable.

Yo tomé este libro para un viaje por Escandinavia yendo solo con mi mochila, y lo hice siguiendo la recomendación de un amigo que ya lo llevó para un Interrail por Europa. Definitivamente, te engancha, y mucho. Cada vez que tienes un rato esperando en una estación, no puedes evitar seguir leyéndolo. Es un claro ejemplo de la "generación bit", y como es de esperar los protagonistas están todos muy locos; pero precisamente por eso te metes más en tu propio viaje, porque ellos siempre están buscando "fondos" de donde pueden para seguir moviéndose de un lugar a otro. Tus 12 horas de tren son nada en comparación con sus miles de millas y sigues pensando que todavía te queda mucho carrete para seguir viajando a donde haga falta.

Evidentemente, puedes leerlo igualmente por las tardes en el salón de tu casa, o en la cama antes de acostarte, y seguirá siendo un libro magnífico. Pero merece ser leído "en situación".
Mi comentario es algo parcial, pues yo lo veo como compañero de viaje, básicamente. Pero es una gran obra, icono de una época y de una generación que acabó muy mal: aunque los nombres sean ficticios, se trata de Jack Keoruak y de sus experiencias, hechos reales.

Mi consejo: léelo, en casa, o de viaje. Un gran libro.

This is an outstanding and most unusual report from the Soviet Union. By virtue of his education, profession, and partly Russian background the author, a social scientist from one of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, was able to combine extensive research in the Soviet Union with all the advantages of exact scholastic knowledge of Soviet theory and practice.

The fundamental intellectual goal of this penetrating study is to give an authentic picture of the working of the Soviet system, to discover the mechanism of the socialist collective and its impact upon the individual and his values and beliefs.

The reader of this provacative, grim, and deeply disturbing book will not be able to accept the Communist challenge lightly. He will realize that we are facing more than just military power and a few fanatically dedicated men who want to force Communism upon the Western World. Mr. Novak's book is a timely and significant warning to all of those who oversimplify, who are asleep or who are confused - and many of us fall into one of these categories.
--- from book's dustjacket

Kosinski has always been one of my favorite authors since I started reading him in the mid 1970s. This work, like most of his books (A Painted Bird comes to mind), are the type that will stick with you long after you complete the last chapter. This particular book, Blind Date is a series of events from one man's life. It takes us around the world and explores events that, while ugly at times, never-the-less need to be examined now and again. This life, as represented by the main character, is not one that the ordinary person will ever witness, but it is written in a fashion that is almost hypnotic. Our main character, like all of us, is made up of both good and evil. Kosinski merely enhances the good and bad acts and gives us quite a griping collection of small stories. Some of the subject matter, such as rape, incest, murder, etc. are rather distasteful, to say the least, but the author is able to pull it off.

I have to agree with the suggestion of another reviewer here when he suggested you THINK while reading this book. I say this, if for no other reason, than you are reading some pretty good writing. This is a well done work. Now I doubt if this one will fit the taste of everyone (my wife hated it), but it is a work that you should at least give a chance. As pointed out by yet another reviewer, part of this tale is fiction, part is semi-autobiographical. This is quite fascinating.

All in all, I do recommend this one. I have read it several times over the years (just finished another reading) and it has aged well and is certainly worth the time and effort. I am glad it is still in print. It is one of those books that sort of define an era in our history, both physical and literary, and deserves to be around for a bit.

Read Blind Date by Jerzy N. Kosinski
The only the real life of Kosinski is as strange as his fiction.
And his fiction is strange yet utterly plausible in the mind of the reader.

I liked it, the main character is capable of quite morally good things as well as dark dangerous things. Some is very true the two most unlikely stories in the book actually. Kosinski writes about his main character missing the plane to LA and all his friends were killed in a mass murder, Kosinski was supposed to go to Roman Polanski's house but lost his luggage and was delayed a day just causing him to miss arriving the night of the Charles Mansion Helter Skelter murders. The second story is about his main character marring a rich heiress for love only to see her die. This actual happened to the Kosinski. His mixture of pure fiction with the Autobiographical is mesmerizing. Leventur his main character is a Russian émigré who has many international adventures. He is a womanizer, a killer, a hero victim, avernger and villian. The plot bounces around the world from the opressed world of the Soviet Union to the extra
grandure and freedom of america. I also loved Being There.

"Blind Date," by Jerzy Kosinski, is coca-cola for the mind. You sip a little at a time and ponder the after-taste. All in all, the book serves its purpose, which is to involve the reader with quick flashes of whit and brutal irony. But my personal opinion is that the chapters repeat themselves in their psydo-philosophical/psychological "victim"/"avenger" theme. Thus, "Blind Date" quickly grows predictable, even a litte lame, and fails as a collective-whole. This is a book that is quickly read and quickly forgotten, but it's fun, if you don't take it too seriously, which you shouldn't.

Depicted in non-linear time frames, Kosinski dramatically succeeds in presenting the tumultuous life of one man, George Leventer. Associating with the powerful, beautiful, and lonely people around the world, Kosinski's character captures that elusive state of accepting the paradox of being powerful but lonely, requiring love but displaying violence, and growing old but questioning fate. His narrative is sharp and cinematic in structure and tone. Erotica is insightfully tamed and given in precise portions. I became entralled in dissecting the characters intentions as much as their decisions and actions. A superb study in pychological drama and state of consciousness. Please read it and THINK about what it has to say.

Sex, terrorism, incest, mass murder, betrayal, rape, prostitution. Somehow, Kosinski is able to show us the worst aspects of humanity and get us to completely accept them, even embrace them. The story is episodic. Through those episodes, Kosinski shows us something very like real life. It's more exciting than many people's lives, but there's no grand plan, no overreaching narrative arc. To paraphrase the Simpsons, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened, but it certainly was a very interesting read.

A powerful, brutally dark novel, *The Painted Bird* is a masterpiece of 20th century literature whatever the prevailing critical/personal opinions regarding Kosinski and the many controversies that surround him may be. I'm not exactly sure how it gets the reputation as a Holocaust novel because the adolescent main character is neither Jewish nor sent to a concentration camp. He is, however, suspected of being a Jew, or, just as "bad," a Gypsy, and under constant threat of being turned over to the Nazis as he roams, homeless, across a war-ravaged countryside populated by folks straight out of the Inferno.

One can't read *The Painted Bird* as a realistic chronicle--that so many bad things could possibly happen to one person, even the unluckiest, is absurd. But as a "mythic" morality tale, as a kind of picaresque "everyvictim's" experience of man's inhumanity to man as specifically manifested during the Nazi Occupation of Europe, it is a profound and uncompromising and perhaps unparalleled tale of the suffering of the outcast and persecuted individual wherever, whenever, and whoever he happens to be in history.

Kosinski spares us nothing as his young narrator passes from one horrendous scene of degradation to another. Perversion, superstition, ignorance, poverty, violence, disease, and death are everywhere among the peasantry through which Kosinski describes--and their counterbalance, ironically and appallingly, is in the godlike supremacy of the figure of the ultra "civilized" SS officer. This is a world in which Evil--both high and low--has the upper hand and the only safe place tobe is on the side that's strongest. It's a grim picture of life but one hard to argue against given the events of the 20th century and what we've seen modern man capable of doing. Those who like to point to the eventual triumph of good over evil at the end of WW2 are conveniently forgetting the horrors of Hiroshima and Stalin's Soviet dictatorship.

*The Painted Bird* has the timeless, parable-like simplicity of the great Nobel prize-winning novels of yesteryear--when the prize generally was awarded for literary merit rather than to recognize ethnic and sexual diversity or to reward political agendas. A spare, slender novel but as serious as a stiletto in the fist of an assassin and packing a wallop that will follow you for the remainder of your reading days, *The Painted Bird* truly is one of those books you'll never forget.

I have taken the time to read several reviews of this book. Some people seem to "get" it and others seem to think it's nothing more than some excuse to write "perversion" (how many classics were called perversions during the era in which they were written, I wonder? The answer; more than I care to count. )

Face it people. Life is violent. War is NOT pretty, nor are the effects of it. I do not much care if Kosinksi made up every scene in the book from his imagination and/or studies of the effects of war, or if he did live some of it. This sort of horror happens EVERY DAY in the real world to those caught in a country ravaged by violence. Don't believe me? Watch the world news. Go do some research. Even if he did "make this up" he didn't "make it up". I give the guy props (in his grave or not) for having the BALLS to write the gritty, nasty details of the horror that is war which many people are too cowardly to admit is -reality-. So much for the noblity of the struggles of war, eh? This is how it goes down for the little folks. This is what it does to people. These are the depths that humanity WILL and have lowered themselves to for survival's sake and for the base, cruel nature that lurks within humanity. It's not pretty. It's not nice. It's not "fun" to read but it should at least change your view on the world around you and how it is, has been, and probably always will be violence hidden under a golden, glittering surface created by the media and less gutsy authors into making you think everything is for a noble cause.

Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird is, as other reviewers have noted, an unrelenting meditation on violence as it is filtered through the strange, superstitious world of Eastern European Peasant society. Although the time frame deals specifically with the years between 1939-45, the setting seems ancient (as opposed to merely backward) and often mythic. Thus, what some see as an uninterrupted string of grotesque brutalities is, in actuality, a fictionalized world that posseses greater dimensions. The unnamed "hero" of the novel--a dark-haired adolescent boy who may be a Gyspy or a Jew--emerges as a young everyman trying to find his way in a world that does not accept or understand difference. In classic bildungsroman formula, his adventures not only place him in the way of physical danger; they enable him to formulate his slowly-evolving theories of God and existence.

Two of the main charges against the book (at least in the reviews here) are as follows: 1) The events did not really happen to the novelist and are a product of an imaginative--and perverse--mind; 2) The author sought help with style and organization from other people and then affixed his name alone to the title.

With regards to the first charge, Koskinski himself explains in the book's afterword (published 10 years after the first edition) that the events are invented. He explains quite clearly that he wished to create a novel. It was through the fictive experience that he felt he commuunicate the truths orf the holocaust more humanely. That aside, the events recorded are a synthesis of observation, study, and personal experience.

With regards to the second charge, plenty of authors (especially ones struggling, like Kosinski, to write in a foreign language) have sought the expertise of editors, etc...

Most of the animosity towards the book seems, in fact, misdirected rage towards the unrelenting violence in the book. The writing succeeds, however, because, as Anais Nin has astutely noted: "It surpasses most of the books in which experience of terror and physical cruelty are told because by the great beauty of its style, it lifts the entire epxerience to philosophic, mythological realms of knowledge."

The next edition the publisher prints could use the tag line: If you loved "The Road" you'll love "The Painted Bird!" It's much the same thing: a child wandering through a wasteland witnessing and experiencing violence and debauchery of every variety at every turn. In this case it's an unnamed boy wandering Eastern Europe (most likely Poland) after his parents send him away to protect him from the Nazis and his caretaker dies. For most of the novel the boy is being taken in by or captured by assorted farmers, who without fail proceed to abuse him in a variety of ways.

The content of this book is the stuff of nightmares: a boy getting his eyes gouged out, a man being devoured by a swarm of rats, women being violated in the most brutal fashion by men and sometimes animals. As an American growing up in the Cold War this is probably the first time when I've actually been cheering for the appearance of the Red Army--they at least only brutalize those who have it coming to them.

The title of the novel comes from one of the peasants who traps birds. For sport he paints one of the birds, paints it garish colors, and then releases it into a flock of its fellows. The other birds, not recognizing it as one of them, proceed to tear the poor creature to bits. Such is life for the boy as he wanders around this backward country that except for mentions of guns and bombs seems to be mired in the Middle Ages as almost everyone he meets fails to recognize him as human and tries to tear him apart.

An obvious question one has to ask is how different the peasants are in their treatment of this dark-haired/dark-skinned boy than the Nazis are in their treatment of Jews and other minorities. Really the only difference seems to be the scale. If there's one positive message to take from this it's that we should always look past the paint on one's feathers to recognize the bird beneath.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't recommend this book to most people. It is brutal and terrible. I thought books like "Blood Meridian" and "American Psycho" were about as dark and unpleasant as reading could get, but I was wrong. This is easily ten times more nasty and horrific than anything Stephen King could dream up. What makes it worse is to think that so much of it is probably true--unless you're one of those conspiracy theorists who doesn't believe in the Holocaust. I'm all for free speech and I see what the author's driving at but there's a difference between making a point and gratuitous violence and debauchery. The thought struck me as I was reading that maybe if the Marquis de Sade were writing a novel of World War II this is how he'd do it: savage, brutal, and perverse.

The only ones I would recommend this to are those dreaming up the wars and holocausts now and to come. Maybe it would shock some sense into them. That's probably what Kosinski had in mind.

That is all.

Brothers Grimm meet Soviet novelist. This tale of a childhood adventure has dainty fable-like highlights intermingled with horrific accounts of the savagery of war.

Like Grimm, this tale is not light on death. People are killed the old fashioned way: axes, knives and bludgeoning. Throughout this book, you occasionally have to wince as Kosinski describes such events with incredible detail.

And, the senselessness of many of the deaths grow wider as the book proceeds. Single murders in the early chapter evolve to mass murders in the last chapters. Some of the later murderous events include: bandit raids of villages before the Soviet Reds take over, train wrecks for revenge of a beating and the war's blowing away of villages.

This story revolves around the orphaned protagonist (from ages 6 to 12) who wanders during the horrors of World War II. He witnesses a grotesque overdose of human indecency arising within the Russian citizenry. Just after entering one town, the boy is forced to move to another. Each foster home is a worse nightmare than the prior. One foster parent has children commit incest upon one another. Another has the child hang on hooks all day. Another conceives different ways to beat the child.

By the end, the 12-year old child is a young man with little concern of others' emotions or feelings. Like Cormac McCarthy's protagonist in "Blood Meridian" - he is child transformed into the devil incarnate. Adults tarnish a child's innocence in life. No one but the adults can be held accountable for the child's demise.

But, unlike McCarthy, Kosinski is optimistic. Maybe his personal survival and revival from Holocaust events lead the author to allow the young man to survive his purgatory called childhood. That is good news.

Written in a choppy fashion, similar to a journal kept by a scientist, the reading is stilted and constrained. But, after acclimating to this unique style of writing, it moves well and such writing style accomplishes giving the book a fictional feel to events which probably are oh-too-nonfictional. I believe the horrors are derived more from memories than from literary license.

To those with a weak stomach, stay away from this book. For those who like Grimm, or would like Grimm on steroids, this is your book. And, for those interested in Russian literature or history, this is a must read.

Kosinski must have had a crystal ball, because it is all to apparent this story could easily be applied today. Given this political year, I have to recommend this book to anyone who watches the talking heads on television. The main character, Chance, is the epitome of every "expert" on t.v.. We swallow the bitter pill of platitudes and opinions everyday on cable t.v. news and the aftertaste is blissfully sweet. Amazingly, we ask ourselves 100 days into the next presidency and say what happened - where's the beef? Well, I'll tell you what happened, we heard what we wanted to hear and so we bought into it. This book tells this story well. This satire will never go out of date - it is to the point, despite the one odd aside of a meaningless sex act, and it should be put on a mandatory reading list for political science majors.

When humans are not "talking past" one another, they're busy trying to "read" the other person or figure an entranceway for their own personal agenda. Rather than developing a genuine appreciation of another - requiring time and effort - too many of us are already mentally asking, "What can (identity) do for me?" In a culture keyed to instant gratification and focus groups, who has time to cultivate a genuine understanding of someone else on this planet?

"Being There" presents us with a human being who enjoys the serenity of knowing who he is and living in the moment. His conversations are factual and honest, his dealings with the self-absorbed are courteous to a fault and his approach to interpersonal relations is camera-like, taking in as much of someone as possible and trying to fathom "the complete picture". Where politicians try to separate a candidate from his negatives, Chauncey seeks to imbue the famous he meets with as many characteristics as he can discern - not ascribe notions to them, but simply capture the whole of their personality to take their "full measure". And he attempts to do so despite his limited mental capacity.

When Chauncey strolls into the garden at the end of this odyssey, he's at peace. The colors, sights and sounds of the world's natural state surround him, and he is at one with them. It's connectedness, being "in the zone", and few of his more "gifted" contemporaries could ever appreciate what he has discovered.

This is a thoughtful little book that rolls around in the back of your mind.

Loved the movie so thought I would read the book. The book is different in several respects of course. Chance thinks in the book in ways that can be only hypothesized in the movie. He knows how to use the phone and elevator. He knows to say he does not drink. Also note that the sexual observations are much more descriptive - perhaps necessarily so in the book. But in each of these cases I feel the description takes away some of the effect of the movie. All in all, while the plot remains the same the movie seems to me to be the better of the two. The book is a good read none the less. It is light and a good bed book. It reads fast and makes for an interesting comparison with the movie.

Simply a wonderful book b/c it brings you into the mind of a simple, friendly person who brings happiness to all around him. Don't watch the movie.

Our book discussion group read this book and we all felt that it a pretty good story. The ending was disappointing but after discussing further, was appropriate. This is a quick read book and can be read in about 4-5 hours.

Kosinksi's essay on the making of the film "Reds" reveals a side of Warren Beatty unfamiliar to the general public. It and the other essays in this book are plainly written but thoughtful and built on a foundation of sensitive observation.

A Polish emigre who survived numerous horrors as a Jewish child during World War II, Jerzy Kosinski escaped the Holocaust, as well as communism, becoming a celebrated American writer of often bleak, haunting, and nightmarish works. The sardonic author of The Pained Bird, Steps, Pinball, and Being There consciously created an aura of mystery with his "autofictional" novels and flamboyant lifestyle. Kosinski's 1991 suicide, following a period of declining healthy and increasing literary criticism, shocked many of his firneds - and added to enigmatic image as a cult figure.
Passing By:Selected Essays, 1962-1991, Kosinski's post-humous book of previously published and unpublished writings, claims to answer many questions about his controversial life. Partially compiled by himself and finished by his wife and two friends, Passing By contains 51 literary essays, magazine articles, New York Times op-ed pieces, and political speeches organized in ten chapters rangigng from "Life and Art" and "Self vs. Collective" to "People, Places, and Me" and "The Sporty Self."
One of many surprising, and fascinating, chapters is titled "God &" where Kosinski reflects on his persecution as a child and his "spiritual inheritance" as a "circumcised Catholic." "I'm a missionary to only one particular life: the life within me; and I proselytize only one faith: my faith in the sanctity of life."
Given Kosinski's intimate writings about painful childhood memories and erotic adult fantasies, however, Passing By maintains a strange silence on his private life. The only direct reference to the author's suicide, for example, is on the book jacket. No defense, explanation, or context for Kosinski's decision can be found. (Kosinski does praise the great French biologist Jacques Monod, a longtime friend, for his philosophical acceptance of his terminal condition in "Death in Cannes." "Mercy killing interests me," said Monod. "Mercy living does not.")
Clearly designed to hint and allude, rather than decipher or explain, Kosinski's essays mirror his fictional style. A man who loved secrets and disguises, Kosinski retains his control of readers' perceptions with illuminating symbols and brilliant metaphors.
For better and worse, Passing By resembles Kosinski's montage-like novels of fragmented perceptions by refusing to offer a grand summation or any final judgements. Instead, readers are left with contradictory statements and tentative conclusions.
The Kosinski mystique remains.

I am a Kosinski fan. I like his writing and enjoy reading his books. This one though, to be quite frank, was just a bit too much for me. Now don't take me wrong, I still feel the writing skills were present. This author can indeed write. I just could not for the life of me get into the subject matter. Rape, sexual degradation, beastiality and on and on and on! The author addresses some pretty horrible stuff with this one. It is like looking into the mind of one really sick puppy. Of course we all have our little sexual day dreams but I suppose mine simply are not the authors or anywhere near them. I am sure that some of mine are probably just as off beat, but I hope they are not quite as twisted, but hey, they are mine and I will deal with them. That being said, I still am giving it four stars as I do feel it is a good bit of writing..not the author's best, by far, but still quite good. I suppose this is one of those books that some will find fascinating, while other will simply not like. Thank goodness we have choices. I am glad this one is still in print as it should indeed be available for those who choose to read it.

This unstructured novel filled with graphic violence and sex, for all its salacious material, does little to either titillate or instruct the reader with any moral or aesthetic lesson. Quite the opposite, Steps is wholly amoral. This would be fine, if the writing had some scintillating quality; if the characters were richly drawn; if the flow of the narrative was swift, effective, tense. But this novel has none of these things. It seems difficult to believe, based on Steps, the Kosinski was once the flavor of the month, and a National Book Award winner.

A very adolescent work. Definitely not worth reading, despite the fact that Kosinsky had won an award for this book.

Although "Steps" defiantly lacks a narrative thread, it is a rich little book that provokes and amuses. Highly readable, it has a force and sharpness of focus to it that is undeniable. The terse, detached vignettes build what you might call a unifying vibe, if not an altogether cohesive story. This book is not for everyone, but it's an interesting study of the loose novel form and of writing in general.

Riveting, gripping, amazing. If art is, in part, the dance between artist and audience, then Steps is art in its highest form. I found myself dancing & reacting in ways I wish I hadn't; found myself physically aroused by portions of the text that I found intellectually / psychologically repugnant. That's a neat trick, Kosinski.

In spare prose, the author takes his breathless reader (think of how your oxygen intake changed while watching 'Panic Room') on a "depraved" journey into the mind / experiences of his protagonist. The scenes that are depicted would be described by a good buddy of mind as "filthy" -- and that they are. Bestiality, rape, exploitation, and beyond. What I found most intriguing about this text, from a historical / sociological / anthropological perspective is that it was written decades ago. Far from the busy streets of NYC where the tranny hos walk amongst us, far from the prevalent teenage-flesh-peddling of 2005. The fact that humans are humans are humans are animals, in all of our glorious base desires and yes, just plain filth, was the most satisfying revelation of all.

It is an excellent piece of art, and I can't believe I let it sit untouched on my bookshelf for six years after picking it up from a used bookstore in New Haven. This is one book I won't be selling used on Amazon.com; it's staying in my collection for at least four decades. WOW.

This is a gripping and very well written book. The fact that Kosinski was disliked by some Poles is irrelevant. A remarkable biography.

Most academics can't write--and this proves it. Charles Bukowski was right. These guys are usually out there "teaching" others how to write, not unlike Kosinski himself. Basically the man, "Kosinski," was illiterate--and yet, for a while there, he was teaching at a coupleof first rate universities. You figure it out. The whole thing is a scam, bogus--with the literary, East Coast set. In the beginning he was published because he hung out with the "elite," and he was a great B.S. artist. In the final analysis, this was Kosinski's greatest talent: lies and ... The man couldn't even write a decent letter...this explains why, years ago, when I attempted to read a couple of his novels I simply could not get through them...and I could not pinpoint exactly what it was that these books were lacking. Of course, now we know: too many chefs had had a hand in Jerzy's stew.

As far as this Sloan guy goes: he tried, but this isn't the definitive book on Kosinski (a worthwhile subject for a biography by someone who can write, even if his books are unreadable).

I grew up in Poland in the 70s and 80s and was unaware of Kosinski of that time. I was, however, aware of how the population felt towards the "collaborators", for example students who went on exchange programs to the Soviet Union.
I personally was punished for refusing the obligatory field trips to the USSR throughout high school.

While some people may see something good in collaborating with the enemy or doing anything to get ahead in life, I see 1 major flaw in this book: misspelling of Polish names, newspaper titles, names of towns. This may not bother Americans, but is annoying to a Polish speaker. This book should have been proof-read by a native Pole.

I paid ... for the hardcover, and I consider it was a decent investment.

Sloan, while not the most gripping writer, provides a digestible account of Kosinski's life and works. Much of the mythos accorded to Kosinski is addressed, if not fully explained. The largest benefit this book can bring to the reader is a refutation of the oftentimes confused early history of the author. Kosinski allowed and encouraged the public's belief that The Painted Bird was mostly autobiographical in a literal sense. This belief gained popularity to the extent that it has appeared as fact in "about the author" blurbs and websites devoted to Kosinski. Sloan disabuses the reader of this notion and places a much closer version of the reality in the reader's vision. However, he makes many mistakes. As noted by another review, "Sloan Should Have Proof-Read The Manuscripts," he makes several factual errors. He dispells some myths but clings to others despite facts to the contrary. Sloan interviewed Kiki (Kosinski's widow), as well as many others. Kiki told him that the story of Kosinski's arrival, in Poland, at his publisher's buisness in a limo with American flags was not true. In reality, Kosinski had come downstairs from a meeting. No car was involved, yet Sloan kept the myth. Such disregard for his sources and perpetration of myth makes me wonder what else Sloan did not accurately explain.
For the reader casually interested in Kosinski, I encourage reading Sloan's work as it does explore Kosinski's life quite in depth. For the scholar of Kosinski, it's a useful addition to the library, but not the first one to be turned to for understanding.

I think Sloan's work is helpful but shouldn't be taken as final word. It's been awhile since I've read it but my impressions were that it was fair. I was disappointed to hear of all the controversy over Kosinki's use of translators. I've read all but his last, "The hermit of 69th street," before I'd heard of Sloan's book. The real question is why did he keep the use of translators a secret? In the end, it's still Kosinki's work and nobody can take that away from him, which is noted in Sloan's book. One other piece of criticism that bothered me was the questioning of fact versus fiction. And so I ask, what difference does it make? His seven novels were released as fiction, that is what a novel is. As far as I'm concerned, Kosinski covered his tracks with the word "novel." It sounds like petty jealousy to nitpick over something like that. Kosinski told brilliant stories and "Being There" was the most brilliant of ideas.

This is pretty classic Kosinski, not his best, but still all Kosinski. I first read this one in 1978. I thought at the time that this was a bit of literary experimentation, and still feel as such. I enjoyed it, but then I am a fan of this particular author. I am not sure if younger folks, i.e. those who did not live the 60s and 70s could get the proper feel of this work, but perhaps I a wrong here. Anyway, if for no other reason, it should be read. It is a good bit of literature and we could all probably learn something from it.

The format is unusual having no chapters but rather a series of short vignetts in first and third person voices with no set sequence as to their inclusion into the framework of the story. At first I found this style to be somewhat off putting but long before the end of the work I warmed to this method of story telling. Altogether Kosinski shows us his ability to engage the reader in what turns out to be a delightful read.

It seemed to me at the time I read it, that is was a journey into something, maybe depravity? And then I loaned it to someone else and while they had it I realized what that journey was in reference to me. ( all things obviously being subject to personal view based on experience and genetics ) It was about growing backwards, upside down, the definition of the tree itself. In the beginning, Whalen had the answers, he started as a complete person, and degenerated, grew backwards, almost as if he had been born a man and moved backwards into childhood confusion. He was continually losing himself, trying to lose himself. So perhaps it says that man is meant to be lost? to stay forever in childhood? he is meant to know only those things he is born with? Simplicity.

In Kosinski's DEVIL TREE the reader follows the life of Jonathan Whalen, looking for a clue to where this tale is headed. But this character study leads nowhere. It is the study of an anarchistic mind.

The tale has no chapters, no parts, no order, which is fine except that it also lacks any direction. The tale consisted of snippets possessing no rhyme nor reason. Bits of dreams were interlaced with grim anecdotes that the reader could only hope to be fictional. Jonathan was a terribly over-cerebral man, not unlike Kosinski himself. Jonathan was on a search to understand the substance of his past. He sought total control of his emotions but remained forever detached from these emotions. He even tried to control his periods of depression and sickness. Attending an encounter group was useless to him for all he could see , by himself & others, was role playing and dishonesty.

Jonathan could suck no nourishment from life. His slant on life was, 'most people are simply searching for an activity to label their existence.' Reared under the shadow of his fabulously rich father, who he only sought to appease, this same motive colored any relationship he tried with a woman. Never able to settle for being one person, he became an "in-between-man." He could stay neither hostile nor sympathetic toward anyone. Jonathan declared, "...living is an arbitrary matter and I have every right to renounce it." Happily, there was only one Kosinski!

'The Devil Tree' is a disappointing, messy read about a young man in the early 1970s trying to piece together his life after the deaths of his mega-wealthy industrialist parents. He wanders through the drug stage, the meaningless sex stage, and forever has bouts of "soul searching". But unfortunately this reader found him to be so unappealing that I gradually became disinterested in him altogether. The rather choppy literary style of Kosinski, an unfortunate departure from his terrific 'Being There', only made matters worse.


Bottom line: a rather burdensome and unenjoyable read.

Few books have made me as irritated as "Cockpit," as Kosinki episodically unravels one nightmare after another. There is just a minimal spine to hold the narrative togther (American spy becomes filthy rich through his manipulation of others), minimal dialogue, and no resolution of character or story line. And to think Kosinki also authored "Being There" and was (is) a university professor! Good thing I invested just a dollar at a used-book counter.

Each little scene is often interesting but if you're waiting and hoping that the whole thing comes together and makes some kind of sense, you'll be waiting a long time. For Kosinski, there are better choices...

I've used the opening of this darkly prophetic novel--told from the POV of a social terrorist interested only in exploring the depths of human evil like Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment--in countless workshops and seminars to illustrate that your protagonist's "sympathetic" nature doesn't mean we LIKE him. 'Sympathetic' in its Greek root suggests that we can "relate to," or "suffer with," a character and from the haunting opening lines that's exactly what causes us to turn the pages--a mixture of horror and our own voyeuristic tendencies.

As I read the book I kept hoping that at some point there would be a moment of enlightenment. That there would be a place where things fell together and started to make sense. Where I'd feel like all these snippets of a guy continuously bragging about his life would have greater purpose that would make me forgive the author's pure drive to shock the reader. Unfortunately this never occurred and at the end I found myself convinced that my time would have been better spent doing or reading just about anything.

Place a razor blade in your mouth and hold it there for a few hours. Shift it around carefully, mindful of its cool threat to your tender flesh. This is the experience of reading "Cockpit," which tempts and seduces, but ultimately mangles your sense of peace. Much like his earlier "Steps," the book turns on what the desperate (or the simply sick) resort to when there is little to lose. Although I became sick to my stomach at some of the violence portrayed here, the book is worthwhile - even quite interesting - at times. Not for the faint of heart.