Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
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Book Reviews of Being There
Book Review: Das Wunschbild: A Fable for our Times
Summary: 5 Stars
I first became aware of this book as the basis for the remarkable film starring Peter Sellers and Melvyn Douglas. Kosinskis book, however, is just as remarkable in its own right. The hero of the book is Chance, a mentally retarded adult who works as the gardener at the home of a wealthy retired New York lawyer. During the whole of his adult life, Chance has never left the house and garden; his only contact with the outside world is through television, which he watches obsessively. His life changes, however, when his employer dies, the house is sold and he is forced to leave. Chance is slightly injured when he is hit by a car belonging to Elizabeth Eve (EE), the wife of Benjamin Rand, a rich and influential Wall Street financier and a friend of the President. EE, mishearing Chance the gardener as Chauncey Gardiner and mistakenly believing Chance to be a successful businessman, invites him to stay with her and her husband at their home. A series of misunderstandings leads all concerned to believe that Chance is not only a businessman but also an economic prophet. He is invited to speak on national television where he talks about the only thing he understands, gardening. A series of platitudes about the changing of the seasons in the garden is taken to be an extended metaphor forecasting an upturn in the economy, and his supposed optimism strikes a chord with the viewing public. The book ends with the elderly, terminally ill, Rand about to name Chance as his heir and successor, and the President about to nominate him as his vice-presidential running-mate.
The book is short, a novella rather than a novel, of around 100 pages. The style is direct, simple and like a fable. It has been interpreted as a satire on the role of television in the modern age or on the American political system. Those elements are certainly present and were emphasised more in the film than in the book. (In Britain the film was widely taken to be a direct attack on the Reagan administration, even though it was actually made during the Carter years but not released here until after the presidential election). The significance of the book, however, is a deeper one.
In the film, Peter Sellers portrayed Chance as a lonely, pitiable character in late middle age, young only by comparison with his aged employer and the ageing Rand. It is an affecting performance, but subtly different from the Chance of Kosinskis book. Kosinskis Chance is relatively young, good-looking and emotionally detached from his surroundings. This detachment allows others to treat him as what in German would be called a Wunschbild, that is to say a picture of ones wishes, a blank canvas onto which one can paint ones own desires. Each of the other characters sees in the supposed Chauncey Gardiner whatever he or she wishes to see. Rand, who has no children with EE and who is estranged from the children of his first marriage, sees him as a potential successor to his business empire and almost as an adopted son. EE, sexually frustrated in a marriage to a much older man, sees him as a lover and a possible second husband after Rands death. The President sees him as the ideal candidate for Vice-President, a position he has been struggling to fill. The Soviet Ambassador to the UN sees him as a liberal, Russophile capitalist who will use his influence to further east-west relations. The American TV audience see him as the man who will lead them out of recession and into prosperity.
The book certainly is, in part, a commentary on the television age. It certainly is, in part, a political satire. (We can all think of politicians who have the ability to be all things to all men). Most importantly, however, it is a brilliant fable on the human capacity for self-delusion and for seeing others not for what they are but for what we would wish them to be.
Book Review: Magnificently Wicked Satire, as True Today as Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
BEING THERE is an absolute gem, a book worth reading at least once a decade to take a sounding of the world around you. In the childlike, tabula rasa of a simple-minded gardener named Chance, Kosinski has created a complex character who is both sponge and mirror. Out of "Chance, the gardener" comes Chauncey Gardiner, a man whose entire existence in the home and employment of the Old Man has been framed by what he has seen and absorbed from television and learned from his simple gardening job. Unable to read or write, his every action is refracted through the lens of his television "experience." Yet when Chance is unexpectedly released to the world at large as a result of the Old Man's (arguably his father's) death, he becomes a walking mirror, silenting reflecting back at everyone he meets that which they most want to hear and believe about him, and about themselves. More than Woody Allen's Zelig or Winston Groom's (and Tom Hanks's) Forrest Gump, Chance is the perfect empty vessel, the ultimate "other" whom we can each mold into exactly what we most want him to be.
A "chance" coincidence lands an impeccably-dressed Chauncey in the hands of an aging but wealthy and influential financier named Benjamin Rand and his wife, EE, and their social and political connections soon put Chauncey in contact with the President, foreign ambassadors, television and the press. Gardiner's answers to questions draw upon his gardening knowledge, making them sound like profound parables and metaphors with unusually direct aptness and an almost Biblical depth of meaning. His listeners of course hear what they want to hear, and soon Chauncey Gardiner is a national celebrity and rising star in the world of commerce and even politics.
Reading BEING THERE today, it seems hard to believe that Jerzy Kosinski wrote this wickedly funny short parable back in 1970. He was remarkably, albeit sadly, prescient. Consider the American situation today: vicarious thrill-seeking (Fear Factor, The Survivor) and ersatz depictions of reality (The Apprentice, The Loser, The Bachelor, The Contender) fill our television screens, we elevate the most brainless, talentless, or shameless people (Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, William Hung, Loreena Bobbit, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson) to celebrity status, we look to pop cult advisors for guidance in our personal and cultural lives (Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, Oprah, Martha Stewart), and we elect (twice!) a President infamous for his intellectual dullness, lack of curiosity, ignorance of facts, disdain for newspapers and reading, and utter incapacity to string three spontaneous sentences together to express a meaningful original thought.
If you don't believe BEING THERE remains a dead-on satire of American life and political culture, refer to Ron Suskind's discussion with a senior official in the Bush Administration (New York Times, 10/17/04) who asserted that guys like him (Suskind), opponents of this Administration, live "in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." Sadly, Jerzy Kosinski died in 1991, but wherever he is, he's undoubtedly laughing his head off.
Chauncey Gardiner for President in 2008?
Book Review: Take a chance on being there with...Chance!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
+++++
This short fiction fable was written by author and professor Jerzy Kosinski (1933 to 1991).
This comedy-drama is about a man named Chance, the gardener of a small estate that he has lived and worked on all his life. (In fact, he has never left the estate because all his needs, even meals, were provided for.) When the owner (the "old man") of the estate dies, the truthful, well groomed, well dressed but illiterate Chance is evicted.
Chance knows only about three things: gardening (his passion), watching television, and the environment of the estate where he lived and worked. That's it!!
By "chance," he becomes involved with a very successful but dying businessman and his wife. The businessman is economic advisor to the US president. Everything that Chance says is misinterpreted as profound and sage wisdom. (Even his name is misinterpreted from Chance, the gardener to "Chauncey Gardiner.")
Chance or Chauncey becomes famous in the span of a few days and he is seen as an "educated man" who can "grasp things quickly" and, among other things, soon becomes a presidential political advisor, and a media icon. He also becomes romantically involved (though he doesn't know it) with the businessman's wife.
Here's a bit of "wisdom" that Chance passes on to the president when the president asks him about the bad US economy:
"In a garden...growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well."
The president's unexpected response to this wisdom: "I must admit, Mr. Gardiner...that what you've just said is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time...Many of us forget that nature and society are one!"
The very ending of this book has Chance famous. Despite his international fame, there is only one main thing on his mind. The very ending of this book ends with the following:
"Chance...stepped into the garden. Taut branches laden with fresh shoots, slender stems with tiny sprouting buds shot upward. The garden lay calm, still sunk in repose...Now and then, boughs rustled and gently shook off their drops of water. A breeze fell upon the foliage and nestled under the cover of its moist leaves. Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest."
Finally, there is a movie called "Being There" (1979) starring the late Peter Sellers as Chance. (That's Sellers as Chance on the front cover of this book.) This movie's screenplay was written by Kosinski. Even though this movie differs in some respects from the book, it's still a great movie. Sellers gives a stand-out performance, perhaps one of the best in his interesting career.
In conclusion, this is a unique novel that presents a different type of story--a story not to be missed!!!
(first published 1970; 7 chapters; main narrative 140 pages)
+++++
Book Review: The Meteoric Holy Fool Strikes Again!
Summary: 5 Stars
Chance is the sixty-something gardener in an old man's estate. He has never left the grounds of the estate in his entire life, being rather slow. Yet, although he's not the brightest proverbial bulb on the proverbial Christmas tree, Chance is pleasant, polite, and anxious not to offend. When he is thrust out into the world, due to the old man's unexpected demise, these traits serve him well. People like him, automatically. People trust him, instinctively. Through a series of extremely unlikely coincidences, Chance finds himself hobnobbing with the president of the U.S., and giving him advice on economic matters, albeit in singularly vague terms. His advise, however, does always seem to contain a sort of metaphorical wisdom, and before he knows what's happening, pundits are falling all over each other to be the one to interpret his oracular utterances.This book claims to be a modern fable, discussing the power of the media to shape our notions of leadership, etc, but I think it speaks to a deeper issue -- the role of outsiders in general, and how we project our hopes and fears onto them. It's also about a certain kind of fear, by which I mean the fear we all experience of having to admit to ourselves that we strongly suspect that nine times out of ten our elected officials are just full-court-bluffing their way through life, and are every bit as clueless and scared as the rest of us. In this case, due to Chance's refreshingly childish innocence, the Emperor not only has no clothes, but he doesn't even understand that people want to BELIEVE that he does.
If anyone's interested in buying a similar sort of story for their children, I'd like to recommend the story "Nazar the Brave," which is in a collection of Armenian folktales called "Once There Was and Was Not," compiled and retold by Virginia Tashjian. It's a great little story, just like "Being There." Two thumbs up.
Book Review: The Meteoric Holy Fool Strikes Again!
Summary: 5 Stars
Chance is the sixty-something gardener in an old man's estate. He has never left the grounds of the estate in his entire life, being rather slow. Yet, although he's not the brightest proverbial bulb on the proverbial Christmas tree, Chance is pleasant, polite, and anxious not to offend. When he is thrust out into the world, due to the old man's unexpected demise, these traits serve him well. People like him, automatically. People trust him, instinctively. Through a series of extremely unlikely coincidences, Chance finds himself hobnobbing with the president of the U.S., and giving him advice on economic matters, albeit in singularly vague terms. His advise, however, does always seem to contain a sort of metaphorical wisdom, and before he knows what's happening, pundits are falling all over each other to be the one to interpret his oracular utterances.This book claims to be a modern fable, discussing the power of the media to shape our notions of leadership, etc, but I think it speaks to a deeper issue -- the role of outsiders in general, and how we project our hopes and fears onto them. It's also about a certain kind of fear, by which I mean the fear we all experience of having to admit to ourselves that we strongly suspect that nine times out of ten our elected officials are just full-court-bluffing their way through life, and are every bit as clueless and scared as the rest of us. In this case, due to Chance's refreshingly childish innocence, the Emperor not only has no clothes, but he doesn't even understand that people want to BELIEVE that he does.
If anyone's interested in buying a similar sort of story for their children, I'd like to recommend the story "Nazar the Brave," which is in a collection of Armenian folktales compiled and retold by Virginia Tashjian. It's a great little story, just like "Being There." Two thumbs up.