Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
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Book Reviews of Being There
Book Review: We are surrounded, perhaps governed, by Chances
Summary: 4 Stars
Governed, in the widest sense. This brilliant satire is right on the money as it portraits the culture we live in: real thought is neglected; superficial perception is all. I won't summarize the plot, for other reviewers have done it well. I will insist in something very sad, but perhaps unevitable: Kosinski's message was enjoyed, but not really listened to. We still elect Chances; we still believe what they say on TV; we still track down their every step (how they went shopping; who they married; what liposuctions they got). The real thinkers are almost abandoned, their work covered by dust in libraries and museums. And the saddest thing, in the book, is that all of it is not Chance's guilt: he just talks about what he knows: the garden and TV, and it is the Confederacy of Dunces that surrounds him who elevate him to a media icon and presidential adviser. The clarity of the message should be growing fastly, since the society portrayed in the book is getting more and more real. I wonder if it is too late to get it: the media society is taking away from us the time to think and reflect, and so find solutions to our problems. The tragedy is that every time a thinker becomes a public figure, and so gets the opportunity to act, the system eats them and transform them into "celebrities": ....Book Review: Kosinski's media critizism
Summary: 4 Stars
The novella ?Being there" is about the gardener Chance who lives completely isolated at the Old Man's house until he dies. Only educated through TV he has to manage his life on his own and is involved into a car accident and meets EE and Ben Rand, a successful chairman of the Board of the First American Financial Co. They help him to climb up the ladder of success until he is a popular man brought up by media.The novella is unreal and the story seems to be far fetched. But if you rate the novella with regard to what Kosinski's intention was the book becomes better and better. That media is controlling our lives and that this controlling is increasing, that's the main point of Kosinski. It's of course extremly exaggerated but it is a vision of what media might be like in a couple of years or is already today. The story itself could be a bit more detailed and comprehensive because the story moves on too rapidly which makes it more unreal. It seems that the story itself is full of symbols, metaphors, etc. but that's not important to him. He only cares about his message or his warning which he wants to give to the reader. The story is just the medium to explain and to underline it. I think it is worth reading the novella.
Book Review: The A-Level course review
Summary: 4 Stars
Book Review - `Being There'`Being There' by Jerzy Kosinski London:Black Swan(1983), 1st Bodley Head(1971); 111p.; 21 DM
Chance, the protagonist, an orphan , is socially and emotionally underdeveloped, because he never had any social contacts to the outside world. As he was absolutely occupied by TV and the garden his life changes completely from his little world to reality. Through a coincidence, a car accident, he met EE, a rich wife of a financial businessman, who helped him on his way to become a media model. Because he has never known reality he behaves like he has seen it on TV, an his behaviour seems to be successful.
The book `Being There' catches the reader's attention because of it's interesting topic which is still up to date. The characters in the story are described in a more and more realistic way until the end and thus makes the content more and more plausible. At first the content seems to be totally unrealistic, but when you think about that what the author wants to tell us you'll see that it's only an exaggerated story with true content. The text itself is written in an understandable language so that the book can be read fluently.
Book Review: Chance, the hero
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a modern novel about a stupid man being a gardener all his life and so never gone out of the house of the man, where he has lived all his life.Going out of the house for the first time, he was flung into the "real world". After being injured by the limousine of E.E., he gets his first new friends - E.E. and his husband Mr. Rand. And then his career begins.Meeting the president, TV-shows and interviews will be normal in his daylife.This is an amousing novel full of sex, money and power. It is based on the two main elements garden and TV. The hero of this story - Chance - is very child-like and does not know how to react in the "new real world".
If you read the first chapters, they seems to be very boring.But if you go on reading, it becomes more and more interesting and funny.But this you all have to find out alone!!!
Sometimes the novel is difficult to understand, but you will understand it, if you go on reading. Chance, the hero, speaks in a very childish way, what makes the story very amousing. He influence you by his way of speaking. You will get an other oppinion to your life, after you have read the novel!
Book Review: A gardener in politics
Summary: 4 Stars
Chance, the mentally handicapped hero of this story, has spent all his life working in the garden. Having never been on the other side of the wall surrounding the house he is living in, he has learned everything he knows about the world and its people from TV. Suddenly launched into the real world, dominated by money and power, Chance accidentally becomes a media superstar. Due to his metaphorical speeches about nature, wrongly interpreted as political statements by everybody, he becomes very popular. His road to success leads him straight to the top. Will Chance's emergence find its end in being the next President of the United States of America?“Being There“ is a well written satire criticizing American society and the media in particular. Although this novel is fiction, Kosinski included some personal experience he gained. “Being There“ partly is an imaginative projection of his life. Connecting both, satirical and thrilling elements, Kosinski created a story which is worth to be read. The image of modern society mirrored by this novel will still survive in your mind when putting the book down.