Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.65 You Save: $5.35 (41%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.64 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Being There
Book Review: Very easy to understand
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is well written by Jerzy Kosinski. It is a good book which reminds us of the role the media play in our society. We are controlled by media and the book shows it very well. A man without any special abilities is pushed to the top by the media.Book Review: Very easy to understand
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was well done made by Jerzy Kosinski. It was a good book which remebers us to the role which the media in our society has. We are controlled by media and the book shows it very well. A man without any special is pushed by media to the top.Book Review: A disturbing reflection on society
Summary: 3 Stars
Every few years I take in a dose of Kosinski, and his time rolled around again, and I chose "Being There." That the novel is disturbing should not be surprising giving Kosinski's body of work. What is surprising about this slender book is the way in which it is disturbing. There is no chilling, psychologically twisted character here. There is, equally, no brutality, of a sexual nature or otherwise. In fact, Chance, the main character, is indeed an innocent -- he has spent his entire life tending to a garden and otherwise confined to one room. He has only interacted with two other people in his entire life -- The Old Man, who took him in when he was just a child, and a maid in the house they live in. And those interactions were minimal at best. Everything that Chance knows about life he has learned by watching television. It is not Chance who is the disturbing factor of this book (however, the confinements under which he lived his life is certainly disturbing); as the story unfolds, we quickly realize that it is the society around Chance which is disturbed -- the society each and every one of us live in. And to the extent that the parable is true, it is a chilling view of ourselves that we see. Unfortunately, the book doesn't hold up the longer it goes on, and, in the end, it becomes a parody of itself more than a satire of society at large. When the "old man" who took Chance in takes ill and dies, Chance is unceremoniously thrown out of the only home he's ever known. Wearing one of the old man's tailored suits, he leaves the house and is almost immediately struck by a limousine belonging to a rich society type, Elizabeth Eve Rand ("EE"). She takes him home to be evaluated by the doctors who are caring for her much older sick husband, and he ends up becoming their permanent house guest. As Chance, who is dubbed Chancey Gardner by EE, interacts with the household and its visitors, he relies heavily on the only thing he knows of human interactions -- what he's observed of them on tv. Whenever it is necessary to socialize, he recalls a similar situation he's seen on tv, and mimics. The only topic he ever talks about is gardening, as it is the only thing he knows. So, when he tells the President of the United States, who is visiting Mr. Rand, of the annual birth, death and rebirth of a garden, his statement is taken as a metaphor on the state of the economy, and suddenly a business man and financial advisor is born. Chauncey is hounded by the media, becoming a guest on news programs and interacting with chancellors and ambassadors at social functions. He continues his "metaphor" whenever he speaks, and he is deemed a brilliant by his observers. He has become a full blown celebrity.
That this simpleton becomes a celebrated business advisor, via the machinations of the media, is certainly a strong statement by Kosinksi. And while the novel is disturbing in this regard -- and there's no escaping that it is -- I ultimately found it a bit repetitive, a bit shallow in its own development as a story. It's a wonderful premise and, probably, an important book. However, it begins to fall flat the longer it goes on, not finding any new ground to cover once its point is made. Still, a book that deserves a reading.
Book Review: Rare case of Movie being better than the book
Summary: 3 Stars
I have long been a fan of the movie "Being There," so out of curiousity I picked up this book. First thing I noticed was that it was only about 130 pages, minus a few blanks between chapters, with not many words per page. From there I was somewhat disappointed at the character development which somehow was better pulled off in the movie. I think Peter Sellers is "to blame" for this because he added so many nuances to the main character through his economy of gestures and complete involvement in the project. I also much preferred the Eve movie character to EE of the book because the screenplay and her acting fleshed out her vulnerability much more. An example of this being her telling Chauncey that she is a "shy person," before trying to be intimate with him. I was also disappointed to find out that there was no Street Gang episode nor was there Louise's reaction to Chauncey's being on television. These two scenes, aside from the "I like to watch" scene, were some of the funniest in the picture. Last, but certainly not least, was the somewhat mysterious walking on water scene at the end of the movie which ended the picture on such a sublime note where in the book it is just politicians babbling over the next VP, before going back to the nature metaphors. Seems like the author, since he also cowrote the screenplay, did better on his second take with this idea and by combining it with the talents of Shirley Maclane, Melvyn Douglass, Hal Ashby, and Peter Sellers made it into a comedy classic.
BTW the only other picture I can say that was better than the book it was based on was "Lost Horizon," but that movie is in its own category altogether.
Book Review: Other reviewers miss the point
Summary: 3 Stars
During the time period portrayed by the book, people would hide and not acknowledge their retarded offspring. The author goes to great lengths to show physical similarities between the "old man" and Chauncey "the gardener". The old man's discarded clothing fit Chauncey absolutely perfectly as if they were tailored for Chauncey. Chauncey was not listed as an employee. No one knew who Chauncey's father was. There was no records for Chauncey. People of that time period were not known for taking in retarded strangers, the retarded were either institutionalized or otherwise hidden away. Not even the old man's business parter knew about Chauncey. The only possible explaination for these facts would be that Chauncey was the old man's child. Otherwise you would have to credit the old man, a retired lawyer, of having Chauncey working in his house as a gardener for over 40 years, starting when Chauncey was a little boy, as unpaid slave labor. At the end of the book, Chauncey is himself an old man visiting his garden, just like the "old man" used to do (another parallel drawn by the author). When reading this book, please keep it in perspective of the time period that is represented.