{"id":71,"date":"2005-03-18T17:54:25","date_gmt":"2005-03-19T01:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2005\/03\/17\/jerzy-kosinskis-being-there\/"},"modified":"2007-04-22T20:06:32","modified_gmt":"2007-04-23T03:06:32","slug":"jerzy-kosinskis-being-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2005\/03\/jerzy-kosinskis-being-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerzy Kosinski\u2019s \u201cBeing There\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jerzy Kos\u00adin\u00adski\u2019s Being There<\/em><\/a> was a reas\u00adon\u00adably pop\u00adu\u00adlar book\u00adclub book, at least in part because it\u2019s short and thus most people could read it in full (and some even read it twice!). Sev\u00ader\u00adal of us had also seen the film<\/a> (screen\u00adplay also by Jerzy Kos\u00adin\u00adski). Reac\u00adtions to the book at book\u00adclub var\u00adied, from those who found it deeply pro\u00adfound to those (includ\u00ading me) who did\u00adn\u2019t quite get it and wer\u00aden\u2019t sure what they were meant to \u201cget\u201d either.<\/p>\n

A brief syn\u00adop\u00adsis: Chance is a sim\u00adpleton who works as a garden\u00ader for an old man (rela\u00adtion\u00adship unspe\u00adcified) and spends his spare time watch\u00ading tele\u00advi\u00adsion. His exist\u00adence is com\u00adpletely unknown out\u00adside of the house and garden where he lives and works (no birth cer\u00adti\u00adfic\u00adate, no record of exist\u00adence any\u00adwhere), and when the Old Man dies, the law\u00adyers who take pos\u00adses\u00adsion of the prop\u00aderty evict him. Through luck, Chance is taken into the house of a rich, influ\u00aden\u00adtial couple, who assume he is someone of know\u00adledge and power because of his calmness and the high qual\u00adity of the hand-me-down clothes from the Old Man. His state\u00adments about life in the garden are assumed to be deeply mean\u00ading\u00adful alleg\u00ador\u00adies; his know\u00adledge of human beha\u00adviour as shown on tele\u00advi\u00adsion meshes with the expect\u00ada\u00adtions of those around him, and he is feted by both report\u00aders and politicians.<\/p>\n

Reviews on Amazon talk about the bit\u00ading satire evid\u00adenced in the book; the book\u00adclub mem\u00adbers spent more time talk\u00ading about the meta\u00adphors. Chance goes from being lit\u00ader\u00adally nobody, with no iden\u00adti\u00adfic\u00ada\u00adtion, and no real name, to some\u00adbody import\u00adant simply due to luck \u2014 an exag\u00adger\u00adated ver\u00adsion of Andy War\u00adhol\u2019s 15 minutes of fame. People see in him what they wish to see \u2014 the wife of the busi\u00adness\u00adman invents a romantic past for him, the Soviet Ambas\u00adsad\u00ador thinks he speaks Rus\u00adsi\u00adan and under\u00adstands Krylov, the US<\/span> Pres\u00adid\u00adent con\u00adsiders him as the next can\u00addid\u00adate for Vice-Pres\u00adid\u00adent \u2014 des\u00adpite there being no actu\u00adal basis for any of these assumptions. <\/p>\n

I found the book rather too over the top for my taste; the film was bet\u00adter and more detailed. Peter Sellers made Chance believ\u00adable where the book shows the holes in the fable. Oth\u00ader book\u00adclub mem\u00adbers loved the book though and enjoyed fig\u00adur\u00ading out the meta\u00adphors and won\u00adder\u00ading which bits of the book were inspired by which parts of Jerzy Kos\u00adin\u00adski\u2019s life. We spent a bit of time dis\u00adcuss\u00ading what changes would have been required in the book were it writ\u00adten today, rather than in 1971. Tele\u00advi\u00adsion is a lot less coy now and Chance\u2019s reac\u00adtions to the attemp\u00adted seduc\u00adtions might be dif\u00adfer\u00adent. All in all, I\u2019d rather see the film again than read the book again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jerzy Kos\u00adin\u00adski\u2019s Being There was a reas\u00adon\u00adably pop\u00adu\u00adlar book\u00adclub book, at least in part because it\u2019s short and thus most people could read it in full (and some even read it twice!). Sev\u00ader\u00adal of us had also seen the film (screen\u00adplay also by Jerzy Kos\u00adin\u00adski). Reac\u00adtions to the book at book\u00adclub var\u00adied, from those who \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cJerzy Kosinski\u2019s \u201cBeing There\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}