Steps: Amazon.ca: Jerzy N. Kosinski: Books

Product Description

A portrayal of men and women both aroused and desensitized by an environment that disdains the individual and seeks control over the imagination. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Kosinski'saptures the disturbing undercurrents of modern politics and culture. Distinctions are eroded between oppressor and oppressed, perpetrator and victim, narcissism and anonymity. "Vignette after vignette stays in the memory."--Hugh Kenner, New York Times Book Review. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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First Sentence
I WAS TRAVELING farther south. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
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Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars imagination gone wild, Dec 29 2003

By

michelle (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steps (Paperback)

Some imaginations are almost too much, even for me, and for that, it is impossible for me to give "Steps" a rating higher than two stars.

However, this book did not win the National Book Award on accident.

Kosinski's work is so good, it's almost hypnotic; and, as you read through each dark episode, it seems almost certain that this author weighed each word to produce the exact amount of tension for each scene. The language and structure is poetry, and Kosinski's choice of the erotic and the sexual adds as a certain amount of chaos to his text, enabling him to construct his book without any sense of time. Additionally, by focusing on sex, he chooses a subject that is universal and knows no divisions of class, gender, religion or race. The totalitarian government and the victim, the oppressed and the oppressor, are therefore merged.

What is this book really about? The passage where I think Kosinski best answers this is when he writes, "Many of us could easily visualize ourselves in the act of killing, but few of us could project ourselves into the act of being killed in any manner. We did our best to understand the murder: the murderer was a part of our lives; not so the victim." Could Kosinski have written about this same topic without the bestiality or the rape? Of course. Would it have been as effective? Would you remember it? Probably not.

This book was written to stir up uneasy images. It is meant to disturb you. And I think that in this, at least, it succeeds.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Americans..., Aug 3 2003

By

Karlos Marxus (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steps (Paperback)

This may be a little deviant for you. Perhaps the new Ann Coulter book would be a better choice.

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