Being There – Jerzy Kosinski, Hal Ashby & Peter Sellers

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    Photo via Jerzy Kosinski
    Who was Jerzy Kosinski? (Previous post)

    Jerzy Kosinski was born on June 14, 1933. He was an award-winning Polish-American novelist, best known for the novels The Painted Bird (1965) and Being There (1971), the latter of which was adapted into a film in 1979.

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    Hal Ashby directed Being There.

  • Philip Roth on Jerzy Kosinski –

    In the end, I don’t understand Jerzy Kosinski. At some level, he must have judged his life as successful. Using his talent, wits, boldness and determination, he went far, if you consider the boy growing up under the most menacing of shadows. Was he happy? There is so much darkness in his novels, I wonder how much brightness there was in his life (inside him, in the place he kept hidden). I am left with a sense of pity, which I’m sure he would not want me to feel. He would prefer respect. And I can grant him that.

  • Jerzey

    David Foster Wallace described Steps as a “collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that’s like nothing else anywhere ever”. Wallace continued in praise: “Only Kafka’s fragments get anywhere close to where Kosiński goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined.

    Polish Children