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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #311461 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From the Inside Flap
A portrayal of men and women both aroused and desensitized by an environment that disdains the individual and seeks control over the imagination.

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece
Kosinski, or the Kosinski committee or whatever it was (Paul Auster is one of many who claim to have been paid to 'fix up' his early drafts), wrote some psychologically fascinating and beautifully written stuff (The Painted Bird, Steps, and to a lesser extent, Cockpit and The Devil Tree) and some really bad stuff (Pinball, The Hermit of Whatever-it-was-th Street). This is probably the best of them all. Buy it.

imagination gone wild
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.

JUST A BIT OVER THE TOP FOR MY TASTE.
I am a Kosinski fan. I like his writing and enjoy reading his books. This one though, to be quite frank, was just a bit too much for me. Now don't take me wrong, I still feel the writing skills were present. This author can indeed write. I just could not for the life of me get into the subject matter. Rape, sexual degradation, beastiality and on and on and on! The author addresses some pretty horrible stuff with this one. It is like looking into the mind of one really sick puppy. Of course we all have our little sexual day dreams but I suppose mine simply are not the authors or anywhere near them. I am sure that some of mine are probably just as off beat, but I hope they are not quite as twisted, but hey, they are mine and I will deal with them. That being said, I still am giving it four stars as I do feel it is a good bit of writing..not the author's best, by far, but still quite good. I suppose this is one of those books that some will find fascinating, while other will simply not like. Thank goodness we have choices. I am glad this one is still in print as it should indeed be available for those who choose to read it.