Steps

By Jerzy Kosinski

This National Book Award–winning novel of power, libido, and morality is “a powerful and profoundly disturbing book” (The New York Times).
 
First published in 1968, Jerzy Kosinski’s classic vision of moral and sexual estrangement captured the deviant undercurrents of the era’s politics and culture. In this haunting novel, distinctions are eroded between oppressor and oppressed, perpetrator and victim, narcissism and anonymity. Kosinski portrays men and women both aroused and desensitized by an environment that disdains the individual and seeks control over the imagination.
 
“Céline and Kafka stand behind this accomplished art” from the celebrated author of The Painted Bird and Being There (The New York Times Book Review).
 
“A collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that’s like nothing else anywhere ever.” —David Foster Wallace
 
“Kosinski’s prose is perfect to his purpose, efficient, detached, lucid as a gem, wholly in command.” —The New York Times
 
“By some miracle of training, which recalls the linguistic bravado of Conrad and Nabokov, he is already a master of pungent and disciplined English prose. Simply as a stylist, Kosinski has few equals among American novelists born to the language. And I have also become convinced, after reading Steps, that he is one of the most gifted new figures to appear in our literature for some years.” —Irving Howe, Harper’s
 
“A beautifully written book. It is precise, scrupulous, and poetic. I can think of few writers who are able to so persuasively describe an event, set a scene, communicate an emotion.” —Geoffrey Wolff, New Leader

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9780802195746

Book preview

TO MY FATHER, a mild man

For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the uncontrolled is there the power of concentration; and for him without concentration there is no peace. And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?

THE BHAGAVADGITA

STEPS

I WAS TRAVELING farther south. The villages were small and poor; each time I stopped in one, a crowd gathered around my car and the children followed my every move.

I decided to spend a couple of days in a bare whitewashed village to rest and have my clothes washed and mended. The woman who undertook the job for me explained that she could get it done promptly and efficiently because she employed a helper—a young orphan girl who had to support herself. She pointed to a girl staring at us from a window.

When I returned to collect my laundry the next day, I met the girl in the front room. She only occasionally lifted up her eyes to me. Whenever our eyes met, she would attempt to conceal her interest in me by bending her head lower and lower over her sewing.

While I was transferring some of my documents to the pocket of my freshly pressed jacket, I noticed the curiosity with which she glanced at the plastic credit cards I had placed momentarily on the table. I asked her if she knew what they were; she replied that she had never seen anything like them before. I told her that with any one of these cards one could buy furniture, bed linen, kitchenware, food, clothing, stockings, shoes, handbags, perfumes, or almost anything else one wanted without paying any money.

Nonchalantly I continued explaining to her that I could also use my cards in the most expensive stores in the nearby town, that just to show them would be enough to have food served to me in any restaurant, that I could stay in the best hotels, and that I could do all this for myself as well as for anyone else I chose. I added that because I liked her and thought she looked nice, and because I sensed that she was being mistreated by her employer, I would like to take her away with me. I f she wished, she could stay with me as long as she liked.

Still without looking at me she asked, as if wanting to be reassured, whether she would need to have any money. Again I told her that neither she nor I would need any money provided we had the cards with us and wanted to use them. I promised her that the two of us would travel to different cities and even countries; she wouldn’t have to work or do anything other than take care of herself, I would buy her anything she’d want, she could wear beautiful clothes and look lovely for me and change her hair styles or even the color of her hair as often as she wished. For this to come about, I said, all she had to do was to leave her house late that night without a word to anyone and meet me at the road sign on the out* skirts of the village. Upon reaching the big town, I assured her, a letter would be sent to her employer explaining that like so many girls before her, she had left home in order to find a job in the big city. Finally I told her I would be waiting for her that night, and I very much hoped she would come.

The credit cards lay on the table. She got up and stared at them with reverence in which disbelief mingled; she stretched her right hand forward as if to touch them, but quickly withdrew it I picked up a card and handed it to her. She held it gingerly between her fingers like a sacramental wafer, raising it to the light to inspect the numbers and letters printed on it

That evening I parked my car in some bushes several yards from the road sign. Before it grew completely dark, many carts passed on their way from the market to the village, but no one noticed me.

Suddenly the girl appeared from behind me, short of breath and frightened, clutching a bundle of her belongings. I opened the car door, and without a word, beckoned her into the rear seat I started the engine promptly, and only after we had left the village did I slow down and tell her that she was now free and that her days of poverty were over. She sat very quietly for a while and then, uncertain, asked me if I still had my cards. I removed them from my pocket and handed them to her. A few minutes later I could no longer see her head in the rear-view mirror: she had fallen asleep.

We arrived in the city late the next morning. She awoke and glued her face to the window, watching the traffic. Suddenly she touched my arm, pointing to the large department store we were passing. She would like to find out, she said, whether it was true that my cards exercised more power than money did. I parked the car.

Inside the store she clung to my arm, and I felt the palm of her hand damp from excitement She had never been in the city before, she confessed, nor even in a small town, and she couldn’t believe so many people could gather in one place and yet leave so many things still to be bought She pointed at dresses she liked, and she agreed to my few suggestions of the things that would be most becoming for her. Assisted by two shopgirls who looked at my companion with obvious envy, we selected several pairs of shoes, gloves, stockings, some underwear, a number of dresses and handbags, and a coat

Now she was even more frightened. When I asked her whether she was afraid that my cards could not pay for all that we had chosen, she tried to deny her fear at first, then finally admitted it Why, she asked me, would so many people in her village labor all their lives to earn enough money to pay for all we had bought, when I, who was not a famous soccer player or movie star, not even a prelate, seemed to have no need of any money at all to acquire everything I wanted.

When all our purchases were packed, I handed the cashier one of the cards; she thanked me politely, disappeared for a moment, and then came back and returned the card with the bill of sale. My friend stood behind me, eager to grab the box but still afraid to do so.

We left the store. When we got into the car, the girl opened the package and looked over her things, touching them, sniffing them, touching them again, closing and opening the box. As I drove off, she began to try on the shoes and gloves. We pulled up in front of a small hotel and went inside. Disregarding the hotel clerk’s knowing glance, I requested a suite of adjoining rooms. My luggage was carried upstairs, but the girl insisted on carrying the box herself, as though fearing it might be taken from her.

In the suite, she went to her room to change and returned dressed in a new gown. She paraded in front of me, moving awkwardly in her new high-heeled shoes, looking at herself in the mirror, returning to her room again and again to try the other outfits.

The remaining packages containing various articles of underwear were delivered by the store in the late afternoon. By then the girl was slightly giddy from the wine we had drunk at lunch, and now, as if trying to impress me with her newly acquired worldliness she must have learned from film and glamour magazines, she stood before me, her hands on her hips, her tongue moistening her lips, and her unsteady gaze seeking out my own.

There were several of us, all archeological assistants, working on one of the islands with a professor who for years had been excavating remnants of an ancient civilization that had flourished fifteen centuries before our era.

It was an advanced civilization, the professor claimed, but at some point a massive catastrophe had wiped it out. He had challenged the prevailing theory that a disastrous earthquake, followed by a tidal wave, had struck the island. We were collecting fragments of pottery, sifting through ashes for the remains of artifacts, and unearthing building materials, all of which the professor catalogued as evidence to support his as yet unpublished work.

After a month I decided to leave the excavations and visit a neighboring island. In my haste to catch the ferry I left without my paycheck, but I obtained the promise that it would be forwarded on the next mail skiff. I could live for one day on the money I had with me.

After arriving I spent the entire day sightseeing. The island was dominated by a dormant volcano, its broad slopes covered with porous lava rock, weathered to form a poor but arable soil.

I walked down to the harbor; an hour before sunset, when the air was cooling, the fishing boats put out for the night I watched them slide over the calm almost waveless water until their long, low forms vanished from sight The islands suddenly lost the light reflected from their rocky spines and grew stark and black. And then, as though drawn silently beneath the surface, they disappeared one by one.

On the morning of the second day I went down to the quay to meet the mail skiff. To my consternation my paycheck had not arrived. I stood on the dock, wondering how I was going to live and whether I would even be able to leave the island. A few fishermen sat by their nets, watching me; they sensed that something was wrong. Three of them approached and spoke to me. Not understanding, I replied in the two languages I knew: their faces became sullen and hostile, and they abruptly turned away. That evening I took my sleeping bag down to the beach and slept on the sand.

In the morning I spent the last of my money on a cup of coffee. After strolling up the winding streets behind the port, I walked through the scrubby fields to the nearest village. The villagers sat in the shade, covertly watching me. Hungry and thirsty, I returned to the beach again, walking beneath a blazing sun. I had nothing to barter for food or money: no watch, no fountain pen, no cuff links, no camera, no

Reviews for Steps

[enriquefreeque · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second coming of The Marquis de Sade. Albeit a far less sexually explicit, but no less sadistic de Sade.Who is this twisted first person narrator guiding us through this sordid collection of demented anecdotes and mostly vile (if not violent) vignettes? Is it Kosinsky? Is it us?Did this, whatever this - Steps - is, truly win the National Book Award in 1969? Yes. It's not a novel, but at 146 pages I wouldn't call it a novella, either. Short story collection? Not by a long shot. So, what is it?It's loosely connected, pieced-together, malevolent, merciless episodes following the (s)exploits of one twisted, wicked man, hell bent on punishing his persecutors (whether they've indeed persecuted him or not) and even if it means tricking their children into swallowing fishhook-embedded balls of bread dough whole, so that they'll die excruciatingly agonizing slow deaths later...I loved it! Er, loved it like I "love" witnessing torture.Kosinsky seemed to delight in torturing his readers by evoking in us (or at least attempting to) pleasurable reactions from sick perverted scenarios which should - should - shock us into moral outrage enough to put the damn book down, but he knows the vignettes will make us only mildly wince (it's just a story after all, right?) and that we'll keep reading wanting more. In essence, Kosinsky tricks us to keep reading (knowing as readers we'll think there's some "payoff " by the end) but the only payoff is Kosinski's, not ours, his "amoral" audience, so to speak, and when we reach the last page he's already indicted our depraved indifference as readers - and as a culture - his main target, and we can't help seeing that the sick joke's on us; on us readers - on society in general - that's so compelled, so easily amused and entertained by atrocity: barrages of gang rapes, beheadings, untold degradations of women, and exploitations of the mentally ill. Kosinski gets us good, and we're indicted down to that last destitute image.Steps takes us step by step, evil by evil, deeper, with every (ours) volitional turn of the page, into the depravity residing inside us (or at least attempts to). Not a pleasant Sunday stroll, Steps, though forty years removed from first publication, these steps are still worth taking.

[threnos-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Haunting. Vivid. I could pretty much stop writing here and you would know what you're getting with this book. Kosinski writes in terse, emotionless prose that leaves the reader feeling the isolation of the narrator. If you like your novels well-grounded, conventional and nicely packaged then you may not find too much enjoyment here. This is a novel that explores themes of serious literature: identity, politics, immigration, sexuality, violence, and quite possibly the search for the meaning of life.The novel is separated into vignettes, only sometimes relating to each other. Interspersed is a dialogue with a woman. Most of these stories centre around sexual acts and sometimes about violence, and sometimes about not much. They're all readable, they're all engaging, and all have some striking image that like a quote on the rear of the book says, will pop into your mind every now and again. There are stories and scenarios here that I have never heard or even thought of before. Sometimes I wonder how autobiographical this is, or where the inspiration came from. At times they border on the absurd and I think this is where the critics run for their Kafka books. I won't disclose what these stories can be about because discovering them is what makes the book so intriguing. Just know that they will not bring a smile to your face or enlighten your day, they will, however, shock.Steps went on to win the National Book Award for fiction, which is and isn't a surprise. Surprising because of the content, but the precision of the prose and the general themes make it a suitable award winner. Do not expect this to be a neat story; it is very open-ended and very enigmatic - just like its author.

[calisoleil · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Choppy and disjointed. Dark. Violent. Very sexual in a dry way. Artsy. Without emotion or passion or sensuality. It was interesting.. I suppose.

[jeffome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

St. Bart's 2016 #6 - Very strange little book......i had no idea what to expect and was startled at what transpired.....a whole bunch of tiny vignettes, most completely unrelated, and many rather sexual in nature. Some seemed to have a point, others did not....many about survival against oppression in rather corrupt environments.....it is an oddly disjointed book, but in a mysteriously appealing way. Does that make any sense???? I didn't think so.....but I cannot think of anything else to say.

[schmerguls · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book of short stories won the National Book Award for fiction for 1968. It is the 58th such winner I have read. There are nine such winners I have not (yet) read. Steps makes very litle sense, and there is no named character. There is a lot of description of outre sex, which makes for some repulsive reading. I did not think the stories made any particular sense but the book is short (only 176 pages) and the stories are mercifully short so it was not a chore to read the book, which I did in less than a day.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Terse and jarring set of stories. Impersonality of voice and tone well done here. Read the whole thing in one sitting.

[absurdeist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second coming of The Marquis de Sade. Albeit a far less sexually explicit, but no less sadistic de Sade.Who is this twisted first person narrator guiding us through this sordid collection of demented anecdotes and mostly vile (if not violent) vignettes? Is it Kosinsky? Is it us?Did this, whatever this - Steps - is, truly win the National Book Award in 1969? Yes. It's not a novel, but at 146 pages I wouldn't call it a novella, either. Short story collection? Not by a long shot. So, what is it?It's loosely connected, pieced-together, malevolent, merciless episodes following the (s)exploits of one twisted, wicked man, hell bent on punishing his persecutors (whether they've indeed persecuted him or not) and even if it means tricking their children into swallowing fishhook-embedded balls of bread dough whole, so that they'll die excruciatingly agonizing slow deaths later...I loved it! Er, loved it like I "love" witnessing torture.Kosinsky seemed to delight in torturing his readers by evoking in us (or at least attempting to) pleasurable reactions from sick perverted scenarios which should - should - shock us into moral outrage enough to put the damn book down, but he knows the vignettes will make us only mildly wince (it's just a story after all, right?) and that we'll keep reading wanting more. In essence, Kosinsky tricks us to keep reading (knowing as readers we'll think there's some "payoff " by the end) but the only payoff is Kosinski's, not ours, his "amoral" audience, so to speak, and when we reach the last page he's already indicted our depraved indifference as readers - and as a culture - his main target, and we can't help seeing that the sick joke's on us; on us readers - on society in general - that's so compelled, so easily amused and entertained by atrocity: barrages of gang rapes, beheadings, untold degradations of women, and exploitations of the mentally ill. Kosinski gets us good, and we're indicted down to that last destitute image.Steps takes us step by step, evil by evil, deeper, with every (ours) volitional turn of the page, into the depravity residing inside us (or at least attempts to). Not a pleasant Sunday stroll, Steps, though forty years removed from first publication, these steps are still worth taking.

[larryking1-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a perverse, creepy novel! Depraved! And it belongs to an author whose checkered past is even more deranged than the novel! The author, Jerzy Kosinski, for a short time was part of an elite "glitteratti," a guest on late night TV, always in the company of beautiful women, an incredible rags-to-riches story, and the winner of the National Book Award with this bleak novel. He was also dead by his own hand at age 57. Even though his langage was Polish, his taut, brutal voice was beautifully realized in a terse masterful English. Or was it? So much of this author's life is shrouded in ambiguity and deceit, very much like the characters who inhabit his novels. American novelist David Foster Wallace, another suicide by the way, described Steps as a "collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that's like nothing else anywhere ever." Nonetheless, Steps is a short, powerful read, not to every one's taste, even mine!

[xollo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Despite the grim nature of these stories, I was moved by this book. I was particularly stunned by the final story, and it has stayed with me for years. Any book that can leave such an impression—even if that impression is one of shock and despair, and one that makes me question the honesty of my OWN emotions, is a worthy read.