Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
"Steps" by Jerzy Kosinski is a provocative novel that explores themes of identity, sexuality, and the tumultuous experiences of a young man navigating through various societal landscapes. The protagonist journeys through different environments, from a small village to urban settings, and faces extreme situations that challenge his moral compass and sense of self. The narrative includes unsettling encounters, such as the complexities of transactional relationships and the harsh realities of survival that lead the narrator to trade sex for basic needs.
Set against the backdrop of historical and social turmoil, including reflections on World War II and the oppressive nature of totalitarian regimes, "Steps" presents a series of disjointed anecdotes that illustrate the often brutal and chaotic human condition. Kosinski employs vivid imagery and surreal situations to depict the protagonist's struggles with violence, alienation, and a search for belonging. The story's unsettling depictions of sexual dynamics and societal decay prompt readers to reflect on the darker aspects of human nature and the impact of one's environment on personal identity. Overall, "Steps" serves as a challenging exploration of life’s complexities, inviting diverse interpretations and discussions on the themes it presents.
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Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
First published: 1968
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Existentialism
Time of plot: Indeterminate
Locale: Unnamed
Principal characters
The Narrator , the protagonistA Woman , his wife or mistressThe Reader , a participant
The Story:
The narrator is a young man who travels from place to place experiencing life in its rawest form. In a small village, he shows his credit cards to a young orphaned woman who washes and mends his clothes and tells her that she will never need money again if she comes with him. She follows him to the city to find a better life for herself and trades sex with him for money. The situation is reversed when he finds himself in a strange city without money and has to trade sex for food.
As a ski instructor in an area close to a tuberculosis sanatorium, he makes love to a woman patient through mirrors; the two never touch. An encounter with a woman at a zoo leads to the narrator’s picking up another woman, who turns out to be a male transvestite. A waiter at a train-station restaurant arranges for the narrator to attend a show where a woman and a large unidentified animal copulate while observers place bets as to the depth of penetration.
A grouping of anecdotes about the army includes stories in which two civilians are killed by a sniper, a group of soccer players disappear when they drive across an artillery practice field, and soldiers play a macho gambling game for entertainment. Punishment for a man who cheats in the game is to have his genitals crushed to a pulp between rocks.
The narrator remembers events that occurred during World War II but were not army experiences. As a boy, he was boarded out with farmers who mistreated him. He got revenge by enticing their children to swallow concealed fishhooks and broken glass, which killed them. A cemetery caretaker he knew had been a boxer before being put into a Nazi concentration camp; his captors let him survive so that he could entertain them by fighting with professionals, but the rules were such that no one wanted to fight against him.
When the narrator was a student at the university, he heard about a scientist who at a Communist Party reception pinned gold condoms on every guest instead of medals. At one time the narrator was banished to an agricultural settlement, where he met a circus contortionist who could do sexy things with her body. As editor of the university newspaper, he was assisted by a girl who took pictures of herself nude. He stole some of the pictures and showed them to people. When the girl died a natural death, everyone assumed that she had committed suicide in shame because he had displayed lewd pictures of her.
Among the narrator’s stories about sexual force being used against women are descriptions of a gang rape in a city park; of farmers in a village who keep an enslaved woman in a cage high up in a barn, and men who want to use her lower the cage with a rope; and of a friend whom the narrator enlists to help him have sex with a woman who has spurned him.
The narrator tells of senseless killings. Butterflies in a jar are killed slowly as their supply of oxygen is exhausted with burning matches. Empty beer bottles murder a factory watchman. An innocent bystander is beheaded in a “book-knock-off” driving game, in which cars drive close to parked cars that have books attached to them.
When the narrator leaves his original country, he wears a silvery Siberian wolf coat that is totally unsuitable for his new life. Unemployed and destitute, he gets a job chipping paint and rust from a ship, but his fur coat becomes stiff and heavy with paint, and at night the fumes nauseate him. He is fired from the job and takes another parking cars in a parking lot. He becomes involved in a protection racket that victimizes his fellow immigrants. From there he goes into truck driving.
As he tries to adjust to his new city, he sees black people living in poor areas where there is no future, but he envies them their freedom. He wishes that he could make his own skin dark so that he could not be seen at night. Then he could kill the rich, destroy the city, and put bent nails on highways to crash cars. That might destroy his dream of having material things, and it might drive away the image of what he has been so that he can live in peace with no fear of failure. He plays at being deaf and mute for a while before flying to another country to join a revolution. There, he finds himself forced to behead a man with a knife.
Without warning, the narrator leaves a woman with whom he has been living. After the hotel clerk delivers a message to her from the narrator, saying that he will not return, she dives deep into the ocean. On the seaweed covering the ocean floor is a moving shadow, cast there by a tiny rotten leaf that is floating slowly on the surface above.
Bibliography
Cahill, David. “Jerzy Kosinski: Retreat from Violence.” Twentieth Century Literature 18, no. 2 (April, 1972): 121-132. Discusses Kosinski’s belief that incessant violence can destroy the power of humans to create a moral society and describes Steps as the author’s plea for people to turn away from that violence.
Coale, Samuel. “The Quest for the Elusive Self: The Fiction of Jerzy Kosinski.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 14, no. 3 (1973): 25-37. Discusses the use in Steps of detailed, concrete impressions to simulate external reality. Compares the radical and secular art with which Kosinski tries to depict the human struggle toward personal identity in the modern world with techniques used by Franz Kafka.
Gladsky, Thomas. “Jerzy Kosinski: A Polish Immigrant.” In Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America, edited by Halina Stephan. New York: Rodopi, 2003. Focuses on Kosinski’s acculturation to U.S. society and how his writing was influenced by his having lived in two very different countries—the democratic United States and totalitarian Poland.
Howe, Irving. “From the Other Side of the Moon.” Harper’s, March, 1969, 102-105. Detailed critical review concludes that Steps is the hallucinatory self-displacement of a man looking too closely at his own experience.
Lazar, Mary. Through Kosinski’s Lenses: Identity, Sex, and Violence. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2007. Draws on interviews with scholars and friends of Kosinski in examining the themes of identity, sex, and violence in his work.
Lupak, Barbara. Plays of Passion, Games of Chance: Jerzy Kosinski and His Fiction. Bristol, Ind.: Wyndham Hall Press, 1988. Examines all of Kosinski’s work, including Steps. Includes a discussion of the ways in which the author’s life affected his work and points out how his novels differ from other twentieth century novels.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Critical Essays on Jerzy Kosinski. New York: G. K. Hall, 1998. Collection of reviews of Kosinski’s novels includes Hugh Kenner’s and Stanley Kauffman’s reviews of Steps as well as essays interpreting Kosinski’s writings.