“Being There" is a short novel of political satire focused on the way that American Politics has very little to do with what a person says, or thinks, and everything to do with surface value. Chance who is a very sheltered person who has worked in the garden of a rich man is now thrown into the public after the old man dies. This book is probably best for older more mature teens in order to understand the humor. There is also a movie based on this book starring Peter Sellers. ( )

You can Google this book and come up with numerous learned and not-so-learned papers discussing it, and this might lead you to think it significant. You might be swayed by people who call it a postmodern masterpiece or an existential gem, or by the fact that it was made into a film. But look at Kosinski's prose: this particular emperor is stark naked. In short, this novel has a good premise and is full of good ideas, amateur in their execution.

A back-of-the-book puff piece in my copy cites "a critic" who said that Kosinski "writes his novels so sparsely as though they cost him a thousand dollars a word, and a misplaced or misused locution would cost him his life." Perhaps our unidentified critic noted that this book is slim; in any case, he failed to note the superfluous adjectives that pepper its pages. Were they removed, it would be slimmer still. Don't get me started on its amateurish expository dialogue. However intelligent the ideas behind it, this novel reads as if it was written by a high school student.

This novel is Chauncey Gardiner, a half-wit of a novel, surrounded by uncritical and empty-headed admiration. And no doubt someone, somewhere will declare that this is what makes it brilliant.

Misguided choice is influential.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/02...
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www.thebookpond.se ( )

A bit too boring a story - trying for eccentric but not weird enough. Eccentric like a man in a bowler hat as opposed to a raccoon cap. A throwback to the sixties as seen in the seventies. A dated fable. ( )