SUGGESTED FICTION: CONTROL(?) AND CHOICE(?)

Jerzy Kosinski, Steps (New York: Grove Press, 1968, 1997) ("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 Bhagavadita. "So to find out whether you loved me, you had to sleep with another man? I didn't sleep with him. But if you wanted to find out how you are without me, why did you refuse such a critical test? I didn't refuse; he didn't ask me. He said he loved me and wanted to marry me. Maybe he thought that if he asked me to go to bed with him, I would refuse because of my involvement with you. You see, I told him about you, and what was between us. But you spent a lot of time together. He must have kissed you. You touched him. Yes. And his tongue was in your month, and he stroked your body. Tell me, would you have gone to bed with him if he had wanted you to? I was ready to. What is the verdict of your judge and jury? The verdict is that I am capable of independent judgment and that I want to remain with you. And him? I told him I wouldn't leave you. I like him; he's a good man; but it would be a different life with him. I know I prefer the life you and I have together. I chose that part of me which wants you over and above the self I would become with him. Above all, I know that I alone decided this." Id. at 44-45. "Almost all of us on the jury were able to discuss and imagine how he had committed the crime and what had impelled him to it. To clarify certain aspects of his case, some of the jurors acted out the role of the accused in an attempt to make the rest of us understand his motives. After the trial, however, I realized that there was very little speculation in the jury room about the victim of the murder. 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 the victim." Id. at 94. From the backcover: "Jerzy Kosinski's classic vision of moral and sexual estrangement brilliantly captures the disturbing undercurrents of modern 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 an seeks control over the imagination in this unforgettable and immensely provocative work.").