Overview

Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There (published in 1970 and adapted to film in 1979) was prescient in its vision of a simple man without discernible talent or political experience whose knowledge of the world comes almost exclusively from television. Yet his very shallowness establishes him as a TV celebrity and propels him to the pinnacle of American government. Both an incisive satire and a clarion call to resist the collectivizing force of the media that influences American life and shapes, distorts, and ultimately corrupts politics and culture, Being There offered a trenchant comment on the nature of “being” in the modern world of power. And it critiqued the tendency of Americans to seek mindless distraction rather than engagement and to find profundity in banal slogans and slick visuals. Issued a half century ago, Kosinski’s warning not to let hollow imagery trump our good sense and become our new reality is even more urgent today. The first book-length examination of Kosinski in more than a decade, Being There in the Age of Trump goes beyond conventional literary and film analysis to a larger interdisciplinary and cultural study of a work still timely and popular.

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9781793607188

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Reviews

Barbara Tepa Lupack has always been Jerzy Kosinski most insightful reader. Here, in her latest study, written in the clear and concise style that is the hallmark of all her work, Dr. Tepa Lupack convincingly argues that Kosinski's Being There, though published fifty years ago, offers a primer on American politics as we know it today. This book will remain the definitive study of both the novel and Kosinski for years to come.

Barbara Tepa Lupack has always been Jerzy Kosinski most insightful reader. Here, in her latest study, written in the clear and concise style that is the hallmark of all her work, Dr. Tepa Lupack convincingly argues that Kosinski's Being There, though published fifty years ago, offers a primer on American politics as we know it today. This book will remain the definitive study of both the novel and Kosinski for years to come.--Kevin J. Harty, La Salle University

Author Information

Barbara Tepa Lupack, PhD, is the director of Finger Lakes Film Trail.

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