Pinball

by Jerzy Kosiński

Book Overview

Jerzy Kosinski's best-selling novel Pinball, which he wrote for George Harrison, is a rock 'n' roll mystery centered on a superstar named Goddard who has, despite his success, managed to keep his identity a secret, even from his closest friends. But a beautiful young woman, obsessed with finding Goddard, stalks him relentlessly, driven by a secret goal that justifies all means. Ricocheting with humor and bursting with erotic intensity, Pinball is...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802134823
• ISBN13: 9780802134820
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

PINBALLED!

Several reviewers, showing no reverence, appear not to have heard that Jerzy took his own life some years ago. PINBALL may have been Jerzy's best effort. He inserts layer after layer of the pinball metaphor, a ball bounced hither and fro, mostly by chance. He compares the unexpected motion of a pinball to the music of his hero, Domostroy. These elements of chance plague all his characters. The unexpected, unforeseen, unpredictable falling of the pinball is a metaphor for the sudden cessation of life. The shadow of death permeates this story. The character Goddard is panicked by the sudden death of a girl he picked up by chance. To him it was as if a phonograph had suddenly been unplugged. The music, ever a metaphor for life, just stopped. What meaning can there be in a life so casually turned off? This anticipation of death was much worse than death itself. Kosinski saw the grim reaper as the ultimate controller of all life. The rise and fall of Domostroy's career in music was another layer of the pinball metaphor. The search for the composer's inspiration always led to female embedded sex. All love was unrequited. In fact, music itself was presented as the joining of male and female notes. The characters were all presented as puppets whose strings were being pulled by the puppeteer called Music. Kosinski used the two characters, Domostroy and Goddard, to show the toll that celebrity had inflicted on his own life. The question is, can an artist separate himself from his works once he chooses to exhibit them? Goddard had hoped to avoid the fate of John Lennon by constructing a dream world where he remained anonymous. While Domostroy chose to live in a cell of his own making to avoid the consequences of his own failed music and his own pinballed life.

A Truly Complex Novel of Cultural Conflict

It is really too bad that some reviewers missed so much of what was going on in this novel. It is NOT about rock and roll. ItIS about the conflict between the disposable pop culture whichis America's primary export to the world and the "high" cultureof the old world which is aimed primarily at the intellectual elite. It is also about the areas in which these two culturescross, as well as clash.Cultural conflict abounds everywhere in this novel. Considerthat Domostroy, the classical composer who is one main character here was the name of a marriage manual formerly given to bridesin the Russian Orthodox Church. The "Domostroy" described a wife's duties to her husband, and the punishments she could expect from him if she failed in her wifely duties. Consider that Andrea, Domostroy's lover, is the very model of an '80'sAmerican feminist, and you begin to understand some of what is going on here symbolicly. The mysterious Godard character canbe seen as an analog for God, film-maker Jean-Luc Godard, as well as former Columbia Records executive Godard Lieberson, alsoa classical composer. The introduction of the Claudia character,a young piano virtuoso whose specialty is Chopin, brings suggestions of the sado-masochistic aspects of the love affair of Chopin with George Sand to bear on the relationship betweenDomostroy and Andrea.Obviously, most Americans DO NOT talk like the characters in this novel. They lack the education. This is not so much a story, as a novel of ideas, and those ideas are as bold andfascinating as their interplay is complex and bewildering.Is the entire novel an exercise in cultural snobbism? Read itand decide for yourself.

Kosinksi magic!

A rock'n'roll mystery centred on a superstar who, despite his success, manages to hold on to his identity and a dark secret. A beautiful and sensual woman obsessed with finding the star, stalks him, driven by a goal that she believe justifies all means...

Another Kosinski Page Turner

Kosinski does it again. He keeps the reader in suspense until the final page is turned. If you liked Cockpit, Steps, or Blind Date, then this is for you.

What is the obligation of an artist to his audience?

PINBALL is a surreal, intense meditation on the relationship of art to the artists that produce it, and the relationship of artists to their audience. Reportedly written in response to JohnLennon's assassination, PINBALL is the story of an obsessive fan's search for the world's most popular rock star, the mysterious Goddard. Goddard does not perform in public; no one has ever seen him, no one knows who he really is. Andrea, the obsessed fan, seduces has-been classical pianist Patrick Domostroy to help her in the search. As the search develops, Domostroy wonders about its true motivation, and begins to understand that the revelation will inevitably be a disappointment. It's the art that matters, not the artist -- but he does not know what Andrea has planned for Goddard once she finds him. Occasionally overwritten and melodramatic, PINBALLnevertheless exerts an almost hypnotic spell on a first-time reader. Domostroy's search takes him from sex clubs to society parties, all of which are acutely observed, as is the character of Domostroy himself. Domostroy is the novel's most fully developed character; others appear more as archetypes than as real people. This is only appropriate, however, when one considers PINBALL as an allegory, a fable similar to the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs. PINBALL repays multiple readings, and lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned.