Being There, Jerzy Kosińskiعنوان: بودن؛ نویسنده: یرژی کاشینسکی؛ برگردان: مهسا ملک مرزبان؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، آموت، 1393، در 136 ص، شابک: 9786005941524؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان آمریکایی قرن 20 مرمان «بودن» درباره باغبانی چهل ساله است که پس از مرگ صاحب‌کارش مجبور به ترک محلی که در آن کار کرده، می‌شود. اما چون باغبان پیش از آن هیچ‌گاه از محل کارش خارج نشده، مواجهه‌اش با جهان بیرون برایش عجیب است، و از سوی دیگر برای مردم نیز دیدن و صحبت کردن با او عجیب مینماید. با این حال و در نهایت باغبان بر اثر یک اتفاق، وارد خانه یکی از بزرگان شهر می‌شود و در آنجا می‌ماند. یرژی کاشینسکی فیلم‌نامه رمان را نیز، پس از انتشار کتاب تالیف کرده، و هال اشبی براساس آن، فیلمی با عنوان «آنجا بودن» را در سال 1979 ساخته، که پیتر سلرز آخرین بازی زندگی‌اش را با ایفای نقش باغبان، به سرانجام رسانده استدر بخشی از رمان «بودن» میخوانیم: چنس رو به دوربینها نشسته بود، دوربینهایی که با لنزهای بی احساس و بزرگشان که به لوله تفنگ میمانست او را هدف گرفته بودند و او تنها تصویری بود که میلیونها آدم واقعی میدیدند. آنها هرگز خود واقعی او را نمیشناختند چون تلویزیون نمیتوانست افکارش را نشان بدهد. برای او هم بیننده ها فقط انعکاس افکارش بودند که به صورت تصویر دیده میشدند. او هم هیچوقت نمیفهمید که آنها چقدر واقعی اند، چون آنها را به عمرش ندیده بود و از افکارشان خبر نداشت. چنس صدای مجری را شنید که گفت: از اینکه امشب با ما هستید بسیار خوشحالیم آقای چنسی گاردینر، و مطمئنم بیش از چهل میلیون بیننده ای هم که هرشب این برنامه را تماشا میکنند، همین حس را دارند. مخصوصا که در چنین فرصت اندکی دعوت ما را پذیرفتید. چون قائم مقام رئیس جمهور به دلیل حجم بالای کار نتوانستند امشب با ما باشند. مجری لحظه ای مکث کرد، سکوت مطلق در استودیو حکمفرما شد. سپس گفت: برویم سر اصل مطلب، آیا با دیدگاه اقتصادی رئیس جمهور موافقید؟چنس گفت: کدام دیدگاه؟مجری لبخند موذیانه ای زد و گفت: دیدگاهی که رئیس جمهور در نطق اصلی شان در موسسه سرمایه گذاری آمریکا بیان کردند. ایشان قبل از سخنرانی شان از بین تمامی مشاورینشان با شما مشورت کردند...چنس گفت: ... واقعا؟مجری مکثی کرد و نگاهی به یادداشتهایش انداخت و گفت: منظورم این است که ... خب بگذارید مثالی بزنم: رئیس جمهور اقتصاد کشور را با باغ مقایسه کرد و نشان داد که بعد از یک دوره افت، دوره ی رشد به طور طبیعی به دنبال آن خواهد آمد...چنس قاطعانه گفت: من باغ را خیلی خوب میشناسم. تمام عمرم توی باغ کار کردم. باغ خوب و سرحالی ست. درختهایش سالم هستند، همینطور بوته ها و گل هایش، تا زمانی که هرس شوند و به موقع بهشان آب داده شود همینطور میمانند. باغ به مراقبت زیادی نیاز دارد. من با این حرف رئیس جمهور موافقم که: در یک باغ برای رشد هرچیزی زمان خاصی وجود دارد. ضمنا کلی جا برای رشد انواع درختها و گلهای جدید هست بخشی از مخاطبین داخل استودیو حرف چنس را با تشویقشان قطع کردند، و بخشی دیگر او را هو کردند. چنس به تلویزیونی که سمت راستش بود نگاه کرد و صورتش را دید که صفحه را پر کرده بود. بعد صورت چند نفر از تماشاگران داخل استودیو را دید که آشکارا صحبت های او را تایید میکردند، باقی انگار عصبانی بودند. مجری به سمت صحنه برگشت و چنس رویش را از تلویزیون برگرداند و به او نگاه کرد مجری گفت: خب آقای گاردینر، بسیار زیبا گفتید و به نظر من برای ما که دوست نداریم مدام اعتراض کنیم یا از پیش بینی های منفی مان لذت ببریم خبر خوبی بود! رک باشیم آقای گاردینر. یعنی شما معتقدید رکود اقتصادی، روند نازل بازار بورس، افزایش بیکاری و غیره، همه و همه یک مرحله است، فصلی ست در ادامه رشد و نمو باغ...توی باغ، هر چیزی رشد میکند... اما قبل از آن پژمرده و خشک میشوند، درختها باید برگهایشان را از دست بدهند تا برگهای جدید دربیاورند و ضخیم تر، قوی تر و بلندتر شوند. برخی درختها میمیرند و نهالهای جدید، جایشان را میگیرند. باغ به مراقبت زیادی نیاز دارد. اگر باغتان را دوست دارید نباید از کار کردن در آن دست بکشید، کمی صبر کنید. فصلش که برسد حتما شکوفه ها سر میزنند
From what author Jersy Koskinski writes in the first few pages of this short novel, a reasonable take on the back-story goes like this: main character Chance’s mother died in childbirth, probably giving birth in the lawyer-father’s house so as to leave no record or documentation (as opposed to hospital record-keeping) since the old lawyer aimed to avoid anything official about his being the father. And then over the next several years, probably the result of some type of brain-damage, observing the baby develop (or not develop), the little boy is labeled simple-minded.And, thus, when the simple-minded little boy grows into a simple-minded big boy, we read how the lawyer-father decrees: “Chance must limit his life to his quarters and to the garden; he must not enter other parts of the household or walk into the street. . . . Chance would do exactly what he was told or else he would be sent to a special home for the insane where, the Old Man said, he would be locked in a cell and forgotten.” And there you have it – what French philosopher Michel Foucault calls a normalizing judgment: don’t deviate from what we decide is normal or we label you as mad and lock you away. Nothing like an ominous threat to keep your simple-minded son within the walls of your property, spending his life tending the garden and watching TV in his room.But what happens years later, when the simple-minded boy becomes a handsome, well-mannered, simple-minded man in his 30s and is ordered to leave the house and garden when his lawyer-father dies and doesn’t leave a word about his son in his estate plan? Thus we have the starting point for Jersy Kosinski’s novel, a novel that proves page-by-page to be a caustic satire on modern society and individual identity.No sooner does Chance leave the old man’s house then he is hit by a limousine owned by one Benjamin Rand, a wealthy business tycoon with political connections reaching up to the president. Since the novel is written in objective third-person, we are given a clear view of how everybody around Chance aka Chauncey Gardner is duped by his honest, straight-forward manner and his speaking about his gardening and watching TV as he answers questions on such topics as the economy and international politics and life and death. Such is the power of projecting what one wants to see and hear onto a person who is a perfect tabula rasa, a blank slate.By way of example: Chance at dinner talking to Benjamin Rand about his recent expulsion from house and garden and dealing with his current life. Rand takes Chance’s comments about Chance’s gardening as a metaphor for business production and he takes Chance’s statement “. . . all that’s left is the room upstairs” (the room on the 2nd floor Rand provided Chance to recover from the auto accident) as Chance speaking about his own death. In a way, what follows in the novel is a repetition of this misinterpretation of Chance’s simple, concrete words combined with a misreading of Chance’s simple-minded emotional neutrality. And with each misinterpretation and each misreading, Chance’s importance within the political and economic sphere along with perceiving him as a profound, insightful, extraordinarily well-educated American is raised several notches.Now a man of such importance and potential political power requires the American and Soviet governments to run a thorough background check. But what all those high-powered government fact-checkers find for Mr. Chauncey Gardner is zero -- no family, no address, no driver’s license, no service record, no educational, industrial, political affiliations, nothing. Well, my goodness. We as readers can see what it is like for a person to escapes the categories and structures created by society, a society where there is a place for everyone and everyone in their place, where everyone is automatically assigned specific numbers and definitions and labels and the various powerful institutions within society can exert minute control of each individual’s activity.Observing the process of categories and structures and how the powers within society disciplines and punishes people who are deemed fit for discipline and punishment, Michel Foucault said, “Visibility is a trap.” Again, Mr. Kosinski’s novel explores what it means for an individual to escape the trap, to be invisible to all society’s numbers and cross-checks. The power people see how Mr. Chauncey Gardner has nothing in his background to work against him and conclude he is supremely qualified for an influential position within the corporate community or high political office. Did I mention the author’s caustic satire about society and politics?On the subject of identity, knowledge and language, Michel Foucault writes ““Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order.” Like many 20th century French philosophers, such Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Michael Foucault is concerned with self-expression and exercising freedom and how governments and social institutions restrict expression and freedom. Who are you? Where did you come from? What did you do ten years ago or twenty years ago? Well, we can consult the files and papers and documents to answer these questions and judge you accordingly. – What?! Any sensitive, thinking person rebels against our very human identity being reduced to numbers and documents. Jersy Kosinski expressed his rebellion in ‘Being There’.
What do You think about Being There (1999)?
This book is simple, and really doesn't need to have too many words to be profound. The same can be said of sweet, simple-minded Chauncy Gardiner, the main character. At first, I wasn't sure whether he was sane or insane. I quickly surmised that he was, at the very least, more sane than Yours Truly. It was a total treat to read his reactions to the 'normal', sophisticated, cosmopolitan people he interacted with. I was reminded that sometimes we CAN just look at the flowers, or even the TV, without our thoughts drifting elsewhere. I was also reminded that that can be difficult for some of us. Throughout the book I realized how unnecessarily wordy some of us know-it-alls can be (guilty?) when we needn't be. I re-discovered that there sometimes appears to be a fine line between sanity and insanity. I remember exhaling with satisfaction upon finishing the book. Surely I have said too much.
—Erin
Adoro Jerzy Kosinski!Tudo o que este homem escreveu é Magnífico!Inteligente Ousado Polémico Absorvente Emocionante Dramático Divertido Louco Demoníaco e tudo o mais que seja Bom!É possível que um pobre tipo, ingénuo, analfabeto e que, sem fazer o mínimo de esforço, consiga alcançar as maiores honras e um lugar de topo na sociedade? Kosinski diz que sim e eu acredito nele. Um fato de bom pano e corte, uma conversa de leitura ambígua e propícia a ser interpretada conforme as conveniências do interlocutor, são condições de garantia no caminho do sucesso.
—Teresa
It's interesting that I've picked up and read this story right now in view of McCain's selection of Palin, a virtual unknown, and her rapid escallation to the front page of the country's newspapers. That's almost exactly what occurred to Chance, the name of a man who had served without pay as a wealthy man's gardener until he suddenly found himself without a job or a family when the man died. While roaming the streets deciding what to next, a chauffeur backing into a parking place, pinned his leg against an adjacent car and the woman from the car took him home - supposedly until he would recover - but as chance would have it, she thought he was Chauncey Gardener when he told her what he did, and she immediately imagined him to be a successful tycoon. A satire then begins, as the woman's husband also buys into the new identity and Chauncey enters high society, actually meets the President, as well as dignitaries from other countries. He's a nobody, but as he says nothing except what he knows about gardening, he's acclaimed for his thoughtfulness in putting financial problems in such simple terms. The cover of the book has a photo of Peter Sellers who won an oscar for the movie, and I wish I'd seen it.
—Jim
