"Steps" is an unsettling and strange book, which I like, even though it probably brings my own tastes and grasp of reality into question. It's a disjointed collection of short stories, some no longer than a few paragraphs, all relayed in a very matter of fact, almost emotionless manner. This gives it a feeling akin to dream-walking through a haunted museum filled with horrible, glitchy short films and grotesque, perverted exhibits and dioramas depicting unspeakable acts of trickery, cruel (sexual) sadism and wanton, often indiscriminate violence. I use the museum analogy for two reasons. First these depictions all feel very distant and to a certain degree, anonymous. You don't empathize, you are witness to the events much in the way people happen to witness tragic, terrible things happen to other people in real life. As the reader, you often feel like you are an unobserved observer, the proverbial "fly on the wall", watching all manner of disturbing acts take place, without being able to (or, more disturbingly, wanting to) intervene. It's that second sense, the way the books numbs you yet piques your curiosity, that really got me. It shocks and often disgusts you but in such a way that you find yourself not wanting to turn away. Morbidly curious and inimitable. As described by David Foster Wallace, "there is nothing else like it".
An excerpt from the short story collection, "Steps" by Jerzy Kosinski (1968)
Shortly after the war, I remember, I used to catch butterflies. One section of the town had been completely bombed out, and people no longer lived there. Among the ruins, in smelly pits half filled with amorphous objects which had once been utensils, gangs of cats waged war against hordes of starving rats. Here and there, between piles of rotting timber and rubble, among the ashes of gutted houses, weeds and flowers struggled to free themselves from moldy heaps of clay and brick, bursting into sudden stabs of green. Like rebellious shreds of a rainbow, the butterflies swarmed high against the blackened walls. My friends and I would capture them by the dozen in our homemade nets. They were easier to catch than the stray cats, the birds or even the fierce, hungry rats.
One day we place some butterflies in a large glass jar and set it upside down, its wide neck overlapping the edge of an old ramshackle table. The gap was wide enough to let in air, but too narrow for the butterflies to escape. We carefully polished the glass. At first, unaware of their confinement, the butterflies tried to fly through the glass. Colliding, they fluttered about like freshly cut flowers which under a magician’s hand had suddenly parted from their stems and begun to live a life of their own. But the invisible barrier held them back as though the air had grown rigid around them.
When we had nearly filled the jar with butterflies, we placed lighted matches under the rim. The blue smoke rose slowly about the pulsating blooms inside. At first it seemed that each new match added not death but life to the mass of living petals, for the insects flew faster and faster, colliding with each other, knocking the colored dust off their wings. Each time the smoke dimmed the glass, the butterflies repeated their frantic whirl. We made bets on which of them could battle the smoke the longest, on how many more matches each could survive. The bouquet under the glass grew paler and paler, and when the last of the petals had dropped onto the pile of corpses, we raised the jar to reveal a palette of lifeless wisps. The breeze blew away the smoke - it seemed as if some of the corpses trembled, ready to take wing again.
One day we place some butterflies in a large glass jar and set it upside down, its wide neck overlapping the edge of an old ramshackle table. The gap was wide enough to let in air, but too narrow for the butterflies to escape. We carefully polished the glass. At first, unaware of their confinement, the butterflies tried to fly through the glass. Colliding, they fluttered about like freshly cut flowers which under a magician’s hand had suddenly parted from their stems and begun to live a life of their own. But the invisible barrier held them back as though the air had grown rigid around them.
When we had nearly filled the jar with butterflies, we placed lighted matches under the rim. The blue smoke rose slowly about the pulsating blooms inside. At first it seemed that each new match added not death but life to the mass of living petals, for the insects flew faster and faster, colliding with each other, knocking the colored dust off their wings. Each time the smoke dimmed the glass, the butterflies repeated their frantic whirl. We made bets on which of them could battle the smoke the longest, on how many more matches each could survive. The bouquet under the glass grew paler and paler, and when the last of the petals had dropped onto the pile of corpses, we raised the jar to reveal a palette of lifeless wisps. The breeze blew away the smoke - it seemed as if some of the corpses trembled, ready to take wing again.
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