“Kosky’s” ideas in continuous runningnfootnotes at the bottom of every page,ncombining these with boldface quotationsn(from every imaginable personagenfrom Heinrich Himmler to Mae West)ninterspersed right in the main text. Thenresult is, simply, a brand new novelisticnform: utteriy original, and often fascinatingn(but sometimes — as in thenlengthy disquisitions on Tantric Yoganphilosophy of which “Kosky” is fond—ninterminable and irritating). Kosinskincalls this new novelistic form “autofiction.”nIt insistently interrupts the reader’snnormal immersion in the narrative,ni.e., the willing acceptance of the-novelas-reality,nand forces the reader constantlynto be aware that.he is readingnsomeone’s artificially designed text.nDeconstructionists should love it.nKosinski’s experiments with prosenformat, however, may in the long runnnot be as important as the new emotionalnopenness which characterizesnThe Hermit. Since the grotesque andnviolent Steps (1968) — for which, givennthe mood of the times, he won anNational Book Award — Kosinski’snnovels have tended to become ever lessnsurreal in tone, less bizarre, less totallynnihilistic. Thus Pinball (1981) —hisnlast major work before The Hermit — isnthe most approachable and optimisticnof all Kosinski’s books. It even has anrelatively happy ending. The comicnpessimism of The Hermit thereforenrepresents something of a return to annearlier Kosinski; and yet what is strikingnis that here, for the first time since ThenPainted Bird, Kosinski also tries oncenmore to confront directly the majorntrauma of his life: the Holocaust. Andnin doing so, he establishes two new andndirect claims to personal identity, innareas where he has previously beennevasive. He is now willing to say openlynand repeatedly that he is a Jew, andnthat he is a Pole.nIt was only because Polish peasantsnhid him from the Nazis that the childnKosinski survived in 1939-1945 (hisn26/CHRONICLESnfamily did not). Not surprisingly, thentheme of “concealment” — hiding,nmasks.— has been a dominant one innhis life: “Kosinski” itself is in fact onlynan assumed name. Moreover, after thenpublication of The Painted Bird,nKosinski sometimes emitted ambiguousnsignals concerning his own Jewishness;nand though most of his fictionalnheroes over the past 20 years have beennEastern Europeans, none has beennrecognizably a Jew. The Hermit, however,nhas in “Kosky” a sympatheticnJewish protagonist who often meditatesnon the Holocaust; moreover, Kosinskinwrites at length and with compassionnconcerning Chaim Rumkowski, thenJewish “ruler” of the Lodz Ghetto,nwho faced the terrible choice betweennimmediate and complete annihilationnof his people, or the slim possibility thatnsome might survive via his (and their)ncooperation with their Nazi oppressors.nHe retells once more some of his ownnadventures as a terrified child fleeingnfrom the murderers. And the Nazinsymbol “SS” appears on just aboutnevery page (although Kosinski givesn”SS” kaleidoscopically-changing secondarynmeanings: for instance, “SafenSex”!). But Kosinski would also agreenwith Jacob Neusner that the centralnmeaning of the Jewish experiencenmust be Mt. Sinai, not Auschwitz. Andnso we get (in the indispensable footnotes)na large dose of Talmud, andnHasidic religious philosophy as well,nenriching the entire book. (None ofnthis material has ever appeared innKosinski’s novels before, and his easenwith it comes as a shock.) It is nonaccident that just this winter Kosinskinvisited Israel for the first time.nBut beyond this, Kosinski has also, innThe Hermit, come to terms withnbeing a specific part of the Polishncommunity. The Communist governmentnin Poland for 20 years savagelynattacked The Painted Bird for beingn”anti-Polish,” because it depicted thencrudity and brutality of Polish peasantnlife during the war. This charge wasnalways unfair: peasants often are crude,nand life in the countryside during a warnis often brutal. But now in The Hermit,nKosinski goes out of his way to emphasizena fact probably little-known tonmost of his readers: the terrible sufferingnof the non-Jewish population ofnPoland under Nazi rule. It was not asnnnterrible as the suffering of the Jews, butnit was terrible enough. Kosinski emphasizesnthat literally millions of Poles werenmurdered by the Nazis, and furthernmillions enslaved: perhaps a third ofnthe entire people. Similarly, with thisnemphasis on a community of suffering,nKosinski emphasizes his impressionnthat prewar Polish-Jewish relationsnwere relatively good, and that Poles andnJews were in the process of creatingntogether a great national literature. Finally,nhe emphasizes that he himself isnalive only because dozens of Polesnrisked their lives to protect a Jewishnchild.nHere Kosinski makes an importantncontribution to the debate currentiynraging in Poland over national behaviornbefore and during the Holocaust. Thisndebate was initiated by the great Solidaritynindependent trade union (fornwhich Kosinski was an important internationalnspokesman), and was pushednfurther forward by the film Shoah.nKosinski’s position seems to be that onenshould be amazed and thankful thatnany moral behavior occurred in Polandnin 1939-1945, given the situation creatednby the Nazis (with a litfle help, ofncourse, from the USSR): as he isnsympathetic toward Chaim Rumkowski’snpredicament, so he is sympatheticntoward the Poles. In fact, Kosinski isncurrently chairman of the AmericannFoundation for Polish-Jewish Studies.nAnd this spring, after 32 years ofnenforced exile, he was suddenly invitednto make an official visit to Poland, tonread (in English!) from his novels.nSuch, of course, is the momentaryneffect oi glasnost.nThus from being a man without ancountry in 1956, Jerzy Kosinski nownseems on the verge of becoming a mannwith three of them (Israel, Poland, andnthe United States). The Hermit of 69thnStreet is therefore more than a novel ofncomic revenge against the Voicen(though, to be sure, it is that as well).nMassive and complex, the book is notnfor everyone; but it marks an importantnway-station along Kosinski’s road ofndevelopment, and deals insightfullynwith the entire question of self-identity.nDoes this mean, however, that in ThenHermit of 69th Street we are finallyngetting a glimpse of “the real JerzynKosinski”? Probably not. We can stillnbe glad that we’ve been invited alongnfor the ride. n