The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski Read Free Book Online

recent
Dictionary of Occupational Titles
lists over twenty thousand specialized professions in America; being a millionaire is not one of them.
    Our culture offers exciting, often desirable, archetypes: Politician, Explorer, Artist, Saint, Madman, Prophet, Murderer, Lover, Warrior, Sportsman, Messiah, Genius. But where, except on the
Titanic
, do we find the archetype of Millionaire?
    As Oscar Wilde remarked, “Millionaire models are rare enough; but. . . model millionaires are rarer still!”
    Would our collective memory and imagination preserve the sinking of the
Titanic
as vividly if, in the place of its colorful millionaires, the ship had carried nondescript, poverty-stricken immigrants?
    But then the archetype of the millionaire is already implicit in our tradition and popular culture, which insist that to be rich is to be better off—if indeed not better—than to be poor. Our synonyms for the word
rich
include: independent, capitalist, swanky, productive, fruit-bearing, estimable, sublime, aesthetic, savory, delectable, nectareous, and harmonious. While synonymous with the word
poor
are the following: embarrassed, reduced, drained, distressed, inferior, trivial, sorry, contemptible, defective, worthless, vulgar, base, vapid, insipid, inept, lame, stale, dismal, and pitiable.
The stronger the power of my money, the stronger am I. . . . Therefore what I am and what I
can do
is by no means determined by my individuality. I
am
ugly, but I can buy the
most beautiful
woman. Which means to say that I am not
ugly,
for the effect of
ugliness
, its repelling power, is destroyed by money. . . . I am a wicked, dishonest, unscrupulous, and stupid individual, but money is respected, and so also is its owner. Money is the highest good, and consequently its owner is also good. Moreover, money spares me the trouble of being dishonest, and I am therefore presumed to be honest. I am
mindless
, but if money is the
true mind
of all things, how can its owner be mindless?. . . Through money I can have anything the human heart desires. Do I not therefore possess all human abilities? Does not money therefore transform all my incapacities into their opposite?
     
    That’s from Karl Marx.
    Am I, perhaps, my own archetype, a man who at any time can transform himself into his opposite?
    •   •   •
     
    If to live as one’s own archetype is to be an artistic creation whose medium is the present, I should accept being no more predictable or controllable than any other work of art.
    Then why not turn myself into a Sportsman? At one stylish New York dinner party I talked to a man who was a retired Olympic skiing coach. I asked him whether I could become, in one season, accomplished enough to reach the semifinals in the next year’s American downhill.
    “I’m not that good at sports,” I explained. “Given my disposition—I’m a bit sluggish and don’t like one-on-one competition—I need a sport that would speed me up by generating its own momentum and energy. I did a lot of skin diving in Africa, but I’m a terrible surfer. At Yale I failed in tennis, fencing, and handball.”
    “One question, Mr. Whalen.” The coach seemed excited. “Why skiing? Why not gliding, or car or boat racing?”
    “Because everyone would know that I could afford to have the best—the latest and fastest glider, boat, or car.”
    “And why the downhill?”
    “It’s straight. Man against himself and nature.”
    “You really would want to compete against the country’s best skiers?”
    “Not against. But why not with them? What do you say?”
    The man got up and paced the room. “I don’t want to discourage you, Mr. Whalen,” he said, “but for such a crash program you’d also need the help of an orthopedist and a physical therapist. You’d have to build up strength in your feet, legs, and abdomen. We’d start high-speed skiing duringthe summer in Porfirio, Chile; then in early fall we’d go to Europe, first to glaciers accessible only