Jerzy Kosinski's fictional persona easily made the transition from victim, in The Painted Bird, to victimizer, in Steps. Throughout the four subsequent novels, the cold blooded, impervious Kosinski hero changed little; CIA operative Tarden of Cockpit was as cruel as freelance secret agent Levanter of Blind Date. Passion Play, however, finds the persona somewhat mellowed. In his latest reincarnation, he is an aging polo player named Fabian…. The consuming aggression of past heros has been turned inward, modulated into a neurotic self-absorbtion with the body and sickness….

When not playing polo or pursuing sex, Fabian philosophizes. One example: "In the odyssey of landlocked man, the horse had been the oldest craft of voyage, the most prophetic ship through space. Man astride his mount—even that first man, the horse at full run, its hoofs cleaving soil and space—had been the original passenger through air, the traveler borne...