Lacking a sense of the language, and thus lacking any style of his own, the author gropes for any passable cliche. . . . Even the elaborate plot of ''Pinball'' turns out to be a pointless and clumsy excuse for Mr. Kosinski's round-robin tournament of sex. . . . Judging from Jerzy Kosinski's eighth novel, ''Pinball,'' one has to conclude that the author's long affair with the English language is not going well. -- New York Times