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Available
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Publication
New York : [Emeryville, CA] : Grove Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 1995.
Description
Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. Kosinski's story follows a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, as he wanders alone from one village to another, sometimes hounded and tortured, only rarely sheltered and cared for. Through the juxtaposition of adolescence and the most brutal of adult experiences, Kosinski sums up a Bosch-like world of harrowing excess where senseless violence and untempered hatred are the norm. Through sparse prose and vivid imagery, Kosinski's novel is a story of mythic proportion, even more relevant to today's society than it was upon its original publication.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AlanWPowers
Shouldn't review this book, because I could not read it, though it was included in a syllabus of a course that I taught, had taken over after the syllabus designer stepped down (ill, I think, but forty-five years ago, so...) At the time I think the author was teaching at Yale, and I recall being
I must admit Kosinski wrote one fine line, his Suicide note,"I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."("Newsweek, May 13, 1991/Wikipedia)
One critic, Pognowski, says Kozinski's novel is an attempt to profiteer from the Holocaust. Other critics have said Kozinski wrote in Polish, and had it translated; moreover, many of the terrible brutalities it recounts, supposedly on known Jewish children in a known Polish family, never happened. JK got around this by insisting it is fiction, but people credited the book as autobiographical.
Also, may I wonder where suicides have become so prominent in modern American literature, from Sylvia Plath to Berryman to the Jerzy boy. Not that I disapprove suicide for the terminally ill--which may in fact have been the case here; indeed, I agree with the Stoics that the mortally ill may take "exitus rationis," reasonable departure. Why should we put animals out of their misery, but not humans--okay, okay, Christianity values suffering. But not me.
Especially the reader's suffering, I do not value. As here.
*I suspect many other books are bought, but not read through: Eco's Name of the Rose, even Walden, which I consider a dipper's book, filled with great essays, but for that reason, a wall after a fence after a hurdle.
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astonished that his unreadable novel was actually valued, and sold very well. I conclude that many who bought it did not read it.* It is an assault. Followed by an assault. Leading to an assault. Maybe it appeals to masochists, serious ones?I must admit Kosinski wrote one fine line, his Suicide note,"I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity."("Newsweek, May 13, 1991/Wikipedia)
One critic, Pognowski, says Kozinski's novel is an attempt to profiteer from the Holocaust. Other critics have said Kozinski wrote in Polish, and had it translated; moreover, many of the terrible brutalities it recounts, supposedly on known Jewish children in a known Polish family, never happened. JK got around this by insisting it is fiction, but people credited the book as autobiographical.
Also, may I wonder where suicides have become so prominent in modern American literature, from Sylvia Plath to Berryman to the Jerzy boy. Not that I disapprove suicide for the terminally ill--which may in fact have been the case here; indeed, I agree with the Stoics that the mortally ill may take "exitus rationis," reasonable departure. Why should we put animals out of their misery, but not humans--okay, okay, Christianity values suffering. But not me.
Especially the reader's suffering, I do not value. As here.
*I suspect many other books are bought, but not read through: Eco's Name of the Rose, even Walden, which I consider a dipper's book, filled with great essays, but for that reason, a wall after a fence after a hurdle.
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LibraryThing member kant1066
Writing about tragedy is a tricky business. Even when a literary voice does come across as authentic, the writing sometimes seems more interested in using its characters as allegorical, historical foils instead of respecting their individuality of experience. This always strikes me as untrue to the
The content is very difficult, with its relentless violence, and not infrequent incidents of rape, bestiality, and physical abuse of a very young child (the narrator). Soon after being separated from his parents, he is shuttled from village to village and peasant to peasant to be looked after, nearly all of them suspicious of his “Gypsy” dark features. He is the disenfranchised bastard of History. Almost all of these would-be caretakers are physically brutal, superstitious, and backward. To read this, and to know that there were children who lived through experienced that very much paralleled the narrator’s, one might think that it was impossible to live through this without deep, permanent psychological scars.
The unyielding violence, however, doesn’t allow for a single moment of reflection. You always have to be on your feet, anticipating the next rape or beating. And while the violence never became anaesthetizing as it has in similar novels, I couldn’t help but feeling that the narrator was simply a cipher for Kosinki’s philosophy of history: we are thrust into this cruel word, helpless and naked, only to be teased and kicked and humiliated, and then you die. He has no problem with letting you know that God won’t be there to help you, and that political parties are just as cruel and manipulative as history itself. Considering the course of twentieth century history, there are many good reasons for coming to such conclusions. In a piece of fiction, though, a reader needs room to breathe and space in which the characters can have thoughtful self-reflection. The narrator is denied all of that here – simply because he’s trying to make it to the next day.
There is the occasional book that fails not because of its message, but because of the way in which the writer tries to communicate it. There are important ideas about human nature and how inhumane it can so often be, but using a character as both a figurative and literal whipping boy for history can never succeed as a novel. It just doesn’t ring true.
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spirit of writing about history in the first place (even if it is in the form of fiction), and especially something as historically close and horrifying as the Holocaust. That’s the major problem that I had with “The Painted Bird,” and I think Kosinski might be the most egregious offender in the small selection of Holocaust literature with which I’m familiar. The content is very difficult, with its relentless violence, and not infrequent incidents of rape, bestiality, and physical abuse of a very young child (the narrator). Soon after being separated from his parents, he is shuttled from village to village and peasant to peasant to be looked after, nearly all of them suspicious of his “Gypsy” dark features. He is the disenfranchised bastard of History. Almost all of these would-be caretakers are physically brutal, superstitious, and backward. To read this, and to know that there were children who lived through experienced that very much paralleled the narrator’s, one might think that it was impossible to live through this without deep, permanent psychological scars.
The unyielding violence, however, doesn’t allow for a single moment of reflection. You always have to be on your feet, anticipating the next rape or beating. And while the violence never became anaesthetizing as it has in similar novels, I couldn’t help but feeling that the narrator was simply a cipher for Kosinki’s philosophy of history: we are thrust into this cruel word, helpless and naked, only to be teased and kicked and humiliated, and then you die. He has no problem with letting you know that God won’t be there to help you, and that political parties are just as cruel and manipulative as history itself. Considering the course of twentieth century history, there are many good reasons for coming to such conclusions. In a piece of fiction, though, a reader needs room to breathe and space in which the characters can have thoughtful self-reflection. The narrator is denied all of that here – simply because he’s trying to make it to the next day.
There is the occasional book that fails not because of its message, but because of the way in which the writer tries to communicate it. There are important ideas about human nature and how inhumane it can so often be, but using a character as both a figurative and literal whipping boy for history can never succeed as a novel. It just doesn’t ring true.
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LibraryThing member Lauraborealis
It feels weird to like this book. It's the type of book I generally enjoy, but taken a bit further.... Too far, even.
My favorite books are dark, strange, and unpredictable. This book was all of that, but instead of the happy ending to create some cathartic conclusion to the madness, it just sort
It's kind of hard to describe this book, but for the most part, each chapter finds the character in a new hell. He's an orphaned boy whose parents tried to shield him from the horrors of the war by handing him off to someone at the beginning of it. He is separated from the guardian,and goes to guardian to guardian for almost every new chapter. But I really do think this is a book many people should read, despite the horrors. It's important to read about what could have happened. I'm not sure if every single one of the things he experiences is a viable thing during that period, but considering the madness and cruelty of man, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these events did occur in some shape or form to someone during the war.
It's a pretty ambitious work, full of so much darkness and sadness. If you're charmed by the title of the story, you should be warned that even that basis is not happy. It refers to a story the character sees in the book, about one of his "guardians" who "watches" after birds in a small village. It's sad, it's bleak, and it's depressing, essentially from start to finish, but I believe that it is still an important book to read to recognize what many people were capable of doing back then, and how some people in today could be capable of doing similar things.
This book is not for the faint of heart, nor for the kind of person looking for a quick, beachside novel while they bask in the sun. It takes the life force out of you, in a way.
My favorite books are dark, strange, and unpredictable. This book was all of that, but instead of the happy ending to create some cathartic conclusion to the madness, it just sort
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of... Ended. You realize that this lad is completely, irrevocably, altered from the person he was before the war. There's no going back. Considering the rape, mutilation, murder, torcher, abuse, and unhappiness the central character experiences throughout the story, the end doesn't really balance much of that out.It's kind of hard to describe this book, but for the most part, each chapter finds the character in a new hell. He's an orphaned boy whose parents tried to shield him from the horrors of the war by handing him off to someone at the beginning of it. He is separated from the guardian,and goes to guardian to guardian for almost every new chapter. But I really do think this is a book many people should read, despite the horrors. It's important to read about what could have happened. I'm not sure if every single one of the things he experiences is a viable thing during that period, but considering the madness and cruelty of man, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these events did occur in some shape or form to someone during the war.
It's a pretty ambitious work, full of so much darkness and sadness. If you're charmed by the title of the story, you should be warned that even that basis is not happy. It refers to a story the character sees in the book, about one of his "guardians" who "watches" after birds in a small village. It's sad, it's bleak, and it's depressing, essentially from start to finish, but I believe that it is still an important book to read to recognize what many people were capable of doing back then, and how some people in today could be capable of doing similar things.
This book is not for the faint of heart, nor for the kind of person looking for a quick, beachside novel while they bask in the sun. It takes the life force out of you, in a way.
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LibraryThing member homericgeek
Everything the blurbs on the cover said. It is heartbreaking, amazing, powerful. At times you want to turn away, but you don't; then, you realize that life is not always nice.
The protagonist changes many times throughout the book. He changes in order to survive, he changes because he sees
Kosinski was accused of betraying his country, he was also accused of not going far enough in showing the horrors of war as the boy experienced them. Maybe it's autobiographical, maybe it's not. What is important is that it is a true picture of what happened to many during the years of the Second World War.
The author pulls no punches, so be prepared to read about depravity, hatred, racism, violence and even death when you pick up this book. And prepare to be changed. I was.
The protagonist changes many times throughout the book. He changes in order to survive, he changes because he sees
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something that he believes is better, or he changes because his eyes are opened and he sees how life really is.Kosinski was accused of betraying his country, he was also accused of not going far enough in showing the horrors of war as the boy experienced them. Maybe it's autobiographical, maybe it's not. What is important is that it is a true picture of what happened to many during the years of the Second World War.
The author pulls no punches, so be prepared to read about depravity, hatred, racism, violence and even death when you pick up this book. And prepare to be changed. I was.
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LibraryThing member M.Campanella
Where I stand now, I am unsure as to what this book is. If it is fiction, it is awful. If it is autobiography veiled as fiction, it is simply false, which is perhaps worse. I should mention that I have a strong stomach for violence in fiction (I have read Delany's Hogg, twice) so that was not what
If this book was fiction we should look at Italo Calvino's 'Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno' as it has to do with what young child witness during the second world war. Calvino's work is rich with the language of the child, and everything the child witnesses is colored by his perspective. In Calvino's book the reader not only sees and understands the follies and horror of war, but see the child narrator misunderstand the very same follies and horrors. Calvino's book is a voyage of a narrator misunderstanding the world of adults, and because all the adults around him are caught up in this war the child is forced to live by them and witness and (to some extent) participate in things he cannot understand.
Kosinski's work, on the other hand, never has this. The narrator, also a child, understands exactly what is going on, at all times. He is intuitive to the point of seeming to be borderline psychic. If all children from 6 to 8 (there is no chronology whatsoever in Kosinski's work, and so it is hard to tell the age of the child) were as smart as this child, the human race would be altogether to intelligent to find itself in situations like the world wars. The child seems to be able to understand the complex circumstances of hatred that we know to be a backdrop to the second world war in eastern Europe. He knows that there are such things as Jews, he knows that there are such things as Gypsies, and more over he knows he is not of them. Does this realistically sound like something you teach a young child. "Honey, we are going to send you off to the countryside to wait out this war. Know that you are neither a Jew nor Gypsy, and that people are going to hate you because they think you are." The child narrator of this work has to well developed notions of who he is and who he is not. He sees a peasant and is able to label it exactly that, marking as well that he is not of that class. I doubt young children can pull this off.
All this makes me suspect that Kosinski wrote this in hopes of convincing people that it was his (at the time of the writing) interpretation of actual past events. If this is the case, I think there is cause not to believe it. Nowhere is there any genuine compassion, very few take pity on the small child, there interest being only in persecuting him. He constantly escapes his dangers. At one point the child even manages to steal a horse drawn cart. That such carts are not intuitive, and that a child would have neither the training or strength to manage it does not seem to be considered. This whole story seems to be Kosinski's attempt to get the West to pity him.
If all of this was not enough, the language used to describe the events of the books is repetitive and monotonous. Really, the books is not worth very much.
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bothered me about it. What bothered me was that the violence was gratuitous and unbelievable. Each chapter was a new scene of violence, but there was absolutely no connection between one chapter and the next. Each chapter illustrates in new and creative ways how the world can be cruel, but never is their a mention about the why of this cruelty.If this book was fiction we should look at Italo Calvino's 'Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno' as it has to do with what young child witness during the second world war. Calvino's work is rich with the language of the child, and everything the child witnesses is colored by his perspective. In Calvino's book the reader not only sees and understands the follies and horror of war, but see the child narrator misunderstand the very same follies and horrors. Calvino's book is a voyage of a narrator misunderstanding the world of adults, and because all the adults around him are caught up in this war the child is forced to live by them and witness and (to some extent) participate in things he cannot understand.
Kosinski's work, on the other hand, never has this. The narrator, also a child, understands exactly what is going on, at all times. He is intuitive to the point of seeming to be borderline psychic. If all children from 6 to 8 (there is no chronology whatsoever in Kosinski's work, and so it is hard to tell the age of the child) were as smart as this child, the human race would be altogether to intelligent to find itself in situations like the world wars. The child seems to be able to understand the complex circumstances of hatred that we know to be a backdrop to the second world war in eastern Europe. He knows that there are such things as Jews, he knows that there are such things as Gypsies, and more over he knows he is not of them. Does this realistically sound like something you teach a young child. "Honey, we are going to send you off to the countryside to wait out this war. Know that you are neither a Jew nor Gypsy, and that people are going to hate you because they think you are." The child narrator of this work has to well developed notions of who he is and who he is not. He sees a peasant and is able to label it exactly that, marking as well that he is not of that class. I doubt young children can pull this off.
All this makes me suspect that Kosinski wrote this in hopes of convincing people that it was his (at the time of the writing) interpretation of actual past events. If this is the case, I think there is cause not to believe it. Nowhere is there any genuine compassion, very few take pity on the small child, there interest being only in persecuting him. He constantly escapes his dangers. At one point the child even manages to steal a horse drawn cart. That such carts are not intuitive, and that a child would have neither the training or strength to manage it does not seem to be considered. This whole story seems to be Kosinski's attempt to get the West to pity him.
If all of this was not enough, the language used to describe the events of the books is repetitive and monotonous. Really, the books is not worth very much.
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LibraryThing member unclebob53703
Harrowing novel of a young boy's journey though war-torn Europe. full of horrors. It was the book that established him as a major writer, and it'll still curl your hair today.
LibraryThing member Niecierpek
I was in awe when I first read it, but then... what he describes supposedly never happened to him. It is all supposedly plagiarized.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
The officer surveyed me sharply. I felt like a squashed caterpillar oozing in the dust, a creature that could not harm anyone yet aroused loathing and disgust. In the presence of such a resplendent being, armed in all the symbols of might and majesty, I was genuinely ashamed of my appearance. I had
Much as Nietzsche detonated a shaped charge and blew away all hope of a totalizing meta-narrative, it was books like The Painted Bird which left me ashamed, almost permanently. I don't harbor much hope of a recovery. Kosiński left us a catalog of horror. Hope and Justice appear cheaply broacaded within. I still think about the phone ringing at the end of the novel.
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nothing against his killing me.Much as Nietzsche detonated a shaped charge and blew away all hope of a totalizing meta-narrative, it was books like The Painted Bird which left me ashamed, almost permanently. I don't harbor much hope of a recovery. Kosiński left us a catalog of horror. Hope and Justice appear cheaply broacaded within. I still think about the phone ringing at the end of the novel.
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LibraryThing member ferebend
To all those who would read this book, a warning. It's intense. The most intense, heavy disturbing book I've ever read. That said, it was very well written. This author knows how to evoke emotions, with a special attention to those guttural, primeval emotions that, ideally, we wish would stay
This is the story of a young boy who gets separated from his parents when they send him to the (perceived) safety of the countryside when World War II breaks out in Eastern Europe. The boy gets lost and, through a series of increasingly unfortunate events, wanders from village to village where he is universally reviled because the people believe his dark gypsy/Jewish hair and eyes will bring the wrath of the Germans upon them. What happens to the boy - the things that are done to him, the things he sees and endures - is staggering. It's a shocking description of hell on Earth.
Okay, I realize I'm not making this book sound very enticing, but I'd like to reiterate my point that it is a very good work, albeit on a very dark subject. Not for the faint of heart, but the bravest of readers will be rewarded.
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buried and never rear their ugly collective head.This is the story of a young boy who gets separated from his parents when they send him to the (perceived) safety of the countryside when World War II breaks out in Eastern Europe. The boy gets lost and, through a series of increasingly unfortunate events, wanders from village to village where he is universally reviled because the people believe his dark gypsy/Jewish hair and eyes will bring the wrath of the Germans upon them. What happens to the boy - the things that are done to him, the things he sees and endures - is staggering. It's a shocking description of hell on Earth.
Okay, I realize I'm not making this book sound very enticing, but I'd like to reiterate my point that it is a very good work, albeit on a very dark subject. Not for the faint of heart, but the bravest of readers will be rewarded.
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LibraryThing member John
The Painted Bird is a book of powerful and often disturbing images and themes. Kosinksi was a Polish-Jew, six year old when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. His father, in addition to being Jewish, was a known anti-Nazi, so in an attempt to save their son, his parents sent him to live with a
"From the moment of signing a pact with the Devil, the more harm, misery, injury, and bitterness a man could inflict on those around him, the more help he could expect. If he shrank from inflicting harm on others, if he succumbed to emotions of love, friendship and compassion, he would immediately become weaker and his own life would have to absorb the suffering and defeats that he spared others....What mattered was that a man should consciously promote evil, find pleasure in harming others, nurturing and using the diabolical powers granted him by the Evil Ones in a manner calculated to cause as much misery and suffering around him as possible. Only those with a sufficiently powerful passion for hatred, greed, revenge, or torture to obtain some objective seemed to make a good bargain with the powers of Evil."
The phrase, the painted bird, refers to a practice of capturing a bird, painting its wings various colours and then releasing it back into its flock where it would be attached as a stranger and pecked to death. The metaphor is pretty clear, and indeed the whole book can be seen as a metaphor for the alienation and destruction of peoples designated as "different" whether by race or ethnicity or whatever; the unrelenting violence of the peasants a metaphor for a society that has gone mad and not only given vent to the most base of human instincts, but actively encouraged, developed, and fostered them.
The book was very controversial right from its first publication. It was banned in Poland until 1989, but even outside Poland Kosinksi was charged with exaggeration and plagiarism, with denigrating the memory of those who did shelter him as a child, with defaming the Polish people, with falsely claiming that the book was autobiographical. Whatever the truth may be in these charges, the book is powerful, if not easy to read, and taken as a metaphor in the larger sense it does leave lasting memories and images.
The book ends on something of a hopeful note that the child will be able to re-integrate into the world of his parents, but it will clearly be a very difficult transition with no final end point to be expected. Kosinski committed suicide in 1991. His suicide note read: "I'm going to put my self to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity".
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Polish family. The Painted Bird details the trials of a seven/eight year old boy of unspecified religious or ethnic background, in an unspecified area of Eastern/Central Europe, surviving an absolutely horrific series of encounters with peasants either individually or within their villages. Kosinski said that his purpose in writing the novel was "to examine this new language of brutality and its consequent new counter-language of anguish and despair." He hoped that, "the confrontation between the defenseless individual and overpowering society, between child and war, would represent the essential anti-human condition". He achieved this to an aching degree: the novel is almost surreal in its depiction of violence and depravity, of the complete absence of even a spark of human concern or empathy. The peasants are uniformly base, ignorant, superstitious, murderous, deceitful. The following pretty well sums up Kosinski's view of this slice of humanity:"From the moment of signing a pact with the Devil, the more harm, misery, injury, and bitterness a man could inflict on those around him, the more help he could expect. If he shrank from inflicting harm on others, if he succumbed to emotions of love, friendship and compassion, he would immediately become weaker and his own life would have to absorb the suffering and defeats that he spared others....What mattered was that a man should consciously promote evil, find pleasure in harming others, nurturing and using the diabolical powers granted him by the Evil Ones in a manner calculated to cause as much misery and suffering around him as possible. Only those with a sufficiently powerful passion for hatred, greed, revenge, or torture to obtain some objective seemed to make a good bargain with the powers of Evil."
The phrase, the painted bird, refers to a practice of capturing a bird, painting its wings various colours and then releasing it back into its flock where it would be attached as a stranger and pecked to death. The metaphor is pretty clear, and indeed the whole book can be seen as a metaphor for the alienation and destruction of peoples designated as "different" whether by race or ethnicity or whatever; the unrelenting violence of the peasants a metaphor for a society that has gone mad and not only given vent to the most base of human instincts, but actively encouraged, developed, and fostered them.
The book was very controversial right from its first publication. It was banned in Poland until 1989, but even outside Poland Kosinksi was charged with exaggeration and plagiarism, with denigrating the memory of those who did shelter him as a child, with defaming the Polish people, with falsely claiming that the book was autobiographical. Whatever the truth may be in these charges, the book is powerful, if not easy to read, and taken as a metaphor in the larger sense it does leave lasting memories and images.
The book ends on something of a hopeful note that the child will be able to re-integrate into the world of his parents, but it will clearly be a very difficult transition with no final end point to be expected. Kosinski committed suicide in 1991. His suicide note read: "I'm going to put my self to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity".
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LibraryThing member jaehnig
Probably the most cruelty I've ever read in one book. Captivating, depressing, yet hopeful at times. Made me appreciate the life I have, and the person I have been allowed to become. Definitly worth reading.
LibraryThing member johnbakeronline
I've finished the Jerzy Kosinski novel, The Painted Bird. It's a story about the tangential nature of savagery and terror to love and innocence. A dark haired boy is abandoned by his parents during the second world war and wanders alone around a group of Slavic villages. He is sometimes sheltered
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and other times hounded and beaten. He is always learning something. I can think of no other novel like it. It evokes fear, shame and sadness because we know at the moment of reeling horror that we are, nevertheless, contained within our own concepts of probability and fact. Show Less
LibraryThing member paulpekin
When I first read this book (1965) it was clearly labeled a novel. It seemed obvious to me that it was fiction and not pretending to be anything else. Somewhere along the line it got "upgraded" to a memoir, and then denounced as a hoax. As Vonnegut would say, "so it goes." But. As a novel, this is
That said, at least two out of three readers are going to hate this more than any other book they have ever read.
pp
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a terrific story. We didn't have the term "magic realism" back in the sixties, but this fits that description. The stories are grim, wild, and sometimes beautiful in their very ugliness, and I don't know if I read a single other book by this author that I even mildly liked. I think this is one of those things that happens only once in an author's lifetime. How it got put together, translated (if indeed it was) edited, collaborated with, who knows what, doesn't matter. The book transcends the author and the circumstances of its creation.That said, at least two out of three readers are going to hate this more than any other book they have ever read.
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LibraryThing member booknerd06
What can I say? This is one of the best novels that I have ever read. I highly suggest that you will take the time on this one.
LibraryThing member jeffome
a relatively interesting read but so heavy on the violence this young boy was subjected to that it became remarkably unbelievable that so many innocent peasant people could treat others with so little human compassion that it lost much of its potential power to impact me as a reader....it almost
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got silly...u know....'u think that was bad....wait til you read the next chapter'...almost gratuitous...and not to diminish all of the horrors that people endured, but it was just too unreal to fully buy into. However it is truly a rich exploration of the impact totalitarianism can have on the human condition.....and it is not a good one. Show Less
LibraryThing member tobiejonzarelli
Kosinski's fictionalized portrait of a young boy's attempt to survive WWII without family or friends in Eastern Europe is a very dark read. It stuns the senses in the descriptions of savagery and violence inflicted upon this child, and at times I thought it was really over the top. However, having
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read dozens of first hand accounts of holocaust survivor's memoirs, and realizing that it is loosely based on the author's own history, I have to conclude that it is an unblinking look at the horror people are capable of inflicting on others. Indeed it is a grim and savage portrait of evil, visceral and unyielding in it's assault on the innocence of a child. Show Less
LibraryThing member chrisv
Supposedly based on Roman Polanskis experiences in world war 2 this presents a bleak view of a child on the run from the nazis living hand to mouth amongst villages in eastern europe.
Almost like a science fiction novel, a child encounters a bizarre, archaic world of superstitious peasants. They
Almost like a science fiction novel, a child encounters a bizarre, archaic world of superstitious peasants. They
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uncomprehending of him and him comprehending of them. Show Less
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
The 'Painted Bird' is a holocaust novel that mentions the concentration camps only in passing, and rarely details the Nazis and their terrible work. Instead, it focuses more on the seemingly prosaic - the rural population of a country very much like Poland - and how viciously brutal they were in
Kosinski, a Jew, survived the war, hiding in a village with his father. In the book, Kosinski writes as a solitary boy, sent by his parents to a safe house in a country, from whence he fled on the death of his keeper. The story follows his 'adventures': how he survived as he travelled from village to village, looking for food and shelter, how he was punished for being a Jew or a gypsy.
It is perhaps the book's most important effect to note that, during the forties in Europe, the Nazis were the most vicious bunch of thugs imaginable, though they were surely supported or at least helped by the people around them, cowed into submission or revelling in the opportunity to victimise. I have read many accounts of the holocaust, and know the suffering that the Jews and other 'undesirables' must have endured, but I had no idea about the rest. This book has helped to educate me.
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the past. That this is perhaps Poland is only to illustrate the point - it could have been anywhere, such is the documented brutality of the time.Kosinski, a Jew, survived the war, hiding in a village with his father. In the book, Kosinski writes as a solitary boy, sent by his parents to a safe house in a country, from whence he fled on the death of his keeper. The story follows his 'adventures': how he survived as he travelled from village to village, looking for food and shelter, how he was punished for being a Jew or a gypsy.
It is perhaps the book's most important effect to note that, during the forties in Europe, the Nazis were the most vicious bunch of thugs imaginable, though they were surely supported or at least helped by the people around them, cowed into submission or revelling in the opportunity to victimise. I have read many accounts of the holocaust, and know the suffering that the Jews and other 'undesirables' must have endured, but I had no idea about the rest. This book has helped to educate me.
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LibraryThing member PamelaReads
The Painted Bird is the story of an abandoned child on the streets of an Eastern European city, possibly Poland, during the Second World War. We follow this young boy as he desperately tries to survive the harsh elements, impending starvation, and living with various diabolical peasants who take
The novel plays out like a collection of parables, as each family that he stays with has very different circumstances that they bestow upon him. As a consequence of the horrific scenarios he finds himself involved in there is a lot to be learned about how the boy is treated and how he deals with each situation, often escaping within an inch of his life. The shocking and senseless behaviours of the peasants span from witchcraft, to slavery, to severe physical and sexual abuse, to incest and bestiality.
Jerzy Kosinski did an excellent job of portraying real and accurate responses by the boy in connection with the traumas that he was forced to endure. Because of this I can see how it would have been easy for people to believe that this was a retelling of things that actually happened to him. (There was some controversy over whether the book was based on his own true story, and it was later determined that it was merely a work of fiction.) The fact that Kosinski made it all up, to me anyway, doesn't take away from the story, yet instead highlights his talents by showing how well versed he is with the psychology of people and how they relate to despairing and tragic events.
This book is definitely not for everyone, and only those with a strong stomach should attempt to read about such atrocities.
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him in along the way.The novel plays out like a collection of parables, as each family that he stays with has very different circumstances that they bestow upon him. As a consequence of the horrific scenarios he finds himself involved in there is a lot to be learned about how the boy is treated and how he deals with each situation, often escaping within an inch of his life. The shocking and senseless behaviours of the peasants span from witchcraft, to slavery, to severe physical and sexual abuse, to incest and bestiality.
Jerzy Kosinski did an excellent job of portraying real and accurate responses by the boy in connection with the traumas that he was forced to endure. Because of this I can see how it would have been easy for people to believe that this was a retelling of things that actually happened to him. (There was some controversy over whether the book was based on his own true story, and it was later determined that it was merely a work of fiction.) The fact that Kosinski made it all up, to me anyway, doesn't take away from the story, yet instead highlights his talents by showing how well versed he is with the psychology of people and how they relate to despairing and tragic events.
This book is definitely not for everyone, and only those with a strong stomach should attempt to read about such atrocities.
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LibraryThing member June6Bug
Brutal story of a child sent to the countryside to be protected during WWII; because of his dark complexion and his parents' absence, he is subjected to horrific treatment, and he is witness to all the inhumanity imaginable.
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
This novel was okay, but I don't really understand why it was included in Time's Top 100 Novels list. I don't believe that it merits that position. The prose is clunky, and I've read that the actual thing is entirely fictionalized rather than based on any truth-- besides the general subject matter
Overall, a disappointing read.
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of course. The characters felt forced and the dialogue was disjointed and rang untrue. Also, the plot was something dilly-dally and meandering from one story point to the next. Overall, a disappointing read.
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LibraryThing member maddiegreene
Midway through the book, you'll find yourself laughing hysterically as another sweet dog or kindly horse is introduced only to be painfully killed within the next few pages. Every chapter introduces a new village full of racist, superstitious peasants who have created new methods of brutalization.
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It becomes a parody of itself, a carnival of torture. The book claims to be an autobiography but I knew it for a fake fairly early on-- no genuine WWII experience is so perfectly novelized (or so ludicrous). Sure enough, Kosinsky was called out as a liar and proved to have invented this story so cleverly marketed as personal history. I resented it less as fiction. Does the fact that Kosinski was allegedly a pathological liar alter the impact of the book? I think so. But perhaps I wrongly expect a book to tell stories between the covers but arrive in my hands packaged in fact. Show Less
LibraryThing member byronemerson
Every few pages brings another basic question of life as observed through the eyes of a child rapidly gaining life experiences without enough life experiences to put them in perspective. Fundamental questions of purpose, existence, reason, are brought to the forefront with each new act of
The simple, direct style adds to the impact of the story's events. Use of metaphor is expert and something I began to see as a treat with each new encounter.
It is a book I plan to reread, but not too soon. The emotional cost of reading it, if you allow yourself to invest in it, is high. I approached it too lightly at first and felt myself cringing with the repeated acts of violence.
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brutality. The simple, direct style adds to the impact of the story's events. Use of metaphor is expert and something I began to see as a treat with each new encounter.
It is a book I plan to reread, but not too soon. The emotional cost of reading it, if you allow yourself to invest in it, is high. I approached it too lightly at first and felt myself cringing with the repeated acts of violence.
Show Less
LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
I have no idea what the hell to make of this.
A catalog of horrors, unflinching, hammering them into your skull. The main character is totally broken. You yourself almost become disillusioned, and almost used to violence and shit and horror.
A frightening book.
A catalog of horrors, unflinching, hammering them into your skull. The main character is totally broken. You yourself almost become disillusioned, and almost used to violence and shit and horror.
A frightening book.
LibraryThing member Alfonso809
The first rock thrown again
Welcome to hell, little Saint
Mother Gaia in slaughter
Welcome to paradise, Soldier
Is all BS! All of it! We a failure as a society, as a species, as individuals! We suck! There’s no way in hell anybody can convince me other wise! You know why? Cuz like millions of years
Welcome to hell, little Saint
Mother Gaia in slaughter
Welcome to paradise, Soldier
Is all BS! All of it! We a failure as a society, as a species, as individuals! We suck! There’s no way in hell anybody can convince me other wise! You know why? Cuz like millions of years
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ago some sort of ameba divided itself in 2... You know what the first thing it did when It separated itself? It attacked the other weaker part… and that’s what we been doing for fucking millions of years now! One its born and life fuck you in the butt! That’s it! Some people may call me emotionally damaged because I laugh at others demise… what they fail to noticed is that when I’m laughing is because that person had a hell lot of chances to avoid all the shit that befall him/her! As somebody said… “a fool deserves all the foolery that befalls him” or something like that! Anyway, that’s how I see it! But this poor kid broke my heart today! Damn man! This poor little kid was just walking around and shit went down on him and only him! There was nothing he could do to avoid it! He was just there walking minding his own busyness and BANG! It felt like the whole universe decided to defecate on that poor kid! Superstitious crazy old ladies hitting him (x), getting molested by crazy nympho (x), being chased by fucking Nazis (x), people telling him he has a demon inside of him and making him feel horrible for being “different” (x), being molested by some crazy chick and falling in love with her just to later watch her getting freaky with her father, brother and a goat (mother fucking check!), watching some crazy cock blocker bitches put a glass bottle inside the local nympho’s vagina and then kicking her to death (again holy fuck, check!), that’s pretty much all I’ve seen so far! I’am finish reading it tomorrow… I’m pretty hard to impress and easy to amuse… I mean I’m a sick fuck! But god damn! I’m impressed! And shock! And disgusted! And depressed! Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1965
Physical description
244 p.; 21 inches
ISBN
080213422X / 9780802134226