The Painted Bird

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This review will not attempt to summarise the book. It is simply a warning for the critical reader: this book is a complete waste of time. If you have a list of books that you always wanted to read and this book was next in line, i strongly and sincerely urge you to skip it and read the next item. The book is so disappointing that you might be tempted to read it, but it is not even a very good bad book, i.e. it is unrewarding even in its inferiority. The allegory of the painted bird, however, is beautiful and moving, and there is also one other praiseworthy sentence. The structure of this literary rubbish is dreadfully dull. A poor brunette boy wanders from village to village. Basically, in each chapter he witnesses or endures various obscenities at a new location. For example, in one chapter the boy stays with a brutish peasant who plucks the eyeball of his wife's lover with a spoon; in another, the boy watches his host-sister while she copulates with a goat under the aroused gazes of her father and brother etc. ad infinitum. It seems that the author intended to write the most disgusting book in the world, but, in fact, the story is unrealistically disgusting and, thus, not effective. A sadly shallow book.

Rating:
Summary: Not About Brutality. It's About Survival, And That's Moral.
Review: Jerzy Kozinski's Painted Bird is a stunning & frank portrayal of the odyssey of a young boy, mistaken for gypsy or Jew, learning to survive on his own wits in Eastern Europe in WWII.
It is often shocking & frequently raw, but above all of that, there is a shining glory because it aims to get the reader to examine their moral compass. You can't do that with a candied over book when you're talking about holocaust. This book will change you for the better if you let it & ignore criticisms from people who think that morality is only about painting a rosy picture. Kozinski wants to get a rise out of you with this tale, but for righteous anger, not titillation.

This book and its author are frequently maligned for the most idiotic reasons. Whether it's the alleged "historical inaccuracy" charges, or the brainless snipes about it being sensationalistic exhibitionism and violence, none of the charges seem to get to the heart of Painted Bird, Kozinski's masterpiece.

First off, the atrocities in the book that happen to the little boy are voyeuristicly described because Kosinski wants to place you up front as if a real war is going on, and you have to make moral choices. It's naked and it's brutal. Most people are expecting The Diary Of Anne Frank when they read this, and they want to be coddled & sheltered in an attic like that book, awaiting the atrocities in the company of family not knowing what's going on outside*. Kozinski doesn't do that. He puts you in a frame of reference of being in the war with immediate threat to life & dignity, all shown through the psyche of a little boy who represents the future of the world & what will happen to it from the conflict.

Secondly, charges have been levelled against this book for it portraying the WWII peasants too cruelly. This misses the point of the book, of course. The author was trying to encapsulate the essence of ALL purges, ALL "ethnic cleansing", therefore it is about ALL holocausts from world history from the mongol hordes to Stalin to Bosnia & Hussein. People who nitpick over the book's "historical correctness" miss its MORAL correctness.

The joy in reading this book has nothing to do with any of the lurid situations, but in seeing the boy learn to fight for his innocence & survive. Of course he doesn't come out unscathed and I think many people are angry with the author for not having a tidy finish. They shouldn't be; this isn't a whitewash job done as a lullaby Hollywood script, but an opinion about inhumanity. The holocaust wasn't a damn amusement park history recreation that we should observe from the safety of our cars. It was and IS possible. In this book, Kozinski is trying to make you highly aware of the ease with which it could happen to you, and he wants to shred your denial & complacency away. Some people don't like that because they've held on to their security blanket of ego too hard.

For those of you unfamiliar with this book, read it. Yes, it may shock your conscience, but that is a GOOD thing. It may inspire you to bring some more humanity & compassion into the world for your fellow human beings. This book is NOT about despair & corruption & the wickedness of mankind, but about the fact that we can cope with almost ANYTHING if we try.

And that's beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Only descriptions.
Review: An account of the bestial experiences of a child during World War II.

This novel is exhibitionist and cold. It only rarely transcends the descriptions of brutalities, sexual depravations and filth. Art is not the reproduction but the arousing of feelings.
This is an anti-war and an anti-mankind novel, but the author was more interested in the depiction of obscenities. The books of the Marquis de Sade are masterpieces compared with this work.

Rating:
Summary: fiction
Review: Not sure how to rate this--but I have read enough about Kosinski to know that this book is fiction, invention. He was never seperated from his family, in fact the very peasants/villagers he slanders and makes to appear bad saved not only his life, but the rest of his family. Why the big stink over Kosinski now (for the past ten years actually) is because the guy always insisted that this stuff was all true and that he had lived through it. The man "borrowed" passages from other writers' works and reworked them as his own and made them part of his books. Another example is Being There--"borrowed" from The Career of Nikodem Dyzma, etc. Kosinski, it seems, was a decent idea man, but the writing was done by others. None would begrudge a writer using proofers, they all do it, Hemingway, Thomas Wolf, all of them (nothing wrong with that. A writer can be a fine storyteller, but lousy at spelling, as well as unable to see his own mistakes, errors, etc. So this is acceptable...) but this guy Kosinski sems to have gone way beyond that. Read James Park Sloan's biography if you need more facts--although Sloan is not a great writer himself (the book is flat) but entails plenty of facts). Kosinsky, no doubt, was a troubled guy, a mess, scarred--and his primary goal once he got to New York was to become a success--at any cost. And in the end, it cost him his life. Perhaps if he had taken the time to learn the craft of storytelling...it may have worked out better for him...but even there raw talent is required and the ability to beat the language (not your own) one has chosen to write in. Quite a task--and Kosinski knew he was not up to the task. His way of getting over that obstacle was to employ others to do the actual writing. Are we saying here that the guy was totally worthless as a human being? No, we're not. Are we saying that the man hadn't suffered and been put through plenty psychologically during WWII? Of course not. All we're saying here is that his facade of the great writer was just that: a facade. A con job, that made him famous and paid him plenty--but also helped destroy him when his luck ran out in the end. In a perfect and fair world the Oscar for Being There would have gone (if posthumously) to the author of The Career of Nikodem Dyzma for having created the original book the movie was based on, etc.
Kosinski hungered for the brass ring at any price... James M. Cain in his Double Indemnity gave us fair warning about that: Careful what you wish for.

Rating:
Summary: Dare to be Different, but not for the weak stomach
Review: What makes this book even more creepy is the foward which indicates that some of the graphic fiction in the book is based on the author's real life. Kosinski experienced some of these savage torments as a boy following WWII. The book is broad enough to not just capture the ugliness of war and hatred, but the true meaning of being different, being discriminated against and being alienated in the worst way because of the color of your skin (hair, and eyes). The happy moments experienced in the book are basic and essential pieces of everyday life that we all take for granted. Historically, based on Jerzy Kosinsky's own life, the events of his own childhood couldn't be overcome--dying with his own demons banging on the door.

Rating:
Summary: Most Frightening Book Ever Written
Review: I was in hospital recovering from a back operation when I shuffled off to the library to see what I could find. There was only one decent book in it - The Painted Bird. It really put the world in perspective for me; I read it many times over during the next few weeks, and I have kept it close at hand in the 12 years since.

It explains human nature and society with a clarity that no other book can achieve; only Gulliver's Travels and Macbeth come close. As pretygrrl said, the images "are absolutely unforgettable" "and yet, this book is impossible to put down". It is a pity that some readers think the book is defamatory to the human race, or to Polish peasants; quit fooling yourself...this is what human beings are like!

The title image derives fro a bird-catcher and -seller who in a moment of drunkenness takes one of his birds, paints his feathers in strange, gaudy colours, then releases him. The bird flies back to his flock...which tears him to pieces as an unrecognizable outsider. This is almost what happens to the young boy on the run in wartime Poland, as his skin-colour is slightly darker, and the peasants torture and beat him.

I have lived in different parts of the world and I feel like a stranger everywhere I go. But I regard Kosinski as a fellow spirit, along with Kafka and Genet, so my country is the"Republic of Letters.

This book is written in simple language that small children can understand; I would like to know what elementary school students think of this book.

Rating:
Summary: The least entertaining book I've ever read! Yay!
Review: Wow! What a powerful and compelling masterpiece of POINTLESS VIOLENCE. Sure, it's got a plot; sure, it's got a theme; sure, it illustrates without sugar-coating the violence and mental effects of World War II; but aside from that, it's like porn, except with killing instead of sex. I didn't think I could be any further desensitized to violence after Blade II and an extensive series of concentration-camp documentaries, but I guess I was wrong! The trouble with this book is that the shock and horror of rape, murder, torture, animal abuse, etc. ad infinitum paralyzes your thinking processes, masking the theme. This book is a failure of advertising: nice themes, but it can't connect to the reader at ALL. Read Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness instead. This book bites.

Rating:
Summary: One-of-a-kind man, one-of-a-kind book
Review: Should you want to go out of this world, you have two options. Kosinski is your second! A more realistic one (than into fantasy worlds) in that you can not believe these things he is writing about is likely to occur on the very same planet you now are on.

Shame it's true! For this piece, it's the Europe in WWII. See his others if you like the thing come closer, closer, closer to your homeland, the US.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into darkness
Review: I first read this book at the age of 15 and found it utterly depressing. Recently I revisited it and while I still feel it is one of the more gloomy stories I've read, I was suprised to find it so compelling. There are many gripping and intelligent moments. Still not a book I would recommend for anyone struggling with chronic depression. However, it is a well written story and a good introduction to Kosinski.

Rating:
Summary: Not What You Think
Review: I ordered this book from Amazon based on the positive reviews, as so many found this book to be praiseworthy. I agree to a limited extent. While the subject matter is unwaveringly wretched, the story is compelling in an horrific way, and the prose outstanding, considering English is not the author's native tongue. I did, however, regret reading The Painted Bird for, as it turns out, it is a sham.

Having widely suggested that it was semi-autobiographical, Mr. Kosinski recounts horror after horror experienced by a six-year old boy sent away to escape the Holocaust. It seems, however, that the story is not at all autobiographical, but rather a product of his imagination.

Now, I have nothing against an author's dark imagination, and in fact, enjoy reading tales of misery and maltreatment. I do, however, object to being misled, for then one must reevaluate the misery depicted (and the appreciation thereof) in context of its believability; in this case negating the fact that this story really took place, and therefore having to negate the outrageous behaviors as believable. If the story is indeed made out of whole cloth, then one sees The Painted Bird merely as a series of unrelated ugly scenes pieced together, endlessly, with no redeeming value. It turns out the Polish peasants were not the aberations depicted; the violence not founded; and the sexual monstrosities exaggerated for the maximum effect. In which case, the story becomes little more than a violent piece of sadism and pornography, not a realistic portrayal of the savageness of WWII, and therefore unbelievable even as a work of fiction.

I strongly suggest you read James Park Sloan's biography of Jerzy Kosinski before you read The Painted Bird. You will see a picture of the author that will make you think twice about whether this book is the masterpiece some think it is. I wish I had read it first.