Rating: 
Summary: For Shame
Review: It's extremely unethical and irresponsible for Amazon to be passing this book off even as "semi-autobiographical" in order to sell it.
I myself was taken in by this story when I read it, believing, as Kosinski wanted everyone to do, that it was based on his own experiences.
As it turns out, the only authentic elements in this book are names of people who in fact cooperated in protecting his entire family. The plot and incidents described are possibly borrowed, but most likely invented out of whole cloth. See "Steps" for a taste of Kosinski's interests and imagination, or see Sloan's biography -- which also corrects the record regarding Kosinski's war-time experience.
Rating:
Summary: Fraud - fantasy passed off as history
Review: There seem to be a lot of people out there who feel that life is all bunnies and flowers, and anything that isn't should be hidden away or candycoated. This book takes place during an era which is morally irresponsible to candycoat. How else do you get across the horrors that truly took place in most of Europe throughout WWII without seriously insulting and compromising not only truth, history, and reality, but also the memories of those who perished as well as the aging members of that generation who can never forget what they saw and experienced? The awful things in this book, such as when the young plowboy literally loses his eyes, the scene the unnamed boy witnesses between Quail, Ewka, Makar, and the goat, Rainbow raping the beautiful young Jewish woman, or the pillage and rape-spree the Kalmuks go on, aren't in here to be titilating, but rather because things like that really did happen! And what kind of disturbed person would feel aroused by any of the brutal sex and violence that take place through the book?Some people dismiss books about WWII and the Holocaust because there are so many of them and they feel that after awhile, it's just repeating the same story over and over again, only with different names and locations. But this book is rather unique in the genre, in that there isn't one single scene in a death train, death march, ghetto, camp, not even the front lines. It's told by an unnamed young boy, only six years old when the Nazis invade his native Poland, who is shuttled from caretaker to caretaker. We don't even know if he's Jewish, a Gypsy, or neither. From hostile village to hostile village he goes, usually because he's been chased out by either the villagers themselves or the often cruel people he's been staying with. He learns early on to survive by his wits, in a superstitious world gone even madder with war. As an innocent, he cannot understand what is truly going on all around him, so there is none of the inner emotional and psychological turmoil we often see in other books about this time period. He finally comes to discover that being nice, staying out of the way, even constantly praying, didn't help him one iota. When he witnesses the scene between Ewka, Makar, Quail, and the goat in the barn, he realises what it means to be in league with the Devil and what evil is. The boy now knows that being nice didn't get him anywhere, and the only people he's been around who got things accomplished were evil, so he decides he must become evil too, become like one of his oppressors in order to succeed. It's understandable, given that he can barely remember anything but evil and suffering. And already he's become so traumatised by all he's gone through that he has just shut down and become a mute, though of course he's far too young to realise the reasons why that happened to him. And when the war finally ends, he has become so used to being evil and on the run that he doesn't know how to adjust to a normal life again, one of the great tragedies of any war. I don't know enough about the man to know whether or not Jerzy Kosinski was indeed guilty of plagiarism or lying about his life history, and if so, how much or how little, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a work of fiction, perhaps loosely based on his experiences as a young boy during the war. I'd see where critics get off had this been billed as a memoir, or a work of fiction said to be strongly based on his own life, but it remains a novel. If this is a fraud, then every fictional account of a historical event that really happened is a fraud too, as well as novels loosely based on something that may have happened in the author's own life. It's a powerful, moving, unforgettable book, whether it be fiction or partial autobiography.
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre, Kafkaesque
Review: After I read Painted Bird, digested it and read it again I was awfully excited about Jerzy Kozinski. Painted Bird is about the human condition, set in a time and place where the human condition had the whole spectrum of opportunities to manifest itself. Kozinski's perceptions of humanity are poignant, surgical, honest and brutal. I love this book. After reading it I attempted other Kozinskis as they emerged and found that all fell completely flat for me. This one's in a class all its own, in my view.
Rating:
Summary: Lone Pole on the Run From the Gun
Review: This book might not be for you. Jerzy paints some wondrous pictures. Some people will say they're gross, offensive. Probably; but in my opinion The Painted Bird is probably the greatest single journey made by an unlikely hero (next to Cozzen's Castaway, and Greene's Power and the Glory). Sometimes artwork isn't the easiest thing to swallow, but mouthfuls like this are definetly nutritious.
|
