The Painted Bird

An unnamed six-year-old Jewish boy is sent to a remote village by his parents in hopes of saving him from the oncoming Holocaust. The elderly woman with whom he initially lives passes away, and for the next six years, the boy wanders through an unnamed East European company (assumed to be Poland) going from place to place seeking refuge. Prejudiced against him by his dark hair and eyes, the peasants assume he is a Jewish or Gypsy bastard and subject him to horrible abuse and violence driven by superstition and racism. Crushed between the armies of the Germans and Russians, the populace at large is driven to ever greater depravity and violence, with the boy as a wide-eyed observer.

When the book was published in 1965, it met with initial show more acclaim, but soon became embroiled in controversy. It was accused of being anti-Polish and banned in Poland. In addition, the author was accused of initially passing the novel off as autobiographical when it is fiction, and there were numerous claims of plagiarism. Others, however, saw it as an interesting allegory for the brutality of war off the battlefield.

Although I was able to appreciate the novel as an interesting fable set during World War II, I struggled with the unrelenting brutality, both physical and sexual. I would caution potential readers to be prepared for animal abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, and torture. Although I am glad to have read it, it's not one that I will revisit. show less

I wanted to start this by saying that this book had 'ruined' me for all future holocaust fiction. But that isn't true. To call Kosinski's novel 'The Painted Bird' "holocaust fiction/literature" is reductive and even trivializing to the point of insult to both the novel and the subject matter, like saying Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow' was a world war II book or that kafka was simply writing german literature, broad statements that really say nothing and achieve nothing in being put to paper or label.

This novel was, still is actually (it will stay with me forever I feel and no, I don't think that's being too heavy-handed in this case) a long form narrative treatise about the ever-presence of human suffering and the basest most abhorrent show more aspects of the human soul and character. This ever-presence and overabundance of suffering and pain is matched by the complete and utter absence of not only god, but of order, reason, logic, certainly justice and anything equivalent to fairness or equality, with only the less than occasional moments of air in the form of human kindness in the dank and suffocating confined spaces of human life from the most claustrophobic and isolated villages to the post war industrial cities where though humanity tries, it still can't fully fathom itself let alone its surrounding world, and in failing, chooses to look away and cast off those who remind them of this somber realization.

Kosinski has given us a novel so dense in symbolic power that it can very easily be read as a parable. But in doing so I think half of the message is lost. The book needs to be seen as both a testament about a very real historical moment but as also a engraved reminder, a grim harbinger and death pale reflection of where humanity has gone and where it could very easily go again. The fact that the holocaust is a keystone element here speaks volumes, no more so than in the fact that the actual ethnicity of the nameless child is (though hinted at greatly, especially towards the end) never quite fully revealed, Jew or Gypsy. The horrific atrocities that the child goes through and the effects that these tortures have on his soul and psyche, his continuing revelations about human nature and what he, as a categorically sane individual lost in a sinking cauldron of madness, speaks to all people, everywhere. The holocaust, the time and the place of it, are the circles and symbols written into the sand and dirt. Kosinski conjures from this a story that speaks and reverberates to the music of agony and revelation.

After saying all that it might be surprising that I note that some of the language in the book is off. Meaning that some of Kosinski's word choices and techniques regarding metaphor and imagery come off as clunky, overly book like and even old fashioned and trying too hard. But this adds too, if you can believe it. This can so easily be read as one writers attempts to conceptualize the incomprehensible. Not just the holocaust, not just god's absence and the presence of evil and good intertwined. It's EVERYTHING. Kosinski appears to use his words to create a base, a rock solid foundation of understanding that will allow him to explore this world with safety, with a measure of hope and even faith.

But Kosinksi fails. And as he does the novel's power soars. Truly this is a book that takes something from the reader. It cuts into your mind and into your heart and rends your innocence and other things that there aren't words or terms for, those certain intangibles in all of our minds that we may or may not know or possibly, for some, take for granted. The lack that is felt afterwards though, upon finishing the book, is something sublime, something transcendent. show less

''We are here in the company of death.''

Jewish concentration camp inmate

A young boy finds himself lost, wandering in the countryside of an unnamed Eastern European country during the Second World War. The boy, mute and nameless, faces a world torn apart, a society that doesn't need any kind of war to change. It is a world stripped off all traces of kindness, compassion and humanity, a world that preys upon a child in its most vulnerable moment.

''As these brightly coloured creatures sought the safety of their fellows, the other birds, seeing them as threatening aliens, attacked and tore at the outcasts until they killed them''

According to Kosinski, this novel is a dark fable that follows the path of Aristophanes' The Birds. But ''dark'' show more doesn't even begin to describe it. I am sure most of you know have heard that The Painted Bird is cruelty personified. But it is a cruelty that needs to be read. Because it exposes every single monstrosity humans are capable of and we don't need war noises playing in the background to acknowledge this. We need to experience a boy's ordeals through birds and snakes and insects. A child who only vaguely recalls the tender moments of life with parents and whose personality is about to change by witnessing the most horrifying acts you can possibly think of.

We need to witness Evil circling above the heads of villagers who, in this world, are the lowest form of life as seen by the young boy. Even the ravens and the vultures are disgusted by the human corpses. We have to experience the enchantment of the huldra, the cruelty against the Different, the mob that cries ''witchcraft'' while praying to a vicious Satan that no Bible could ever mention.

''A rotting crucifix, once painted blue, stood at the crossroads. A holy picture hung at the top, from which a pair of barely visible but seemingly tear-stained eyes gazed into the empty fields and red glow of the rising sun. A gray bird sat on an arm of the cross. On catching sight of me, it spread its wings and vanished.''

''I saw witches hanging from the trees. They stared at me, trying to lead me astray and confuse me. I distinctly heard the shudders of wandering souls which had escaped from the bodies of penitent sinners.''

The boy's life is filled with graves in silent cemeteries and wandering skulls. The wind rages, the dead moan their sorrows, the dogs howl in desperation and madness. The prayers are hypocritical, the shadows are long and Death haunts the child's every step. The wrath of an animalistic mob knows no limits. There is no pity for the innocents who are jammed in the wagons, heading to the gas chambers according to the desires of the German viciousness of Hitler and his squad of monsters. They have no pity for those who try to escape their doom. There is no pity for a lonely child. He is a Jew. An Other. Cursed and vilified. Without a land, or a home, or a family. Without the right to exist. It doesn't matter who fights against the Nazis and the Soviets. The villagers need no pretext to unleash Hell.

Yes, this novel contains every possible trigger warning you can think of. To the absolute extreme. And so does life itself. Do I think this portrayal is accurate? Do I believe that human nature is actually capable of the absolute Evil as portrayed in this novel? Of course, I do. The answer lies in the course of History.

''The urge to survive in inherently unfettered. Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner?''
Jerzy Kosinski

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

For over 50 years people have been arguing over whether this book is autobiographical or fiction, original or plagiarized, written by Kosinski or by ghost riders.

I. Do. Not. Care. I couldn't put it down.

Trigger alerts abound so look out. It's non-stop cruelty and brutality. Men, women, children and animals. Beating, torture, rape, murder, incest, bestiality...you name it, it's in here.

If you like imagery, no matter if the picture is beautiful or hideous, and can handle things like GOT, TWD, Stephan King, this book is for you.

Here is an example involving gouged out eyes. Those of you with weak stomachs should look away now.

"And with a rapid movement such as women use to gouge out the rotten spots while peeling potatoes, he plunged the show more spoon into one of the boy's eyes and twisted it.

"The eye sprang out of his face like a yolk from a broken egg and rolled down the miller's hand onto the floor. The plowboy howled and shrieked, but the miller's hold kept him pinned against the wall. Then the blood-covered spoon plunged into the other eye, which sprang out even faster. For a moment the eye rested on the boy's cheek as if uncertain what to do next; then it finally tumbled down his shirt onto the floor.

"It all had happened in a moment. I could not believe what I had seen. Something like a glimmer of hope crossed my mind that the gouged eyes could be put back where they belonged...

"...The eyeballs lay on the floor. I walked around them, catching their steady stare. The cats timidly moved out into the middle of the room and began to play with the eyes as if they were balls of thread. Their own pupils narrowed to slits from the light of the oil lamp. The cats rolled the eyes around, sniffed them, licked them, and passed them to one another gently with their padded paws. Now it seemed that the eyes were staring at me from every corner of the room, as though they had acquired new life and motion of their own.

"I watched them with fascination. If the miller had not been there I myself would have taken them. Surely they could still see. I would keep them in my pocket and take them out when needed, placing them over my own. Then I would see twice as much, maybe even more. Perhaps I could attach them to the back of my head and they would tell me, thought I was not quite certain how, what went on behind me. Better still, I could leave the eyes somewhere and they would tell me later what happened during my absence."

I mean, come on! That's great stuff from the mind of our narrator, a 6-yo little boy in a rural village in Poland in 1939. show less

The Painted Bird is the fictional story of 7 year Polish child (not named) who is sent to the remote Polish countryside by his parents in an attempt to keep him safe during WW II. Unfortunately the person he is sent to live with dies and he spends the next 5 years going from one village to another trying to avoid the Germans and the violence of the Polish peasantry. At every turn this child (because of the way he looks—dark like a “gypsy”) is exposed to violence, torture, humiliation—not always at the hands of the Germans but mostly by the Polish villagers. The boy has suffered so much that it is hard to believe that he survives the war—but in reality he really has not—he may be physically alive in the end, but his soul is show more dead. There is no redemption, hope or inspiration in this novel. I can’t believe that I was able to finish this novel—it felt like violence pornography—every other page was unbelievable violence (bestiality, rape, murder, torture, incest, extreme beatings) directed at this boy! Pointless, mindless, disgusting--I would not recommend this book to anyone. 0 out of 5 stars. show less

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 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.

This very dark 1965 novel brought the author, a Holocaust survivor, much literary acclaim. (Eli Wiesel and Arthur Miller praised it effusively, for example. I found this out after I read the book and I had to look up the author.) I had a copy somehow, I think from my ex. So I picked it up because I noticed the Bosch painting on the cover, and read it. Wow. I was not prepared for it. I should have noted the cover, which depicts Hell. Because I was about to step into hell when reading the first scene.

While the prose was well written, the subject matter was horrifying (I selected the Horror tag)...Nazis, brutish peasants, incest, rape, bestiality, mutilation. Yeah, this book has it all. I did read the whole book, which is pretty short (a show more bit over 200 pages). And I know I will remember it for years. I am rather sorry I finished reading the book, to be honest. I am left contemplating the nature of evil and wondering how many atrocities are happening in the world at the moment. show less