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Jerzy Kosinski

The Painted Bird Paperback – January 1, 1977

by Jerzy Kosinski (Author)

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Language

English
Publisher

Bantam 1977
Publication date

January 1, 1977
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000WV582W
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam 1977 (January 1, 1977)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #2,446,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20,066 in War Fiction (Books)
- #111,836 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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961 ratings

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LiteraryFan

More than a WWII Survival Story

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2020

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My edition included an Afterword from the author, a decade after the book was released. It's worth reading the Afterword before reading the book, and after you have completed it. It reveals what I find to be misunderstandings about the purpose of the tale, that some people took it quite literally to be a story about a young boy surviving a series of terrible events in rural Poland during WWII. While it is set there, it isn't really about the war. It is about a variety of lessons learned about how one might view their place in the world. The boy experiences something new with each person he is with - yes, much of it is unbelievably horrendous - and each experience adds a piece to how he views his fit with the world. In addition to the story about the unnamed boy, there is an undercurrent about the inherent need that oppressed people have to hurt others in turn. It's a grim depiction of human nature, but not one to be easily dismissed. This is a thought-provoking read that gets at the heart of what it means to be an individual in a broader society. It isn't a light read, but I found myself thinking about it long after I'd finished it.

24 people found this helpful

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B.K.

Looking for "disturbing"--got "disturbing"

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2020

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This was one of 10 or so books on a list that I think Book Bub put out listing some of the most "disturbing" books out there. I already liked this author's work, so I got a copy of this, and yes, "disturbing" fits the description. And mesmerizing--I read it all in one day. People debate how much "truth" there is in the details within the story, but if you just want to be taken to a darker place for a few hours, this'll do it.

8 people found this helpful

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Bokery

Beyond words

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2020

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This book tells and illustrates the depths of the human evilness. The story itself is about a Jewish boy who was sent to live in remote villages to escape the Natzi occupation and the Jewish extermination. During this time he evidences and undergoes cruelty, turture and horrors beyond any imagination. One could blame the ignorant villagers, which are supposedly polish, as the core with this cruelty and evilness. But i don't think that the author's aim was to demonize the polish villagers but rather to portray a shocking vision of the depths of the human cruelty. In this circle of horrendous acts, turturers and victims mix together and change place. Today's tyran and turturer becomes tomorrow 's victim and that same victim changes to monster the following day. And that vicious circule never ends. Here and there one can see glimpses of compassion and emphaty, sometime at places hardly expected for, but these glimpses of humanity drown in the ocean of evil and brutality. This is not just a story of the suffering of a young jewish boy during the dark days of WWII but an allegory to the evil and cruelty that are embedded in the human nature and just search for the opportunity to erupt. I don't think that i have read any book that crystallized and distilled the cruelty of life in such an overwhelming way. This is surely amongst the most shocking and moving pieces of art.

One person found this helpful

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A.E.M. Baumann

Not an historical but a mythic journey; not document but literature.

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2014

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I here set aside all issues with authorship or biography. Equally, I set aside the history of this book's reception and the discourse that arose around this book after publication, a discourse that first defined the book as one of the great texts of Holocaust literature and then castigated the book as a fraud of Holocaust literature. Both those receptions are false to the book itself and speak only of what others would have had of the book.

While the book takes place in occupied Poland during WWII, this book is not about WWII. It is not a book about the Holocaust: indeed, "Jewishness" plays at best a trivial role in the book, and the camps but a minor role. Nor is this book an indictment of Nazi Germany: if it were it seems rather odd that an SS officer is one of the kinder people toward the boy (the unnamed, main character of the book). But then it is entirely false to the book itself to try to read it as an historical narrative.

_The Painted Bird_ is, rather, a mythic tale, in many ways told in the nature of a European fairy tale. It is the story of a mythic hero cast by circumstances outside his control into a symbolic "journey through hell": beginning in what to all purposes are medieval peasant villages, then moving loosely through time into the larger "village" that is the communism of the Russian liberators. (But not moving "historically" through time; in this strange world there is no past or present; just the mythic now.) The question here is not whether the boy will survive the journey or be killed: the question is whether he will emerge the mythic hero on the other side of the journey, or fail and become lost, permanently, in the dark otherworld. To that end, there are two, primary, greatly inter-related energies within the book. The first is that which goes to painting the Bosch-like (not my phrase, but a good one) vision of hell. The second lies in the philosophies of being that the boy encounters, that he learns directly or indirectly through those individuals he meets on his journey. It is through these philosophies of being that the boy seeks not only the means to endure the physical difficulties of his journey, but more importantly -- and here we get to the central conflict of the book -- the means to maintain his individuality against the cruelties of cultural groups that at its core cannot tolerate individuality. It is a book about painted birds, yes, birds that are destroyed by the flock because they are different. But it is also a book about how the birds get painted in the first place. Most importantly, it is a book about psychical individuality.

The book is wholly a literary work: well conceived and designed and very well crafted. Yes, the violence is to the extreme, but it is well used to the end of pulling the book out of an historical world and into a mythic world. (Even within the violence and sex one can find mythic, fairy tale, and old-world-religious thematics.) If you can enter this work removing it from the discourse of Holocaust literature that tried to claim the book as its own, you will discover quite an aesthetic, literary experience. _The Painted Bird_ is literature of a higher caliber, and it deserves to be preserved and praised as such.

To note: I use the idea of the mythic hero with the intention of the connection being made to such works as Jospeh Campbell's _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_. The more I think about _The Painted Bird_, the more resonance I find between the journey of Kosinki's boy and the mythic journey as described by Campbell. Those energies go all the more to the symbolic and literary value of the work.

Also to note, it is worth getting the second edition of the book (the current edition) so as to have the Afterward, written a decade after the original publication. In my edition the Afterward comes first in the text. I would recommend not reading it until after you have finished the book. In truth, the afterward is mostly about the reception of the book, not the book itself. As such, it may create false ideas that might be brought into the book. However, once you have read the book, the Afterward easily slips into its rightful context.

124 people found this helpful

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rob stirling

A magnificent novel but hideously flawed.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2018

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Read this back in the 1960's when it was first published amid massive hype and controversy.
OK I was very young and impressionable and the read had a profound effect on myself and many of my generation.

The book, when read today, still has the same effect---- its horrific, sexy, gory, disgusting, sickening in parts and conveys a warped, nihilistic aspect of life purportedly experienced and written by Kosinski during the 2nd World War.
The events depicted are far worse than anything I've read about or seen in a modern post-apocalyptic novel or film.
I suspect that much of the content is based on the actual experiences of survivors of that period, probably Polish and Russian, and not first hand suffering as claimed by the author. That claim discredited his work immensely and he committed suicide a few short years after publication, before we could really understand his rationale after the dust had settled so to speak.
A magnificent work, but I could never recommend it to a wide audience.

There is a film coming out in 2019 some 50 years plus since the novel was first published (I had expected a film in the free 'n easy 1970's but it didn't happen). Some walked out of the theatre when shown at a film festival, while others gave the film a standing ovation, so the composition, whether written, audio or now on film, will always be controversial.
I also have the audio version of the book, 10 hours on 9 cd's. As powerful as the image taken from 'The Last Judgement' from Hieronymus Bosch, an oil on panel painting sometimes used on the cover of the novel.

16 people found this helpful

Mike E

Far from uplifting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2019

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Not for me; I wanted to read this in light of very positive ‘literary’ reviews. (Notwithstanding some controversy relating to the actual provenance of the work, with some accusations of plagiarism). I was disappointed, particularly in the style of the narrative (perhaps attributable to translation issues), but also what I thought to be at times merely a catalogue of continuous childhood misery recalled by the author. A depressing and dark tale of appalling brutality, and an obviously remarkable young child who is seemingly somehow able to survive the string of horrors he is confronted with.

One person found this helpful

Bugs

Just started this book the beginning i find a bit iffy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2019

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I have just started this book i am not at all sure how far i will get through it . The start is a bit odd to say the least i normally do not read a lot of fiction and this book may well be the reason why. I will see how it goes
I read up on the author before starting to read it and I would advise anyone thinking of purchasing it to do the same
quite a dark chap

3 people found this helpful

Roman

Twisted

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2019

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You really need to be open minded to understand this book. It's really not for everyone.
It had to stop reading few times as it was a bit too much for me but i have managed to complete it in 5 days.
Its definitely a weird classic.

2 people found this helpful

clive stocks

A gritty and painful novel about a Jewish boy on the run from ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2015

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A gritty and painful novel about a Jewish boy on the run from the Germans in World War 2 Poland.It has a lot of cruelty, violence and brutality but is a good read and quite gripping in its story and theme. Not an easy and pleasant read but after reading the book the story stays in your mind.

5 people found this helpful

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The Painted Bird Paperback – January 1, 1977

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