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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
just way too violent
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Murder
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I stopped at the assault of the woman where a bottle is involved.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault
I’ve never read a book quite like this one. Absolutely horrifying, depraved, and depressing. All made even more so by the frankness with which it’s written. Many times throughout the book, I was thinking this was happening hundreds of years ago to a grown man, only to be reminded that it’s set in WW2 and happening to a child. I think this could be an important read about the tragedy and brutality faced by many, many people, including children, but definitely go into it expecting to read things like you’ve never read before.
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Antisemitism, War
Not bad. Most of it is more like disconnected vignettes than a real cohesive story. Just like the protagonist you start getting numb to the atrocities after a while as he simply recounts what happens with little real insight or opinion. Then the ending is fairly abrupt and seems out of place. Were there a few pages missing?
But overall it’s a good recounting of the atrocities of war and what a challenging and confusing place war torn Eastern Europe was. I kept forgetting this was the 1940’s and not the 1840’s.
I look forward to the film. I wonder how much will be kept in and how much they’ll have to leave on the cutting room floor.
But overall it’s a good recounting of the atrocities of war and what a challenging and confusing place war torn Eastern Europe was. I kept forgetting this was the 1940’s and not the 1840’s.
I look forward to the film. I wonder how much will be kept in and how much they’ll have to leave on the cutting room floor.
“All cats are the same in the dark, says the proverb. But it certainly did not apply to people, with them it was just the opposite. During the day they were all alike, running in their well-defined ways. At night they changed beyond recognition.” This is a work of stark brutality. A series of endless horrors. At one point, the reader pulls away, shaking their head, wondering of the meaning. Who is the painted bird - that fateful creature the bird catcher paints in various colors and then returns it to its flock only for the flock to swarm upon the painted, colorful bird and kill it. Who is the boy that cruel Nature devours? There is a message here. It is buried beneath the horror. Perhaps too deep.
The Real Spoils of War
In his Being There, Kosinski meditated on the consequences of being socialised entirely through television. The Painted Bird considers how a child might be socialised (if that doesn’t stretch the meaning of the word beyond its limits) to the chaos of war and the morally-deprived society in which it takes place. It’s not pretty.
After a period of understandable confusion, the boy tries desperately to make sense of his new reality. His first attempts involve treating his situation in terms of some rational standard: if he works hard, keeps his mouth shut, and obeys, he reckons he should be safe. Of course, he isn’t. Cruelty increases without apparent cause or reason.
Running away, the boy learns how to survive alone in a forest wilderness. But his isolation makes him vulnerable to capture by either the peasants or the Germans. Without communal protection he becomes doomed to a life of excruciating slavery.
He then discovers what he thinks is both community and an explanation of his plight in the Christian religion. Prayer, he believes, is the answer to his suffering. If he can build enough credit with God, he will be delivered from injustice.
But pray as he might nothing improves. In fact he is subject to extreme sexual abuse. He concludes not only that there is inherent, possibly irresistible, evil in the world but that the odds apparently favour those who side decisively with the Demon who embodies evil. This Manichaean turn may be distasteful but it appears the only way to achieve justice for his tormentors. Captured by evil, he becomes mute.
His next epiphany occurs with the defeat of the Germans by the Soviets. He is taken in, cared for, and politically indoctrinated by soldiers of the Red Army. He sees what power is meant to be: protection of the weaker by the stronger. The fact that the reader may know of a dissonance between theory and practice in Soviet society is irrelevant to the boy’s experience. He perceives this new form of power as salvation.
But salvation is only temporary. Placed in an orphanage with all the other mutilated and mentally damaged children of war, new skills of survival are required. Justice, in particular, cannot be left to social institutions, but must be seen to personally and proportionately to the offences involved. He becomes a street kid, a child of the night, a friend to low lifes and misfits. And he is comfortable.
Until his parents appear. Suffering a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, the boy considers his estranged parents as an inconvenient constraint on his freedom and potential. His fantasies and grandiose dreams of success are threatened by parental supervision. His peace is shattered by the existence of an annoying younger step-brother. He is fundamentally unfit for family life.
The rediscovery of his voice on the ski slopes of Switzerland is a rather ambiguous conclusion that the boy doesn’t comment upon. It’s unclear whether Kosinski is suggesting some sort of post-traumatic recovery or merely an explanation for how the first-person story is told at all. It is nevertheless clear that his life will never be normal in any sense of the word.
Postscript
This article appeared in my 'feed' several days after I finished reading Kosinski. It is a re-interpretation of the Book of Job that is remarkably congruent with the thrust of Kosinski's narrative.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/10/19/4559097.htm
In his Being There, Kosinski meditated on the consequences of being socialised entirely through television. The Painted Bird considers how a child might be socialised (if that doesn’t stretch the meaning of the word beyond its limits) to the chaos of war and the morally-deprived society in which it takes place. It’s not pretty.
Spoiler
The unnamed protagonist loses contact with his parents at age six, and isn’t reunited with them until after he turns twelve. During their separation, the boy is subject to the cruelty of the peasant society of rural Poland with its superstitious explanations of all natural phenomena, including the boy’s dark hair which makes him anathema as either a Gypsy or a Jew. He is also from time to time subject to equivalent cruelty by the invading German Army, not because he is either a Gypsy or a Jew but because he is an orphan with no obvious productive contribution to military efficiency.After a period of understandable confusion, the boy tries desperately to make sense of his new reality. His first attempts involve treating his situation in terms of some rational standard: if he works hard, keeps his mouth shut, and obeys, he reckons he should be safe. Of course, he isn’t. Cruelty increases without apparent cause or reason.
Running away, the boy learns how to survive alone in a forest wilderness. But his isolation makes him vulnerable to capture by either the peasants or the Germans. Without communal protection he becomes doomed to a life of excruciating slavery.
He then discovers what he thinks is both community and an explanation of his plight in the Christian religion. Prayer, he believes, is the answer to his suffering. If he can build enough credit with God, he will be delivered from injustice.
But pray as he might nothing improves. In fact he is subject to extreme sexual abuse. He concludes not only that there is inherent, possibly irresistible, evil in the world but that the odds apparently favour those who side decisively with the Demon who embodies evil. This Manichaean turn may be distasteful but it appears the only way to achieve justice for his tormentors. Captured by evil, he becomes mute.
His next epiphany occurs with the defeat of the Germans by the Soviets. He is taken in, cared for, and politically indoctrinated by soldiers of the Red Army. He sees what power is meant to be: protection of the weaker by the stronger. The fact that the reader may know of a dissonance between theory and practice in Soviet society is irrelevant to the boy’s experience. He perceives this new form of power as salvation.
But salvation is only temporary. Placed in an orphanage with all the other mutilated and mentally damaged children of war, new skills of survival are required. Justice, in particular, cannot be left to social institutions, but must be seen to personally and proportionately to the offences involved. He becomes a street kid, a child of the night, a friend to low lifes and misfits. And he is comfortable.
Until his parents appear. Suffering a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, the boy considers his estranged parents as an inconvenient constraint on his freedom and potential. His fantasies and grandiose dreams of success are threatened by parental supervision. His peace is shattered by the existence of an annoying younger step-brother. He is fundamentally unfit for family life.
The rediscovery of his voice on the ski slopes of Switzerland is a rather ambiguous conclusion that the boy doesn’t comment upon. It’s unclear whether Kosinski is suggesting some sort of post-traumatic recovery or merely an explanation for how the first-person story is told at all. It is nevertheless clear that his life will never be normal in any sense of the word.
Postscript
This article appeared in my 'feed' several days after I finished reading Kosinski. It is a re-interpretation of the Book of Job that is remarkably congruent with the thrust of Kosinski's narrative.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/10/19/4559097.htm
The first half is one of the most brilliant surrealist-impressionist novels I ever read. The second half is a stark disappointment in which violence and trauma is turned into a cheap horror story.