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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read the World Challenge - Poland
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, War
dark
emotional
sad
tense
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
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Anything you could consider to be the worst thing humans can do to each other is probably written in here. When I read this, know not much else beyond Jerzy being Jewish, and from Łódź, Poland, I assumed most of what's written here was from personal account. It's just written in that kind of style. It feels like someone recounting memories, and some of the shit that goes on in this book, the details of it, feel so genuine, what kind of sick person would just make this up?
Well, Jerzy Kosiński, I guess. He was only 6 when the war broke out, and due to his family's position, he was able to stay tucked safely away for the entirety of WW2. His family lived in extraordinary conditions, considering the time, even employing "house help". A journalist and author of writers' biographies named Joanna Siedlecka retraced his steps, where the villagers who took him in, and those around them, testified they did so willingly, knowing the consequences.
The Poles didn't torment Jerzy or his family, the traumas in his novel are fictitious, to him at least. Joanna even called Jerzy's brother (Henryk, a boy the family took in during the war) who was very little at the time, and so kept from commenting on the accuracy of The Painted Bird to spare his brother's career (he also felt he owed too much to the Kosiński family).
Knowing that this kind of story came from this kind of person, someone who became a poster boy for surviving the Holocaust while living at home with his parents and maids, avoiding the whole war, while I'm glad he did, of course, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I wish this had been branded as pure historical fiction, rather than an autobiography. It feels incredibly done in poor taste, especially given that Jerzy is Jewish (as am I).
I feel it's an important book, because I don't doubt at all that things like this happened during the war, to too many children, but it feels deceptive. I can't look at this book again for a variety of reasons, but knowing it's almost a trauma porn fic really cements it as a "will never read again"
Well, Jerzy Kosiński, I guess. He was only 6 when the war broke out, and due to his family's position, he was able to stay tucked safely away for the entirety of WW2. His family lived in extraordinary conditions, considering the time, even employing "house help". A journalist and author of writers' biographies named Joanna Siedlecka retraced his steps, where the villagers who took him in, and those around them, testified they did so willingly, knowing the consequences.
The Poles didn't torment Jerzy or his family, the traumas in his novel are fictitious, to him at least. Joanna even called Jerzy's brother (Henryk, a boy the family took in during the war) who was very little at the time, and so kept from commenting on the accuracy of The Painted Bird to spare his brother's career (he also felt he owed too much to the Kosiński family).
Knowing that this kind of story came from this kind of person, someone who became a poster boy for surviving the Holocaust while living at home with his parents and maids, avoiding the whole war, while I'm glad he did, of course, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I wish this had been branded as pure historical fiction, rather than an autobiography. It feels incredibly done in poor taste, especially given that Jerzy is Jewish (as am I).
I feel it's an important book, because I don't doubt at all that things like this happened during the war, to too many children, but it feels deceptive. I can't look at this book again for a variety of reasons, but knowing it's almost a trauma porn fic really cements it as a "will never read again"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Antisemitism, War
I don't think I can rate this book. But going through the tags after completing it, I discovered something just as disturbing as the book.
To the person that tagged this as 'erotic'...the fuck is wrong with you?
To the person that tagged this as 'erotic'...the fuck is wrong with you?
Kosiński writes of unbelievable horror and vulgarity with a matter-of-fact tone, delivering the grossest of inhumanities with scientific clarity. However, the Narrator's naïve observations briefly soften the story. There are moments of searing introspection and commentary on the complexity of the human condition, and through a little boy's wanderings through the violence of war-torn eastern Europe, a far greater story of good versus evil is told.
I read in the introduction that Kosinski was attacked on several occasions by Polish nationals after publishing this novel. This because it's a merciless mockery and indictment of Polish Catholics and in particular the peasantry. In the 19th century literature tended to romanticise rural communities. A stance that rarely quite rings true nowadays. This novel perhaps exaggerates to the other extreme. However, one of the most memorable images in The Shoah documentary is the Polish farmer showing how he warned the Jews heading for Treblinka of their imminent fate. He makes a throat slitting gesture and then shows all his teeth in a wide grin. In that moment you realise he wasn't warning those Jews at all; he was mocking them. It's a sad fact that the populations of Germany's enemies often implemented Nazi policy much more comprehensively and enthusiastically than Nazi allies. Italy for example has a much better record than Poland (or France for that matter) for its behaviour towards Jews. By all accounts there was little racism in Italy. There are several cases of the Carabinieri destroying a population census in a district rather than handing it over to the Nazis. Italians hid Jews; there are virtually no cases of them betraying them for cash. I read recently that the Gestapo received tens of thousands of letters from French civilians denouncing Jews. Poland has perhaps the worst record of all. If you were a Jew in Poland, you had an enemy on the other side of virtually every wall.
I don't know any details of Kosinski's wartime experiences. Clearly they left him embittered and hating the country of his birth. However, he was a Polish Jew and survived so must have had help from Christian Poles. A subtext of this novel is the importance of formal education. The Polish peasantry are characterised as uncouth ignoramuses, medieval in their religious beliefs and philosophy. Witchcraft is still the prevailing belief system.
But this is a novel, not a memoir, and should be evaluated as such. As a novel it has flaws, a couple of them fatal in my view. The Painted Bird is a very episodic novel. In fact, it's sometimes like the same short story written over and over again. This is certainly one flaw. There's also a sense that Kosinski gets carried away with his fascination for sadistic brutality. At times it reads like Holocaust porn, horror piled upon horror with a sense he's rather enjoying himself and inviting us to share his voyeuristic fascination. Less is more is a concept that completely escapes him. He piles on the atrocities, especially those of a sexual nature and it begins to make for very uncomfortable reading. Not because one is shocked; rather that one is embarrassed on the author's behalf by his obsessive fascination for depravity. This is particularly evident in a chapter when Ukrainian mercenaries terrorise a village. The acts these men subject the villagers to become almost comical in their escalating depravity. It's like the Marquis de Sade meets Monty Python. In fact you sense the novel's popularity was fed by all the perverted sex in its pages rather than as any kind of moving dramatization of the Holocaust. It's a shame because he writes very well and at times offers subtle and memorable insights into the dark side of human nature. Also, as an act of catharsis I dare say it provided benefits for him and you certainly can't begrudge him that. But it probably would have been a better novel had he waited until he was less avid to shock his readers. The Holocaust is shocking; we don't need anyone to exaggerate how shocking it was, even if with a mischievous ironical twinkle in the eye.
I don't know any details of Kosinski's wartime experiences. Clearly they left him embittered and hating the country of his birth. However, he was a Polish Jew and survived so must have had help from Christian Poles. A subtext of this novel is the importance of formal education. The Polish peasantry are characterised as uncouth ignoramuses, medieval in their religious beliefs and philosophy. Witchcraft is still the prevailing belief system.
But this is a novel, not a memoir, and should be evaluated as such. As a novel it has flaws, a couple of them fatal in my view. The Painted Bird is a very episodic novel. In fact, it's sometimes like the same short story written over and over again. This is certainly one flaw. There's also a sense that Kosinski gets carried away with his fascination for sadistic brutality. At times it reads like Holocaust porn, horror piled upon horror with a sense he's rather enjoying himself and inviting us to share his voyeuristic fascination. Less is more is a concept that completely escapes him. He piles on the atrocities, especially those of a sexual nature and it begins to make for very uncomfortable reading. Not because one is shocked; rather that one is embarrassed on the author's behalf by his obsessive fascination for depravity. This is particularly evident in a chapter when Ukrainian mercenaries terrorise a village. The acts these men subject the villagers to become almost comical in their escalating depravity. It's like the Marquis de Sade meets Monty Python. In fact you sense the novel's popularity was fed by all the perverted sex in its pages rather than as any kind of moving dramatization of the Holocaust. It's a shame because he writes very well and at times offers subtle and memorable insights into the dark side of human nature. Also, as an act of catharsis I dare say it provided benefits for him and you certainly can't begrudge him that. But it probably would have been a better novel had he waited until he was less avid to shock his readers. The Holocaust is shocking; we don't need anyone to exaggerate how shocking it was, even if with a mischievous ironical twinkle in the eye.
Absolutely terrifying - I have never had such a reaction to any book I have ever read, it is that dark and savage and depraved. You want to save that abandoned little boy who wanders around the villages of eastern europe but instead you're forced to watch. I read this in 2008 and the imagery in this book still comes back to haunt me. Hence the 5 star rating. It will make you feel ill and anxious but no one can deny that it is powefully written.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
So much to hate about this book. So much to love about this book. Wrecked.
The story of a small boy, in World War II Eastern Europe, sent to a village for protection from the Nazis, but faces his own horrors of cruelty, ignorance, and intolerance. He was thought to be a foundling, or a gypsy, and sent from place to place within the village. Never having a permanent place or a home and trying to navigate a world in which he isn’t prepared.
Each chapter could stand alone as its own moral narrative. In one chapter, he describes how a bird hunter, captures a bird, and paints it. He then sends the bird back into the flock only to see him attacked as an intruder and killed. The boy’s story in these villages mirrors that of the bird. An animal analogy matches almost every story in the book. The horrors just deepen as the narrative goes, the boy is chased into the forest, beaten up, given to a farmer for hard labor. This farmer, thinking the boy has cursed him, hangs him up in a shack and if the boy fails to hold himself up, then his dog will attack him. He sees the full horror of war as he sees people being shipped to concentration camps, and an attack on his village by awol soldiers. Things keep getting worse until he decides that there is no one that anyone can rely on, but oneself. It begins to change the boy, and when at the end of the war, his parents find him again, he is a different boy. (There seem to be a great many Lord of the Flies kind of references here, a wild life, and now a life tamed). “I could not readily accept the idea of suddenly becoming someone’s real son, of being caressed and cared for, of having to obey people, not because they were stronger and could hurt me, but because they were my parents and had rights which no one could take away from them. P. 226
I didn’t read all the controversy surrounding this book until after I finished it. It seems that most people had assumed (originally claimed by the author) that this work is semi-autobiographical. The book is, in fact, a work of fiction. The work was also banned in Poland for twenty years for its description of the peasants in the area as cruel, superstitious, and sexual deviants. I think the author’s point is to contrast the young innocent boy against adults in a time of war. It is a difficult book to read because of that, and to know that there are so many stories of World War II filled with these sorts of atrocities.
Each chapter could stand alone as its own moral narrative. In one chapter, he describes how a bird hunter, captures a bird, and paints it. He then sends the bird back into the flock only to see him attacked as an intruder and killed. The boy’s story in these villages mirrors that of the bird. An animal analogy matches almost every story in the book. The horrors just deepen as the narrative goes, the boy is chased into the forest, beaten up, given to a farmer for hard labor. This farmer, thinking the boy has cursed him, hangs him up in a shack and if the boy fails to hold himself up, then his dog will attack him. He sees the full horror of war as he sees people being shipped to concentration camps, and an attack on his village by awol soldiers. Things keep getting worse until he decides that there is no one that anyone can rely on, but oneself. It begins to change the boy, and when at the end of the war, his parents find him again, he is a different boy. (There seem to be a great many Lord of the Flies kind of references here, a wild life, and now a life tamed). “I could not readily accept the idea of suddenly becoming someone’s real son, of being caressed and cared for, of having to obey people, not because they were stronger and could hurt me, but because they were my parents and had rights which no one could take away from them. P. 226
I didn’t read all the controversy surrounding this book until after I finished it. It seems that most people had assumed (originally claimed by the author) that this work is semi-autobiographical. The book is, in fact, a work of fiction. The work was also banned in Poland for twenty years for its description of the peasants in the area as cruel, superstitious, and sexual deviants. I think the author’s point is to contrast the young innocent boy against adults in a time of war. It is a difficult book to read because of that, and to know that there are so many stories of World War II filled with these sorts of atrocities.