A hawk soaring above the sparrows (The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinsky)

Member Name: MartynColebrook

Product:	The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinsky
Date:	03/06/02 (1406 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See text

Disadvantages: Not to everyone's tastes but they should read it anyway!

Despite having undergone a revision since the original was published in 1965, ‘The Painted Bird’ is still banned in Poland (Jezry Kosinski’s homeland) for its subversive content and less than flattering portrayal of the Polish during World War II. I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy containing a prefatory essay by the author which explains how the title functions as an essential element of the narrative but it also supports my previous ideas about its possible biographical sources. This makes what is already a difficult novel harder when the reader realises that Kosinski may well borne witness to some of the events he recounts. As if to further the credentials of this novel, the reaction to its publication brought about savage reprisals against his family and, in one case, an attempt on Kosinski’s life when he was living in New York.

‘The Painted Bird’ is a tale of a young boy, presumed to be Jewish or a Gypsy, who is abandoned by his parents during World War II and begins a nomadic life of solitude as he moves or is moved from many Slavic villages. Each time he thinks he has found a place of safety, he is then subjected to prejudice, abuse and experiences that leave him near to death from the actions of the occupants. This treatment stems from his background and the subsequent fear held by the villagers that harbouring anyone who may be a Gypsy or Jew will lead to reprisals from the occupying German army. One of the key aspects of this is that Kosinski is writing about a wholly adult subject from the perspective of one who is barely out of early childhood, therefore as the narrative develops each understated naivete is ripped away to reveal the harrowing truth lying just below the surface.

The first assistance that the child encounters (he remains anonymous throughout the entirety of the novel) is from an elderly woman known as ‘Olga the Wise One’ who buys him from a peasant who caught him tres
passing on his farmland. She is one of the many unique portraits of rurality in ‘The Painted Bird’ since her wisdom is gained from an intimate knowledge of herbal medicines and superstitions that are reminiscent of medieval soothsayers. Although their dialects are different, this lingual boundary is overcome through a bond of trust and mutual admiration since she appears to be the only maternal figure in the novel who doesn’t betray or abuse his lack of experience. One of the beauties of Kosinski’s work is that the narrative exists as a framework for him to develop texts that appear extremely symbolic but still retain the readability that an audience desires. This is not, as some reviewers on other sites have labelled it, an excuse for abusing the extremities of violence. Whilst many may find some parts of it too near to the knuckle it is a beautifully composed piece of fiction that represents a writer with a devastating eye for detail and an uncanny ability to convey the discomfort of trying to survive on terra infirma.

As the novel progresses the conflict intensifies so this does seem to obey some parts of the historical timescale but there is also something Conradian about Kosinski’s written style. Another reviewer made the link between both being Polish and both writing what is their ‘foreign language’ but this can be furthered since both ‘Heart of Darkness’ and ‘The Painted Bird’ are concerned with the effects of breakdown and chaos within the human when they are plunged into an alien environment. One of the most important questions that this poses concerns how a community should react when an outsider tries to enter into their midst. Should the community maintain its insularity and condemn this fellow human to its own battle for survival or should it embrace his plight and risk the violent prejudice of others? As the narrator is awakened to the social nihilism that the war has created
he finds that in order to continue living his own conduct must be adapted in order to fit in with those who seek to end his life. Indeed, when confronted by the trains heading to Auschwitz, this is the moment of true enlightenment for the child since it is this that is his antithesis, the ‘Nazi mentality’ that he has already experience and must endure until his true freedom is granted. Reading ‘The Painted Bird’ probably had more of an effect on me than anything by the highly reputable Holocaust writer, Primo Levi. It is brutal and disturbing but Kosinski correctly subscribes to the theory that when dealing with a raw subject matter such as this, subtlety cannot take precedence over vision and image.

In this case it is definitely justifiable to make the connection between writing and life. This novel is a fusion of exile, loss and survival written by an exile, about an exile which will leave the reader in no doubt about the capacity of inhumanity that people are able inflict upon each other when circumstances dictate it. Kosinski writes with a clarity and unflinching desire to make the reader understand the gravity of what they are witnessing. In many respects this is a novel that everyone should at least try to read since it is as relevant to our modern culture of violence and warfare as it was to the dispossessed nations of World War II. Unfortunately there’s an infinite amount of praise and comment I could attribute to this masterpiece yet it is impossible to set everything down before it spirals out of control. Quite simply read this and accept that as much as we can imagine the persecution of Jewish and Gypsys, this will shatter the screen that looks back at us when we watch a documentary and in many respects it is something we should be thankful for. It is only a writer of Kosinski’s experience and ability that could create a novel like ‘The Painted Bird’ and bring it off with such accomplished brillian
ce. As he is reported to have said in a newspaper interview: "Fiction does not teach, it is not didactic," fiction dramatizes you from within, the visual culture pacifies you from without. The principle of reading is the closest to the principle of having one's imagination revitalized. And that is life."

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