Some words and sentences linger for months after being read. For Jerzy Kosiński’s “The Painted Bird,” there are entire chapters that continue to haunt me years later. I first read this book in high school, unable to fully let it go. Over winter break, I revisited “The Painted Bird.” This ugly necessity is gut-wrenching. It pushes and pulls its reader into a constant dilemma of wanting to burn or bury the novel, while also being grossly captivated by its nearly pornographic nature of tragedy and violence. This distressful story of neglect, violence, hate and war that could be seen as a powerful piece shining a light on the evils of humans, or as a sick author relishing in deviancy.
Kosiński was a Polish-American who lived through World War II as a Jewish boy, writing in his adulthood to process such trauma. While “The Painted Bird” is largely fictional, Kosiński attributes it as semi-autobiographical – making each page of horrors more striking. I would summarize some of the scenes in the book that particularly gnaw at me, but the raw detail, shock and torture-porn nature of the words should be reserved for the writing of Kosiński himself.
“There was no God, no Holy Trinity, no devils, ghosts, or ghouls rising from graves; there was no Death flying everywhere in search of new sinners to snare. These were all tales for ignorant people who did not understand the natural order of the world, did not believe in their own powers, and therefore had to take refuge in their belief in some God.”
The basis of the book is a young child who becomes abandoned by his family after the Nazis attack his city, left to wander the Eastern European countryside to be corrupted by the sight of evils. The boy is tousled and pulled and strewn through traumas for the entirety of the book, witnessing cruelty of all kinds:d violence, murder, incest, bestiality and rape. “The Painted Bird” title itself comes from an early chapter of the novel where a bird catcher paints a bird in beautiful colors to release it back to its flock. However, the flock no longer recognizes the bird as one of their own, maliciously and grotesquely ripping it apart. It starts and ends with misery.
“It was also believed that sharing fire, especially borrowing it, could only result in misfortune. After all, those who borrow fire on this earth might have to return it to hell.”
Seeing a dark world through the eyes of a child makes the work grudgingly sorrowful to get through. This Odyssey-like story is heightened by the spoilment of innocence – innocence that may have not been a luxury to begin with. The work is flowered with authenticity that I think holds a unique power. While difficult to read, it is absolutely impossible to not be moved by it. Its shock tightly holds a power over the reader, showering us with an unabridged deluge of despicability that makes the small pockets of hope even more righteous. The book shows the capacities of human evil and the greater power of human resilience.
“I was wondering why, if God could make sinners into pillars of salt so easily, salt was so expensive. And why didn’t He turn some sinners into meat or sugar? The villagers certainly needed these as much as salt.”
This book and its respective author have been drenched in controversy. For the harsh depictions, for the nihilistic views, the discussions on government and the suspicions of truth being bent surrounding the author’s personal experiences. Regardless of this controversy, however, the point of the book is made. Humanity is often lost in the wake of war just as resiliency is made.
