From BookJive
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| Edition: | Grove Press (Paperback) |
| Author: | Jerzy Kosinski |
| Published: | August 1995 |
| Pages: | 234 |
| ISBN 10: | 080213422X |
| New: | $7.74 (48) |
| Used: | $1.77 (133) |
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The Painted Bird is a controversial 1965 novel by Jerzy Kosinski which describes the world as seen by a young boy, "considered a Gypsy or Jewish stray," who wanders about small towns scattered around Central or Eastern Europe (presumably Poland) during World War II.
Major themes
The book describes the boy's encounter with peasants engaged in all forms of sexual and social deviance such as incest, bestiality and rape, and in a huge amount of violence – often at the expense of the child. While the book has been said to depict Christian Polish peasants in a derogatory fashion, some argue that it was not a particular ethnic or social group, but all people, who are viewed as inherently predisposed to cruelty.
The title is drawn from an analogy to human life, described within the book. The boy finds himself in the company of a professional bird catcher. When the man is particularly upset or bored, he takes one of his captured birds and paints it several colors. Then he watches the bird fly through the air in search of a flock of its kin. When it comes upon them, they see it as an intruder and tear at the bird until it dies, falling from the sky.
