The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

Warsaw, Poland

This book needs just about every content warning in existence including: racism and heavy use of racial slurs, rape, pedophilia, bestiality, murder, and violence. I really don't recommend it to anyone.

This book reads like a Saw movie. There is an overarching story of a lost child running from village to village in rural Poland during World War II. However, it reads more like a series of horrific vignettes that just get more and more horrible as time goes on.

I am not the type of person who can start a book and then not finish it; otherwise I would not have finished this book. It is gross simply to be gross. There was absolutely no point to this novel. It was published as a quasi-autobiography, but then the author was disgraced and had to admit it was a work of fiction. Kosinski *may* have been trying to demonstrate the power of hate and how it can grip an entire population of people, but that was clouded by also insulting the villager's intelligence and overall morals. The point would have come across better if it were "good" people overtaken by hate, rather than already disgusting people getting pushed even further.

I can't think of any reason why somebody should read this book. I did not know what I was getting myself into when I picked it up. It made me nauseous and honestly concerned for the author's well being. Ironically, I just learned that Kosinski died by suicide in 1991.

Review by the Numbers:

Overall: 0/5

Writing: 0/5

Plot: 0/5

Character Development: 0/5

Message: 0/5

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