Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird met with much controversy when first published in 1965. It is set in an unnamed Eastern European country and follows the harrowing experiences of a young boy abandoned by his parents at the beginning of World War Two. The controversy largely surrounds the depiction of the peasants that the young boy encounters as he moves from village to village over a period of about five years. They are brutal, ignorant and callous to an extreme. Compare this to what the author really experienced as a young boy trying to evade the Nazi occupiers and I can understand the controversial response. Many villagers housed Kosinski and his family at the risk to their own lives and there is no evidence that he was badly treated. Why Kosinski decided to write a book vilifying these people is both perverse and baffling. I don't understand why Kosinski wrote The Painted Bird in the way that he did and the actions of the peasants are so bad as to be almost unbelievable. But it is a work of fiction of course, and I guess that would be Kosinski's defense. Some of the scenes of violence, brutality and rape are extremely disturbing and harrowing, and I would recommend caution in reading this book. The frustrating thing about this book is that it is so well written, with Kosinski demonstrating a great command of language. This book could have been a masterpiece but it will remain a highly disturbing enigma.
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