History 2

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In one scene the protagonist¹s kindly mentor and role model, Mitka–a

grandfather figure–calmly fires a high powered machine gun at a

distant villager who is sleepily stretching his arms in the

sunlight-strewn hours of early morning. The admiring protagonist is

amazed. He understands that Mitka¹s action is justified because he is

superior, a member of the Party. Revenge is justified. We see from

this that cruelty still exists: it has simply changed form. What ties

the villagers¹ superstitions together with totalitarianism is best

stated in the prologue of The Painted Bird: ³The only law [in the

villages] was the traditional right of the stronger and wealthier over

the weaker and poorer.² .

One can¹t help but question the progress of the protagonist¹s moral

character at the conclusion of the novel. He is cruel and indifferent

to other people¹s suffering. Even as his parents finally come for

him, he breaks the fingers of his newly adopted four year old brother

without feeling the least bit of sympathy or remorse for his action.

Clearly, his philosophy has become a kind of social Darwinism: eat or

be eaten. Survival of the fittest.

What makes this book so complex is that no morals seem to be

propounded. The reader, along with the protagonist, is left sprawling

on a gigantic icy slab of chaotic relativism, his moral knees knocked

out from under him. He must rely on others to teach him, but everyone

has something different to tell him. We find that cruelty is made

understandable, love is perverted. Even sex is reduced to the basest

elements: animals copulating are no more base, no more beautiful than

humans. There is no distinction between man and beast. The two, in

fact, are often fused together and/or confused, each taking on the

qualities of the other.

In a Never Ending Storyish kind of way, the reader often finds

him/herself transplanted into the innocent mind and young helpless

body of the protagonist: through his suffering, his joys, his

bitterness and ambivalence. It is this transplantation that makes the

book so difficult to endure, and so irresistibly lucid and compelling.

I felt terrible and sad, angry at the world and at the cruelty that

one human being will do to another. I found myself questioning the

meaning of things right along with the protagonist. Kosinski achieves

the difficult task of inspiring sympathy without thrusting dogmatic

ideals into the reader¹s head.

It is understandable to take a depressing view of the world from the

circumstances presented in the novel. Reality is turned upside down

and inside out, its guts laid bare for all to see, and finally

casually gotten used to and embraced by the main character. One

critic puts forth this nihilistic interpretation of the Painted Bird.

Poore states in his review:

³[The protagonist] grew in his bitter wisdom immeasurably. The blows

he could not escape he endured. These were the cost-sheets of

survival in a senselessly brutal world. And when his turn came to

take some unfair advantage, he took it.

³That, Mr. Kosinski seems to be telling us, is how things are in our

world. People who are treated unjustly do not invariably treat others

justly. People who are discriminated against in turn may be found

discriminating against others.²

Unlike a Stephen King novel, however, the book avoids being cast into

the genre of cheap horror thrills because at the same time it creates

a deep sense of beauty and social responsibility while paradoxically

indicting the reader as being not much different than the murderous

villagers. One critic writes of this phenomenon by ascribing to

Kosinski the ability to create open-ended symbols which achieve the

difficult effect of mirroring whatever attitudes the reader brings

into the book. That, he explains, is why people have such differing

views on the novel, ranging from horror filled to awe-inspired. This

critic went on to say that, because each viewer makes the work his/her

own, he/she therefore is held accountable to his/her own

interpretation of the work. He states, ³For them, in fact, these

texts become a test of courage–whether or not they can recognize

themselves as not only the victims of language but also as the

murderers.²

Several other critics emphasized the book¹s concentration on grim and

grotesque realities. Bauke repeatedly stresses the author¹s mastery

over painting the black tones of the protagonist¹s harsh existence.

³It is a book of terrifying impact, replete with scenes of sadism

rarely matched in contemporary writing,² he writes. ³Mr. Kosinski

evokes with the grim precision of a dream a world of Gothic

monstrosities.²

While suffering and cruelty are, indeed, major recurring themes

throughout the book, beauty in its purity and innocence is also

depicted generously and with great texture. Sometimes the beauty is

even interwoven with what many would otherwise see as ugly. This is

evident in the protagonists¹ first guardian, Marta. Marta is an

ambivalent figure, at best. She is ugly, foul smelling, and often

ignorant of the protagonist¹s suffering. On the other hand, she

occasionally expresses an endearing sort of sentimentality toward him,

raking her long scraggly nails along his head affectionately. She also

attempts to heal him when he is ill, mixing vile treatments for him to

drink such as ³the juice of a squeezed onion, the bile of a billygoat

or rabbit, and a dash of raw vodka.² Despite her odd, vomit-inducing

ways, the reader still gets a sense of her dedication: she cares.

The Painted Bird¹s historical contributions lie not in the realm of

factual, unbiased, detail-laden information, but in giving us a new

way of thinking about the facts that we already have. Most history

books tend to focus only on the external aspects of Hitler¹s Nazi

party¹s rise to power, focusing on each country as if it was an entity

of itself, individualizing the nations as if they were so many

bickering ten-year-olds in the playground of the world. Few books

focus on the internal orders of such countries as Poland. Peasants

played a major role in ethnic extermination as well by condoning, and

often perpetuating, Hitler¹s hate. More than that, however, the

book¹s slow panorama of superstition, Catholicism, and existentialism

give us a three-dimensional understanding of all the myriad of ideas

that were floating around at that time. We understand them from the

mind of a child, we apply them to the experiences we see him having.

And if we closely examine them, we¹ll find that such ideas are still

in the air today–that it is possible for something like the Holocaust

to happen again if circumstances are arranged just so. Bosnia, for

example, resounds with the echo of the Nazis¹ boots.

One of the greatest aspects of fiction is that, in many senses, it is

always alive. It changes just as history and the people who write it

change. As each generation comes of age, they are able to write

history–and also fiction–according to their cultural values and

beliefs. The beauty of Kosinski¹s work is that he allows us to do

this. Through his loosely constructed symbolism, readers can

continually apply his fiction to modern interpretations. At the same

time, however, Kosinski holds us accountable through his graphic,

disturbing realistic depiction of what humans are capable of and have,

in fact, done. Perhaps if enough people are touched, they can,

indeed, prevent scenes like these from occurring again. In this

sense, Kosinski¹s work is a gift to humanity. It is a gift to the

future.