Cover of the Week: The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Pocket Books Cardinal Edition, 1970. Cover artist unknown
The Painted Bird was originally published as a memoir in 1965 by Polish author Jerzy Kosinski. However, it wasn’t long after publication that Kosinski admitted it was fiction. This lie plagued the author for the rest of his career. Some have claimed that all of Kosinski’s books (he wrote the best-selling novel Being There) are ghost-written. Regardless, Painted Bird is a near masterpiece if you can cope with the cruelty, sadism and horror of the story.
The Painted Bird is the story of a six-year-old boy who, at the beginning of World War 2, is sent by his parents to live in the country in an Eastern European state. They lose track of him in the chaos of war and he wanders from village to village witnessing acts of sadism, incest, bestiality and cruelty that leave him deeply wounded. However, the story is profoundly moving and will leave you shaken.
There have been many paperback covers for this disturbing novel. Most of them use imagery from Bosch and his Garden of Early Delights triptych painting. I like this one though as it captures the novel's mood exceptionally well and uses another painter who created grim imagery: Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. The wrap-around image is of a large tree our young, decrepit hero takes shelter under. In the background, you see a burning village and soldiers on horses with guns. On the tree's limbs are various characters, animals and a striking image of a skeletalized bird making love to a naked woman.
The Painted Bird is a challenging, but rewarding novel. This is the paperback edition you should read as it was published not long after the original hardback edition in 1965 and includes parts of the book that were removed from the hardback.