A superb fable, 25 Feb 2008
Succinct, pithy, brilliant. An earlier review gives the plot outline so I won't repeat it. I saw the film, then read the book, then saw the film again. Apparently Kosinski wrote this book, and then went through it meticulously deleting every line that wasn't absolutely necessary. Hence this is short, to the point, almost a novella, but nothing is missed. A truly superb fable for our time, for any time perhaps, about the danger of assumption and the fact that people fundamentally want to be told the truth.

Good book, good film, 06 May 2006
Mr Kosinsky writes a good story and it made a good film; but reader: 'What is the connection between the films, 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, CATCH-22, BEING THERE and the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE?' The answer is the theme music - ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA. It is used in the opening credits of 2001, in CATCH-22, when our hero sees the gorgeous woman walking down the street, in BEING THERE when Peter Sellers is thrown out of his beloved garden, and in the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE, just before Mark Derringer has his fatal accident. Interesting or what?

If you liked Forrest Gump, you'll hate this :-), 14 Sep 2001
I read this years and years ago - and I could not put it down. Look at the world through the eyes of someone with a different viewpoint. Imagine a world where you didn't understand innuendo and sarcasm. Try and believe in a man who is entirely honest, with no understanding of pretence, and no pretence of understanding. That is Chance, the gardener, who's only experience of the world is through the TV - who became Chauncey Gardiner, mover, shaker and advisor to the President. This story is dark, and left me re-examining my view of the world. They made a film of this with Peter Sellers, and nobody really understood the simple humour and the painful observation of us all that made this story a classic. No-one but Sellers could have done it justice. The comparison with Forrest Gump is inescapable - but you have to read this one to make it really work.

A superb fable, 25 Feb 2008
Succinct, pithy, brilliant. An earlier review gives the plot outline so I won't repeat it. I saw the film, then read the book, then saw the film again. Apparently Kosinski wrote this book, and then went through it meticulously deleting every line that wasn't absolutely necessary. Hence this is short, to the point, almost a novella, but nothing is missed. A truly superb fable for our time, for any time perhaps, about the danger of assumption and the fact that people fundamentally want to be told the truth.

Good book, good film, 06 May 2006
Mr Kosinsky writes a good story and it made a good film; but reader: 'What is the connection between the films, 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, CATCH-22, BEING THERE and the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE?' The answer is the theme music - ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA. It is used in the opening credits of 2001, in CATCH-22, when our hero sees the gorgeous woman walking down the street, in BEING THERE when Peter Sellers is thrown out of his beloved garden, and in the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE, just before Mark Derringer has his fatal accident. Interesting or what?

If you liked Forrest Gump, you'll hate this :-), 14 Sep 2001
I read this years and years ago - and I could not put it down. Look at the world through the eyes of someone with a different viewpoint. Imagine a world where you didn't understand innuendo and sarcasm. Try and believe in a man who is entirely honest, with no understanding of pretence, and no pretence of understanding. That is Chance, the gardener, who's only experience of the world is through the TV - who became Chauncey Gardiner, mover, shaker and advisor to the President. This story is dark, and left me re-examining my view of the world. They made a film of this with Peter Sellers, and nobody really understood the simple humour and the painful observation of us all that made this story a classic. No-one but Sellers could have done it justice. The comparison with Forrest Gump is inescapable - but you have to read this one to make it really work.

Another Kosinski Page Turner, 30 Aug 1999
Kosinski does it again. He keeps the reader in suspense until the final page is turned. If you liked Cockpit, Steps, or Blind Date, then this is for you.

Analysis of Chopin's Music More Sensuous than Sex Liasons, 15 Jul 1999
Slow start describes less than fascinating has-been of a serious composer. The build up of Godard, the rock star wunderkind, is more fascinating than the flesh and blood man one meets in the heart of the novel. Denouement disappoints with its violence and destruction. Tawdriness of the sex underground not for the squeemish and clashes with the general art and music theme of the main body. Nevertheless, from midbook to the end, it becomes a page turner.

Trashy, 08 Jul 1999
This book is about music and sex. The observations about music are interesting (to a musical neophyte like me), but the sexual content is dated, clunky, embarassing. Overall, the book is little better than the usual trashy bestseller with none of the skill and insight of Steps or Being There.

A superb fable, 25 Feb 2008
Succinct, pithy, brilliant. An earlier review gives the plot outline so I won't repeat it. I saw the film, then read the book, then saw the film again. Apparently Kosinski wrote this book, and then went through it meticulously deleting every line that wasn't absolutely necessary. Hence this is short, to the point, almost a novella, but nothing is missed. A truly superb fable for our time, for any time perhaps, about the danger of assumption and the fact that people fundamentally want to be told the truth.

Good book, good film, 06 May 2006
Mr Kosinsky writes a good story and it made a good film; but reader: 'What is the connection between the films, 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, CATCH-22, BEING THERE and the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE?' The answer is the theme music - ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA. It is used in the opening credits of 2001, in CATCH-22, when our hero sees the gorgeous woman walking down the street, in BEING THERE when Peter Sellers is thrown out of his beloved garden, and in the book THE TROUBLE WITH CEPHAE, just before Mark Derringer has his fatal accident. Interesting or what?

If you liked Forrest Gump, you'll hate this :-), 14 Sep 2001
I read this years and years ago - and I could not put it down. Look at the world through the eyes of someone with a different viewpoint. Imagine a world where you didn't understand innuendo and sarcasm. Try and believe in a man who is entirely honest, with no understanding of pretence, and no pretence of understanding. That is Chance, the gardener, who's only experience of the world is through the TV - who became Chauncey Gardiner, mover, shaker and advisor to the President. This story is dark, and left me re-examining my view of the world. They made a film of this with Peter Sellers, and nobody really understood the simple humour and the painful observation of us all that made this story a classic. No-one but Sellers could have done it justice. The comparison with Forrest Gump is inescapable - but you have to read this one to make it really work.

Another Kosinski Page Turner, 30 Aug 1999
Kosinski does it again. He keeps the reader in suspense until the final page is turned. If you liked Cockpit, Steps, or Blind Date, then this is for you.

Analysis of Chopin's Music More Sensuous than Sex Liasons, 15 Jul 1999
Slow start describes less than fascinating has-been of a serious composer. The build up of Godard, the rock star wunderkind, is more fascinating than the flesh and blood man one meets in the heart of the novel. Denouement disappoints with its violence and destruction. Tawdriness of the sex underground not for the squeemish and clashes with the general art and music theme of the main body. Nevertheless, from midbook to the end, it becomes a page turner.

Trashy, 08 Jul 1999
This book is about music and sex. The observations about music are interesting (to a musical neophyte like me), but the sexual content is dated, clunky, embarassing. Overall, the book is little better than the usual trashy bestseller with none of the skill and insight of Steps or Being There.

Jerzy Kosinski `The Painted Bird' Grove Press, New York (2nd ed.) 1976, 12 Jun 2007
Kosinski's celebrated book `The Painted Bird' has been the cause of much controversy since its original publication in 1965. The story is one of the isolation and abandonment of an un-named child. The narrative, written in the first person, takes place in an unspecified Eastern European country or countries during the Second World War. Kosinski takes this combination of circumstances to tell a story of the utmost brutality and cruelty.

And this story is brutal and cruel indeed. Through the eyes of this abandoned child are portrayed events such as murder, rape, dismemberment, torture and bestiality. The child himself is repeatedly beaten, tortured, starved, tormented and thrown in a pit of excrement. Psychologically it is no surprise that his view of the world is confused and he looses his ability to speak. Kosinski backdrops these events with detailed accounts of the magic and folklore of the peasants that occupy the various areas in which the story takes place.

Politically, Kosinski has been criticised for his portrayal of the Red Army and the positive effects that Soviet philosophy has on his child hero. The book is however, I feel, more a survival chronicle of an individual who is fighting against huge odds. If the reader combines this novel with Slawomir Rawisz `The Long Walk' it will at least go some way to balance the portrayal of the Soviet Union in this period, as another individual fights for his unlikely survival.

The protagonists of both books survive however, and it is within this framework that they should ultimately be seen. The importance of stories such as these is that whilst the details are harrowing and as brutal as anything that you might have ever read, the ending is one of an ultimately uplifting nature.


Heart of Darkness Redux, 01 Dec 2002
My byline refers not only to the fact that both Conrad and Kosinski were Polish authors writing in English. There are also similarities in Marlowe's journey into the darkness of the Congo and Kosinski's young narrators' voyage through the surreal landscape of wartime Eastern Europe.

Both investigate the darker regions of the human psyche. Both are the antithesis of a "picaresque" novel. Both are told from the point-of-view of a relatively innocent narrator, whose original naivete is transformed by the scenes he witnesses into an understanding of the "horror" and a comprehension of man's capacity for evil.

I read The Painted Bird over 30 years ago and many of its images still remain vivid in my imagination. I will never forget the couple caught copulating (you'll have to read Kosinski's description yourself - I'm not going to go there) and the boy-narrator's harrowing account of being thrown into a pit of excrement. Some reviews I've come across state that the book is pornographic. Far from it. The sex depicted is hardly meant to arouse. Kosinski's later work might have fallen into that category (he did a lot of short-story writing for Playboy and Penthouse), but this is far too brutal a work to be anywhere near titillating.

If you would like to take a harrowing walk into the heart of darkness, and are equipped to handle visions of one of the most depraved landscapes you are likely to encounter in literature, then this book's for you.

Kosinski himself, before his suicide, had come under attack for inventing a lot of stories about his past. It turns out that during WWII, rather than suffering the deprivations and persecution he had earlier claimed, he passed the duration of the war in middle class comfort. His personal fabrications should not influence a reader's attitude when approaching this book however. He captures the Goyaesque horror of war brilliantly and it is, after all, a work of fiction, to be judged on its own merits.

Probability and Fact ?, 17 Apr 2000
This savagery is beautiful and compelling, twisting humanity on numbingly broken limbs. This is not a pleasant read but treads on the senses defining a defiled life but not breaking the soul. Not many novels will be able to lay claim to haunting minds eternally, this however is one that can.

A chilling, graphic testament of the cruelty of man, 11 Apr 2000
When The Painted Bird was first released its author was hounded on one side by fellow Poles criticising him for playing down the atrocities and on the other side by governments and fanatics who said he had exaggerated them. The book itself, whether autobiographical or merely a fable, undoubtedly contains a strong thread of fact and truth. The cruel world of the Eastern European villages seen through the eyes of a small boy as he drifts between them, sent by his parents to another home where they hoped he would be protected from the Nazis, is by turns shocking, revolting and saddening. The aggression the boy experiences universally from people because of his looks and the scenes of abuse and cruelty he observes to others and between the villagers themselves makes it difficult to see how anyone can keep faith in the basic goodness of human nature.

A disturbing yet curiously gripping read, The Painted Bird is a tale that had to be told.

etremely explicit description of the war and its effects, 16 Jul 1999
I haven't read a book so explicitly defining the war and how it effects the people. Kosinsky is brilliant with his use of words and descriptions, it feels as though you are watching a movie. I think it shows all the ugly and brutal sides of war, most which we'd rather not see, and how it affects human psychology but at times gets rather sickly.