The Return of the Troublesome Bird: Jerzy Kosiński and Polish–Jewish Relations

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Jerzy Kosiński, author of The Painted Bird (Malowany ptak). Many critics, both Polish and otherwise, have stressed the influence on Kosiński's fiction of his background as a sociologist. Those who like his work have said that being a sociologist gave him some insights; his detractors have claimed either that his books read more like academic studies than fiction, or else that he used his sociological expertise to determine what would interest readers and critics at that particular time. Paradoxically, Kosiński himself became something of a sociological phenomenon, primarily but not exclusively because of The Painted Bird, and he occasioned debate that offered excellent material for sociological study of particular strains in Polish thought, Polish–Jewish relations, anti- and philosemitism, political divisions in Polish society, and the complex and ambivalent Polish use of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. The chapter goes on to show that reading about the various approaches to Kosiński may prove more interesting than reading Kosiński himself.