The Three Denouements of Jerzy Kosinski's "The Painted Bird"

Abstract

1Jerzy Kosinski, Painted Bird (New York: Modern Library, 1970). This, most recent edition, incorporates changes which did not appear in any previous made by the author (verso of first title page). As such, it is being used as copy-text for this paper. other two editions are clothbound first edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965) and trade paperbound edition (New York: Pocket Books, 1966). References to all editions will give year of publication and page number, e.g., (1966/p. 3). Copyright ? 1965 by Jerzy N. Kosinski. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 2 See especially Andrew Field, The Painted Book Week (Oct. 17, 1965), p. 2, which claims high literary merit for performance; Elie Wiesel, Everybody's Victim, New York Times Book Review, Oct. 31, 1965, pp. 5, 46; J. P. Bauke, No Waking from Nightmare, Saturday Review, 43 (Nov. 13, 1965), 64. Other favorable references are contained in Irving Howe, From Other Side of Moon, Harpers, 238 (March 1969), 102-105: in a review-article largely devoted to second novel, Steps, Howe says en passant: Kosinski's first piece of fiction, Painted Bird, . . . [is] a brilliant work in its own right .... final effect ... is like that of a Bosch painting or a Buiuel film: often literally unbearable (p. 102). John W. Aldridge's The Fabrication of a Culture Hero, Saturday Review, 54 (April 24, 1971), 25-27, is devoted to an analysis of Being There but also contains comment on first fiction: His best-known novel, Painted Bird (1966) [sic], was an extraordinary work of combined fantasy and realism (p. 25). extensive blurb to 1966 paperback contains enthusiastic responses by such diverse