Talk:The Painted Bird

Moved from article, this material at the very least needs NPOVing (also removed irrelevant extract of amazon review): --Lexor

However it is now widely considered that the events depicted were fictional, and that Kosinski did not for example wander the countryside of Eastern Europe during the war. It is also considered as a racist book, that is intended on inciting hatry against peasants.

The book rather shows his unfriendly feelings toward peasants and his complete ignorance about their life. He describes them using the same paint as Anti-Semitic books described Jews.

Real life of Jerzy Kosinski looked like follows: he survived under forged identity in the family of Catholic Poles in relatively safe and warm conditions. A Catholic priest had issued a forged baptism statement, that was the common practise in the Polish Catholic Church during the WW2. He was reunited with his parents after the war, but he has never showed any kind of gratefullness towards his rescues.

Xed keeps reinserting the above highly POV material. I will continue to revert it until he bothers to let us know where he gets his information from. RickK 19:33, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

I am not reinserting the above version, but a different and expanded one. Much of the information is from [1] and [2]

This I can live with. Thanks, Xed. RickK 20:53, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Changed

I rewrote the article. I found it to focus far too much on one point of view, so I changed it to express both and focused less on the politics surrounding the book but the philosophy it was designed to express. I find that politics, like with anything, are a social distraction from what can otherwise provide some level of insight. It is important to be aware of these politics, and with correct English (which wasn’t in the previous article) I encourage further additions to the politics, but please do not remove the philosophical content. I tried to summarize the important aspect of Kosinski’s misleading nature, but I don’t think that because of it this book is valueless.

Xed

(NOTE: BELOW SURE SOUNDS TO ME LIKE A GOOD SOCK/BAD SOCK CONVERSATION.) 67.160.174.24 (talk) 15:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Xed, I think you need to try and have some respect for articles other people add.

You should have some respect for Poles - who you seem to regard in the same way as Kosinski. I will revert unless you can add information without inserting your racist attitudes -- Xed 12:03, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you are a fucking idiot, or perhaps you didn't read what I wrote, but not once did I say anything of the sort. You poor victim of ignorance.

You write "depictions and especially the superstitions of the Eastern European peasantry have been described to a tee in this novel". It's clear you share his prejudices. You regard Poles as sub-humans who engage in incest, drowning, and meaningless violence - such as eyeballs being plucked out. You are probably better off browsing neo-nazi websites if you believe your contributions to be objective. Thanks--- Xed 13:33, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Now you're calling him a neo-Nazi? You're spending your time trying to smear the reputation of a Holocaust survivor because he was "prejudiced" against Polish peasants. I guess you believe all of the propaganda Cautious has been spreading about the humanitarian Poles during WWII.

Should we do a step by step sentence break down for you here? How do you know he is talking about Poles? Perhaps because his discriptions of their superstitions are true. Your comments have nothing to do with the book and you're just butting stupid POV crap.

So you agree that Eastern European peasantry are sub-humans who engage in incest, drowning, and meaningless violence? Fuck off nazi --- Xed 22:38, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

no I dont, do you believe in censorship of the novel and its entire directive? Nazi.

Yes, you do. Your edits proved it. ---Xed 11:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll write up a larger outline where we can fill in several of the concept both of us espouse and that way this will have twice the info and non of the bias.

If it's like your previous neo-nazi edits, it will be removed immediately. --- Xed 11:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

go fuck yourself you dumb pollock

Thanks Mr Fuchs. I'm not Polish. For examples of dumbness, check your spelling Xed 22:55, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So you're not Polish, you're just dumb enough to believe everything Polish user Cautious says. That's a real improvement.

Fair use rationale for Image:The painted Bird cover.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Language of writing?

I presume that the book was originally written in English, but I don't know this to be the case, and it seems possible that it could have been written in Polish. Could someone who knows please make this explicit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.243.112.20 (talk) 06:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It was written in English. 67.160.174.24 (talk) 15:32, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Responsible editing

Please follow article history for the kind of editing that is not reliable enough to be acceptable. According to article edit history, all links to an anonymous web source in Angelfire (which was clearly unacceptable) were first replaced with the "citation needed" tags (which is good) while the actual quotations were being left in (not good).[3] Than one of the new "cn" tags was suddenly replaced with a different source from the above, making it impossible to prove anything anymore.[4] Good editing practise requires for the quotation to be removed along with its dubious source, and not attributed to someone else especially, that the original website in Angelfire was riddled with false assertions about Kosinski's life. --Poeticbent talk 18:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Please note that http://www.pogonowski.com/display.php?textid=410 is not a reliable source. It is the personal website of an engineer. Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 19:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski is also an author of several well-received books about history of Poland.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Please note that http://www.pogonowski.com/display.php?textid=410 is not a reliable source. It is the personal website of an engineer, and hardly a reliable source for an article about a major work of literature. As for his "well received" works on Poland, Piotr Wrobel, writing in the The Sarmatian Review (self described as promoting a Polish American point of view), called Pogonowski a "politically motivated amateur". Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 20:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Pockell quotes

Can be found here and by searching therein. Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 16:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Racist hoax

Surely this book was exposed as a complete invention? It caused really serious offence to the entire Polish nation, and serious grief to everyone who'd known and many who'd risked their lives for Kosinski and his family. While we can avoid being too harsh on Kosinksi himself, almost certainly traumatised in his childhood, it can't be right to let this calumny stand as it does here. Kosinksi suffered from the Nazis, not by the Polish as he led everyone to believe. PR^talk 16:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The controversy is already discussed in the article, althoug it could use a good edit). What reliably sourced information do you suggest should be added? Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 17:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Reference to "controversy" is wholly misleading (and poorly explained even when one is deep into the second section of the article). Particularly worrying is the completely unverifiable defense of the book supposedly made by a Warsaw professor. This book, along with most of the product of this writer is, as best I can tell, wholly discredited. Not only did Kosinski publish fiction as fact, he doesn't seem to have written very much of it himself. While calling it a "racist hoax" probably cannot be found in the RS, it's clear that the entire thing was invented (for profit) by a fantasist. It's pretty grossly offensive to a nation of which some 5.2 or 5.3 million were murdered by the Nazis.

Once this article correctly describes the subject as fraudulent/hoax or whatever, much of the existing content could (I think) be removed. Perhaps a quarter of this article could then be given over to describing the profiteering behind the book, and another quarter describe the consequences for the people wilfully smeared by it. The people of Poland continue to be defamed as antisemitic (and robbed of their status as victims of the Nazis), based at least partly on complete falsehoods like this book. PR^talk 19:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)