Jerzy KosińskiRezensionen

A nice quick, and refreshingly interesting read. The main character provides interesting insight into the people you see on TV. There is no way to know what that person is really like and indeed if they even have any real experiences at all. This also feels again relevant in the age of AI. Chauncey is a bit like a large-laguage model just repeating the things he has seen on TV, having no personal experience to draw on.

Well-written, but truly horrible and I hated it. I would give it five stars if I were to be objective and one star for my personal enjoyment, so in the end - three stars. I'm not going to read it ever again.

Story: 2.5 / 10
Characters: 4
Setting: 6
Prose: 5.5

Themes: Autofiction, autobiographical fiction, numerology, safe sex, AIDS, writing, editing, celebrity, fame, exposure

Story: 8 / 10
Characters: 9
Setting: 9
Prose: 10

My first favourite book, from age 15 to about 30.
The ending is a bit ambiguous, so it's definitely worth watching the film to see how Kosinski's screenplay differs slightly from his novel.

Just like his lying co-religionist, Elie Weisel "Night", Jerry Kosinski turned out to be a fraud intent on adding his 10 cents to the holocaust myth - 6,000,000 is a wholly unsupported figure - but - real figures for WW2 dead are: 24,000,000++ Russians, 8,800,000 Germans, 20,000,000++- Chinese - Japan 3,100,000, and the USA gave up 420,000 of its boys - in total the war led to 45,000,000 dead civilians, 15,000,000 dead soldiers, and 25,000,000 battle wounded - that totals an astonishing 85,000,000 dead and wounded but all we ever hear about (endlessly) are the so-called 6,000,000.

A farce that will have you saying "I get it" a lot.

Interesting tale of a not very intelligent man who, because he is very polite and well mannered, impresses powerful people and seems to be on the way to great success.

In Chance, or Chauncey Gardiner as he becomes known to the world, Jerzy Kosinski, has provided the other characters of this story as well as the reader a way to project what they want to see and hear in a person.

Chance, who appears to suffer from some form of mental impairment (some version of autism?), cannot read nor write, he can converse without a problem, although his conversations are mostly limited to television and his gardening, as he knows nothing outside these two elements. Fate throws Chance into the political consiciousness of the world, and everyone who encounters him takes his simple answers as deep thought analogies or admissions. Chance is not lying, simply speaking of what he knows, which is pretty limited. People project their hopes, desires and plans on him and his words, not realizing that he is unable to understand even their most basic needs.

A great (but short) read. Will provide plenty to discuss and ponder.

This is one of the more unique stories whose film adaptation was spot on. Chauncey Gardener's sheltered life, mild manner and view of the world is unlike others. His unusual metaphor of 'life's seasonal changes' is profound; so much so the president embodies it. As a film buff, this was one of the best roles for Peter Sellers especially when adding Shirley MacLaine and countless other Oscar winners to the cast. A classic in its own right, I highly recommend this book for those who seek to be uplifted.

322-3

A series of vignettes that feel autobiographical portraying a man who uses people to satisfy his own ends.

322-1

What a weird book! I had no idea in what direction the story was heading at its the beginning. That, in itself, I thought was intriguing. It actually turned into a book that now is hard to describe!

After reading a while, I found the book to be more like a collection of linked, imaginative, finely-crafted vignettes with the main character Tarden, a secret agent of sorts, taking on various identities and living in different places, telling them in a continuing narrative with only a bold capital letter to separate them. Each episode had its own sexual theme or a different dark, raw topic which were disturbing in various ways, but all I found fascinating to read.

I liked this book very much. I thought it was well written and compelling. I also was happy that each episode was short enough to read in one sitting. However, I found it creepy to learn while reading this book that ultimately this author ended his own life through suicide—something to which he alluded in the book’s own narrative.½

A decent book, but it's in that unusual category of books where the movie is better than the book. The plot line of the movie is tighter, and Peter Sellers gives a truly great performance to make the character believable.

Not for the faint of heart.

A perfect satire. Pretty sad that it's more relevant now than it was 50 years ago though.

Recommended

I really can’t decide if I thought this was good or not, although it’s certainly not hard to see why it made an impact when it was published in 1965.
On the plus side it’s vivid, compelling and readable. Negatives are that it’s one of those books that feels like it thinks it’s really important. I’m not sure it is, especially given the fact that having originally claimed it was autobiographical, author Jerzy Kosinski later admitted he largely made it up.
For Kozinski’s sake I’m glad, because the book is really fucking horrible. It tells the story of a young boy making his way across war torn Europe in the 1940s and it doesn’t pull a single punch. That mix of self-importance, rambling episodic plot and extreme violence makes it feel a bit like Paulo Coehlo’s ‘The Alchemist’ with added eye gouging.

Desde El Jardín, una novelita excelente, narrada con sencillez y encanto, desde la paz que inspira el personaje de Mr. Chance, ese adorable ignorante que ha vivido apartado del mundo toda su vida y que un día tiene que enfrentarse a él. Kosinski construyó un relato sin final aparente, pero con una clara moraleja implícita sobre la simplicidad de aquellos que detentan el poder.

Chance es capaz no sólo de sobrevivir, si no de llegar a las más altas esferas de la sociedad hablando de lo único que conoce, su jardín, un discurso que se toma por metafórico y dotado de gran sapiencia por empresarios, políticos, medios de comunicación... Lo mejor de todo es que no media maldad ni engaño por parte de Mr. Chance, el sólo se muestra como es y los demás simplemente, lo ven como desean que fuese.

Una de las novelas más conmovedoras y terribles que se hayan escrito sobre la barbarie vivida en Europa oriental durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

For over 50 years people have been arguing over whether this book is autobiographical or fiction, original or plagiarized, written by Kosinski or by ghost riders.

I. Do. Not. Care. I couldn't put it down.

Trigger alerts abound so look out. It's non-stop cruelty and brutality. Men, women, children and animals. Beating, torture, rape, murder, incest, bestiality...you name it, it's in here.

If you like imagery, no matter if the picture is beautiful or hideous, and can handle things like GOT, TWD, Stephan King, this book is for you.

Here is an example involving gouged out eyes. Those of you with weak stomachs should look away now.

"And with a rapid movement such as women use to gouge out the rotten spots while peeling potatoes, he plunged the spoon into one of the boy's eyes and twisted it.

"The eye sprang out of his face like a yolk from a broken egg and rolled down the miller's hand onto the floor. The plowboy howled and shrieked, but the miller's hold kept him pinned against the wall. Then the blood-covered spoon plunged into the other eye, which sprang out even faster. For a moment the eye rested on the boy's cheek as if uncertain what to do next; then it finally tumbled down his shirt onto the floor.

"It all had happened in a moment. I could not believe what I had seen. Something like a glimmer of hope crossed my mind that the gouged eyes could be put back where they belonged...

"...The eyeballs lay on the floor. I walked around them, catching their steady stare. The cats timidly moved out into the middle of the room and began to play with the eyes as if they were balls of thread. Their own pupils narrowed to slits from the light of the oil lamp. The cats rolled the eyes around, sniffed them, licked them, and passed them to one another gently with their padded paws. Now it seemed that the eyes were staring at me from every corner of the room, as though they had acquired new life and motion of their own.

"I watched them with fascination. If the miller had not been there I myself would have taken them. Surely they could still see. I would keep them in my pocket and take them out when needed, placing them over my own. Then I would see twice as much, maybe even more. Perhaps I could attach them to the back of my head and they would tell me, thought I was not quite certain how, what went on behind me. Better still, I could leave the eyes somewhere and they would tell me later what happened during my absence."

I mean, come on! That's great stuff from the mind of our narrator, a 6-yo little boy in a rural village in Poland in 1939.

Jerzy Kosinski's book, "The Painted Bird", is not an easy read. I believe it's based on hardships suffered by the author as a young boy in eastern Europe as World War II was about to begin. With war coming, and his parents being either Jewish or Gypsy's, they sent the youngster to live with a foster family, thinking the boy would be safer. However, the foster mother died in a house fire, accidently started by the boy, and for the next four or five years, he wandered from village to village, living for times with other families, seemingly always suffering a new form of abuse.

War time in eastern Europe was hard enough on the civilian populations, but especially so for Jews or gypsies. The villagers didn't want to be caught hiding or protecting someone like that, and those that took in the youngster weren't doing it to help the boy, but to use him as a form of cheap labor until German troops got near.

The hardship the boy was subjected to makes for hard reading. I almost put the book aside several times, unwilling to read more. But eventually I finished it, just wanted to see the some good finally came to him. I can't really say that was true. The book is certainly a good reminder of the horrors of war, to local populations as well as to combatants, and especially to a youngster, alone and unwanted, too young to fend for himself.

The Painted Bird (Kosinski, Jerzy) by Jerzy Kosinski (1995)

Bandido, mocinho, herói e terrorista, o emigrante russo George Levanter é tudo isso e muito mais. Desconhecido parceiro no jogo das altas finanças, da política internacional e da espionagem, ele está em todas, movendo-se como uma sombra, aproveitando um excepcional talento na arte de sobreviver e se adaptar a um mundo enlouquecido.
Narrado num ritmo alucinado, em que o protagonista passa de uma aventura a outra, de uma mulher para outra, de criminoso a defensor intransigente da lei, estre livro Jerz Kosiski- autor premiado de O Pássaro Pintado, O Videota (Muito Além do Jardim) e Passos - coloca-o como um dos maiores- se não o maior- romancistas psicológicos da atualidade.