#Jerzy Kosinski

[tomoleary]

Leo and Diane Dillon Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird Original Dust Jacket Artwork (1965) Source

Final jacket

[nobeerreviews]

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

-- Jerzy Kosinski

(Schwyz, Switzerland)

[derangedrhythms]

I knew that the ghost might never leave me, that it might follow me, haunt me at night, seep sickness into my veins and madness into my brain.

Jerzy Kosinski, from 'The Painted Bird'

[lillyli-74]

I knew that the ghost might never leave me, that it might follow me, haunt me at night, seep sicknesses into my veins and madness in my brain.

~Jerzy Kosinski

[davidhudson]

Jerzy Kosiński, June 14, 1933 – May 3, 1991.

[thatrickmcginnis]

JERZY KOSINSKI, Toronto 1988

I was vaguely aware that Jerzy Kosinski was under a cloud of scandal when I photographed him at the 1988 authors festival, but I didn't know the details and in any case he was the most distinguished writer I photographed in that little alcove off the main lobby of the festival hotel on the lakeshore. The hit Hal Ashby movie version of his third book, Being There, starring Peter Sellers, had made him famous as a celebrity and not just a writer. I'd read his acclaimed first novel The Painted Bird as a student, then subsequent books like Steps, The Devil Tree, Cockpit and Passion Play. He'd been the president of PEN twice and starred in Warren Beaty's film Reds; he was a frequent guest on talk shows, played polo and moved in high society as well as literary circles. It was an incredible success story for a man who had emigrated to the US from communist Poland in 1957, sponsored by a fake foundation he had created, and forging letters from communist officials guaranteeing that he'd return. In retrospect this deception would end up setting the tone for his life decades later.

The rumours about Jerzy Kosinski's work had as much to do with his working methods as allegations of plagiarism or his inspiration. It began with charges that the CIA had sponsored his first two nonfiction, anti-communist books, written under the pseudonym Joseph Novak. It was widely assumed that the nightmarish story of the Jewish boy hiding from Nazis in the Polish countryside told in The Painted Bird was based on Kosinski's own wartime experience, and later attempts to correct this did nothing to dispel suspicion that grew as he became more successful and high profile. Critics in Poland had attacked him when Being There was published, claiming that it was based on a Polish novel famous when Kosinski was a boy. Kosinski was known to have an active and kinky sex life, which no doubt fueled resentment that ended up focusing on his creative methods, which employed multiple editorial assistants - translators and editors and proofreaders. By the time I photographed Kosinski this had turned into a campaign to discredit him, started in earnest by a 1982 Village Voice article, and the book Kosinski was promoting at the authors festival in 1988 was The Hermit of 69th Street, his attempt to address the allegations in a kind of literary fantasy.

The Hermit of 69th Street, the book Jerzy Kosinski was promoting when I photographed him, was a curious attempt to answer his accusers and rebut the allegations made about his creative methods and inspiration. Presented as a collection of papers left to Kosinski by another writer, Norbert Kosky, who had left them behind on a leased fishing boat after his disappearance, Kosky was clearly Kosinski's alter ego, but the book's 529 pages do little to frame a clear self-defense of the writer. It's a maddening book - far less satisfying than anything else he'd written before - and seems like it was meant to taunt both his enemies and supporters. It's full of puerile sexual wordplay and imagery (the frequent use of the number 69, for instance) Kosky/Kosinski writes about the "privately hired, part-time professional literary vulvar cleft, be it a typist, a proofreader, a line editor or even a licensed full-time galley printer - an indispensable tax deductible literary ghost every writer must employ at one time or another." Then goes on to admit that "the very thought of a woman typist excites him. Whether she is black, yellow or white; whether she is nice or nasty, petty or pretty, stubbornly fat or weakened by anorexia nervosa or by typing novels written in Esperanto, he cares not."

Kosinski could not, of course, directly address the creative process by which writers produce their work, fiction or nonfiction - that would have been pulling back the curtain on a profession that was still admired, even revered, back in an age when a man who looked like him could be both regularly on the bestseller lists and infamous as a bit of a sexual satyr. It's a world that seems like a long time ago now, and subsequent scandals in journalism and the publishing world over plagiarism and authenticity (Stephen Glass, James Frey, Jonah Lehrer, Herman Rosenblat, "JT LeRoy", Jayson Blair) have dulled us to just how damaging the charges against Kosinski were to his reputation, despite his high profile defenders at places like the New York Times. I can't claim that I tried to suggest any of this in my brief shoot with Jerzy Kosinski in that little space off that hotel lobby, but the man had a defiance about him that I think I captured in these frames. I put one of these shots in my portfolio where it stayed for many years, until Kosinski's infamy had subsided into the first stages of obscurity, and I got tired of having to explain who he was when showing my book. Jerzy Kosinski committed suicide in his New York apartment three years after I took these photos.

[kitaplardangelen]

Yepyeni bir hayata başlamaya hazırdım. İhtiyacım olan her şeye sahiptim, cezalandırılma ve aşağılanmalarla geçen günlerin geride kalacağını bilmenin sevincini taşıyordum içimde.

[oldshowbiz]

[diaryoftruequotes]

There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.

Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird

[biblioklept]

(Some) books acquired, April 2024

April is always a weird month for me, the last few weeks of the spring semester when I try to corral my students (and myself) toward our Grand Project of Just Damn Finishing (while also Learning and Growing as Humans), when the magic of spring break has burned off to memories, scents, traces, when the Florida weather is glorious and perfect, but for only just long enough to get out in the garden…

[nedison]

McCartney bop inspiration uncovered!

It actually makes a lot of sense that Macca would be reading this book around the time Secretary was recorded, since he was probably interested in the book after Peter Sellers was cast in Hal Ashby's 1979 film.

[messedhippie]

― Kosinski, Jerzy

“I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity”

[romanbymarta]

Roman Polanski, Jacques Monod, Jerzy Kosinski at The Cannes Film Festival 1976

Roman Polanski and Jerzy Kosinski at The Cannes Film Festival 1976

[derangedrhythms]

I looked around for death, for I felt its breath in the air.

Jerzy Kosinski, from 'The Painted Bird'

[catsdelune]

“I'm sure there are aspects of my personality buried within me that will surface as soon as I know I am completely loved.”

[davidhudson]

Jerzy Kosiński, June 14, 1933 – May 3, 1991.