The Painted Bird

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

In the novel, The Painted Bird by award-winning author Jerzy Kozinsky(Being There), wherein he recounts the misadventures of a dark-eyed orphan in the Balkans during WWII(supposedly, it is a semiautographical work), the boy winds-up working/staying with the family of a cruel farmer, who apparently was fond of tickling the poor kid while he dangled helplessly from his wrists in the barnhouse. The passage is not meant to be seductive whatsoever, and he speaks of how terrible and painful the ordeal was.