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Title: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: Text and Criticism (Viking Critical Library) by Ken Kesey, John Clark Pratt ISBN: 0-14-023601-5 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (287 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoos nest
Comment: Ladies and gentlemen. If you are looking for some entertainment, but are tired of TV programs and the like: Invest seven dollars in this little masterpiece and you will be engrossed in this enjoyable read. There's something for everyone here. Kesey paid close attention to the effects that drugs can have on one's body and he describes this process so vividly that one can actually imagine what it must be like to swallow some of those "red pills." Do you like characters that will be branded in your brain long after you are finished reading the book? Kesey delivers in this area as well. He makes his characters so realistic that on more than one occasion I would see an individual in town and make a mental note of how they reminded me of Harding (or Billy, or Ratched, or McMurphy, etc...). And the characters are true to themselves too. Enjoy a good plot? How about a fun-loving, reckless, enormous man entering a mental hospital that is strictly regulated by an old Army nurse with huge breasts that she tries to conceal throughout the novel? :) It is not a difficult book to read, nor is it very long. I challenge one to try to read through McMurphy's antics without shaking one's head and smiling. Enjoy!
Rating: 5
Summary: A great read
Comment: This is an amazing book; I honestly wish that I would have read it long before I saw the movie. Try as I might, I still cannot help but picture Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher whenever McMurphy or Nurse Ratched were "on stage."
Much more complex than the movie, the novel works on many levels. The characters are gripping, and the psychological undertones amazing. I read this first in high school, again in college, and twice during adult life, and each time I see something new in it that I hadn't seen before. In short, it is a modern masterpiece.
The book is told from the Chief's viewpoint. Chief deeply troubled psychotic, and pulling this off is Kesey's tour-de-force. Every utterance of this schizophrenic character rings true as he moves from the "fog" of fear into the real world. Not only does this progression make the novel more interesting than the movie, it makes you question certain elements of the movie.
For instance, was Mac a savior, or simply a dangerous whacko? The movie points towards savior, but the savior interpretation is merely the interpretation of a troubled mind yearning to be free in the novel. The nurse, too, seems less intimidating when you move back from the Chief's interpretation of her. I imagine that she was more humane than his inner fears and the fog that stands between him and the world would allow him to see. Once this is understood, the characters of Mac and Big Nurse become less "cut and dried," and more real, more vital and much more ambiguous. And Kesey's true purpose seems to surface. The actual characters of Mac/ Big Nurse are not important; how they react on the Chief's psyche is.
Seen in this way, the novel traces one of Joseph Campbell's grand mythic themes: The liberation of the masculine psyche from the chaotic rubble of the mother dominated chaos (can you tell this interpretation is based on my college paper?). This journey, which Campbell describes in his "Hero With a Thousand Faces," is a man's major mission early in life. To be free, a male must liberate himself from the feminine and establish himself in the real world. Mythic literature the world over teems with this theme. A man's inability to liberate himself from this dark, restraining yet safe world is a major cause of many psychoses. Kesey has managed to bring that myth into the modern world, and the effects are just as amazing and relevant as the original myths were.
By the way, I received an "A+" on my college paper, which took the novel apart along these lines. I hope that a student here or there stumbles on this. There is ample room for exploration in this book that seems so simple on the outside, but so deep and complex the deeper you dig. This is, after all, the mark of a truly great work of art.
At the same time, don't let all this "noodling" ruin such a perfectly enjoyable book. [Noodling (v)- The cursed blessing of a liberal arts and science education. :-}]
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best books ever
Comment: Easily my favorite book. There are 4 or 5 characters that are so interesting that they could have written an entire book about them alone. The book never fails to surprise you, right up til the very end and has a good message about living life to the fullest.
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Title: A Clockwork Orange (Norton Paperback Fiction) by Anthony Burgess ISBN: 0393312836 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 1986 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Slaughterhouse Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0440180295 Publisher: Laurel Pub. Date: 01 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger ISBN: 0316769487 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: 01 May, 1991 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe ISBN: 0553380648 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 05 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: On the Road by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140042598 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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