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Summary: buy this now!!
Review: If you haven't read this book, you're missing something... The setting is a mental asylum with its staff and the inmates. Through the book, we enter and share the life there - the humor under the tyranny of the head nurse and the "system"... it is touching and disturbing at the same time because you might end up finding the inmates more 'sane' than the people whose care they're under. I watched the movie based on the book. The movie is very good too but the book is better by far.
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Summary: One Flew East, One Flew West
Review: If you like to laugh and enjoy stories of rebellion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the book for you. A rowdy gambler and brawler fakes his insanity to escape the toil of a work farm. He arrives at the state hospital to find himself, along with everyone else in the ward, under the control of the Big Nurse. Immediately, he makes friends with the other patients there and conceives a plot to overthrow her. Ken Kesey does a great job of painting an interesting picture of humanity and teaching you lessons about individualism in this masterpiece. Full of suspense, humor, and emotion, this book will keep any reader excited about the next page. As a high school student, I recommend this classic to anyone. Understanding the vulnerability of those who are mentally handicapped and the inhumanity that caretakers are capable of is something we all need to be aware of. Even if you are not an avid reader, I assure you that you'll love this book.
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Summary: The best depiction of a 1960s mental institution yet...
Review: It scares you to think of the 'treatment' deemed 'auxillary' not even 40 years ago. It scared me just to read about the effects, before I actually became empathic and connected to the marvelous characters... each one unique, lively and different. The writing style of this book is incredible- it paints a picture so vivid you can almost step into it, can almost smell the antiseptic of this damnable institution and feel the hated burn of a hypodermic. A book I would recommend everyone (who is able) should read.
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Summary: Shades of insanity from the first person
Review: This is a great book. I can say that without qualification. It is one of the few books that I wished was longer, just so I could keep reading. If you've seen the movie, that's all the more reason to read the book. The movie adaptation is to this book as a movie trailer is to a movie. The book takes place in a mental ward, with a wide variety of mental infirmities represented. These inmates are controlled fairly easily by the hospital employees until McMurphy arrives. McMurphy is one of those who feigns insanity to avoid prison time, and so is not nearly as docile as his counterparts. None of this is new to those who have seen the movie, but the book tells this story from the eyes of Chief. Early in the book Chief is silent and uncommunicative. The way he explains what transpires shows the extent to which he is out of touch with reality. He talks about time standing still, fog that overtakes the ward and about wires going from the hospital into the back of the heads of the nurses, etc. These are all signs of psychosis, but they also give insight into the dynamics of the ward. As Chief regains himself, partly through his relation with McMurphy, his descriptions of the ward slowly become more realistic. It's really a fascinating and beautiful. I never say this, and I hate when people say it, but this is a .... wince .... Must read.
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Summary: "I been away a long time."
Review: Wow. This book will fill your heart with laughter and then shatter it into a thousand pieces. Kesey's command of descriptive writing, and of getting a person emotionally involved with the characters, has few equals. This book will suck you into the hearts and minds of a group of men in an insane asylum, their "Bull Goose Loony" Savior, and their perpetually enemy, Nurse Ratched. It is told from the position of one of the patients of the asylum, and the deep philosophical introspection is interspersed, or combined with I guess, his manic hallucinations. The patients fishing trip is some of the finist writing I've ever seen, and the conclusion will leave you with a broken heart as well as hope for the future. You will fall in love with Big Chief and McMurphey and Harding, and hate the Big Nurse and the other members of the Combine. Who is really more insane? The broken men or the woman who wishes to keep them broken? Breathtaking writing. This one'll get inside your head. Absolutely amazing.
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Summary: The Best Book Ever Written
Review: I saw the movie before I was ever aware that "Cuckoo's Nest.." was ever a novel. And I've recently read the book and I couldn't put it down! Literally! I would read for hours at a time and I completed the 272 page book in a matter of three days. And with little wonder; Ken Kesey does a brilliant job making setting and characters very vivid. Yet he doesn't take pages at a time (see Charles Dickens) to do so. In order to appreciate this novel, you must read every word... if you think you missed something, go back and read it again. I've never felt so alive after reading as I have when I completed "Chuckoo's Nest..". And I hope you feel the same fulfillment that I did.
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Summary: A Powerful, and Hilarious, Anti-Authoritarian Novel
Review: Ken Kesey himself will be forever associated with the happenings of the 1960s, but "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (1962), like other great novels, transcends its countercultural origins. Nearly forty years on, with over 8 million copies sold, it has become an essential part of postwar American literature. The setting: a mental hospital in Portland, Oregon, in the 1950s. The terrified, ill-treated inmates cower under the evil Nurse Ratched, who is all-seeing, all-controlling. Enter the hero, Randall Patrick McMurphy, a brawling, gambling womaniser who, as his initials suggest, is there to induce a revolution. The slowly escalating conflict is played out in a simple four-part structure, building towards an inevitable and moving climax. "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is narrated in the first person by Chief Bromden, a half-Indian thought by all to be deaf-mute, and his extended flashback of events allows Kesey to mix reality and hallucinations to brilliant effect. By presenting the mental hospital, explicitly, as a microcosm of broader society, Kesey urges us to consider our own lives in the light of the events he describes. Its simple structure belies the fact that "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is a feast of allegory: of good versus evil, man versus machine, sexual freedom versus repression; of McMurphy himself as humorously subversive Christ figure, as bringer of fertility, and many more - and watch out for the white whale shorts and stuttering Billy, "Faulknerian brain burning", and even some hidden rhymes at the end of part 3! But spare us the half-baked Freudian interpretations which Kesey himself so roundly mocks. And pay no heed to the charges of sexism and racism levelled at Kesey's novel: his playful plotting and comic-strip characters make such criticism futile. Kesey balances it beautifully: amidst the ribald humour, there is just enough realism to keep us engrossed; and this reviewer little doubts that the systematic cruelty and dehumanisation practised by Ratched and her aides is commonplace in our prisons, mental hospitals and wherever else we lock away the "undesirables". Indeed, it isn't surprising to find that Kesey worked in a mental hospital before writing "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", and his acquaintances there filtered into the novel; some a little too obviously, perhaps, viz. the (originally female) "Public Relations" who sued Kesey in order to get her character changed. Kesey also tried out electric shock treatment firsthand, and was part of a government program testing psychoactive drugs, his experiences with LSD forming the basis of Bromden's electrifying hallucinations. Now, although Kesey himself may be pretty wacky, he has no personal experience of schizophrenia, and his portrayal of mental illness and its causes has been justly criticised as simplistic. But "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" is not, primarily, meant as a contribution to psychiatric therapy, and criticism of it on these grounds is somewhat wide of the mark. We should be glad that Kesey successfully attempted a greater task: to write an anti-authoritarian novel of immense power, forcing us to question the "Combine" seeking to control us all. Kesey's next book "Sometimes A Great Notion" (1964) is more subtle: a long, complex, involving tale set in an Oregon logging town. Fans of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" should perhaps first try "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe, in which Kesey himself challenges 1960s America with some crazy escapades of his own, thumbing his nose at authority in the same spirit, one senses, as his hero Mr McMurphy.
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Summary: The Ward of Repression
Review: One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is a story about a group of patients in a mental institution. The story is told by Chief Bromden who is also called Chief Broom. Chief Bromden is a half Indian man whom the patients think is deaf and dumb. The ward is run by Nurse Rached, who is called Big Nurse by the patients. Nurse Rached is a very cold, strict charge nurse and she runs the ward like an Army Camp. The patients are not assertive and must comply with nurse rached commands. A new patient is admitted to the ward, Randall Patrick McMurphy. McMurphy introduced himself as a gambler who is from a prison work farm. McMurphy appears to be very confident and assertive, however, nurse Rached sees him as a manipulator. McMurphy concluded that the patients are weak and do not speak up because they are afraid of Nurse Rached. He tries to help the men to overcome the repressive authority of nurse rached which he accomplished. McMurphy was given a frontal lobotomy as punishment for opposing nurse Rached. This novel is analogous to an oppressive society where people are not allowed to speak out and is punished when they do so. I enjoyed reading this great classic. I hope you will enjoy it too.
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Summary: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Review: This was a very good book. I read it because my dad told me that the movie was very good. So I read the book. This book is very detailed. I recommend this book anyone who enjoys reading and loves to read new and interesting books. This book was real interesting to me because it pulled me in. I was into this book very much. I was like one of the characters in the book. The author was real cool about this story. I recommend this book to family, friends, and strangers. This book got me interested again in reading. Now I would like to go pick up another book like this and read it because it pulled me in. The understanding of this book was easy. I just kept on reading and reading this book. I think that the movie is going to be much better because it gives a visual presentation of the book. But if you already have a good imagination then you don't need the movie. If you visualize this book as you are reading it then you are in good shape because it becomes more fun and more interesting to you. Believe me, I really hate reading but this book changed that. Now I would like to start reading again and read books like this one.
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Summary: Garths Review
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is a novel displaying pure linguistic genius reflecting on the thoughts of the author, Ken Kesey. His views portrayed in the novel were a direct result of the era of which it was written. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was written in a time when the world was questioning the authority of governments and felt quite trapped by the idea that life was so easy to rule and could be thrown around however the forces that be pleased to do. Kesey's crusade for mental and spiritual freedom is metaphorically identified in the novel to his exact lifestyle and views of society. The novel is written in a mental hospital from the view of a mental patient named Chief Bromden. The chief is a veteran of World War II and plays himself off as deaf and dumb. The patients mainly keep to themselves and do not expose their views on society and the ward itself. Nurse Ratchet is the head nurse and symbolizes all authority and government. She is the sole reason that no one in the hospital speaks their mind and are somewhat trapped. One day a stought young buck named R.P. McMurphy walked into the ward off the street looking for an easy way out of a conviction for battery charges. As soon as he walks into the ward everything changes. His charisma and energy transforms the mental ward from what might as well been a graveyard into a ruckus of mixed opinions and outbursts towards the authority of the combine. Before McMurphy came to the ward, the patients were to scarred to speak out in fear that they would be punished. When McMurphy arrived at the ward his ways of defiance and playful conduct baffled the nurse and changed the wards view of authority. As the combine becomes more and more intolerant of McMurphy, Nurse Ratchet gives McMurphy a frontal lobotomy and shows the combine just how in control she is. The novel is a magnificent display of society shrunken into a small example. There are hero's and villains and the general population. The book is a fine display of 20th century literature and in my opinion taught all over the nation. To me One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest symbolized the fight between an under-powered hero and his people against one sole villain and her power of controlling the combine. This novel is quite good but very hard to interpret. It takes a huge amount of analogy and without it would not be close as magnificent. Prior to reading this book set aside some time so that you can fully understand it. I strongly recommend this book for everyone to read and also strongly recommend that everybody see the movie as well. Whatever you do, do not rush read this book. Parts may even have to be read two or three times until fully understood, Even though a bit hard to understand to a younger audience the material is basic just the linguistics complex.
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