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Summary: THE Novel of the past 40 years
Review: If you haven't read this book - DO NOT see the movie, just read this book. As there are more than 260 reviews already logged in, I'm not going to rehash the obvious. Suffice it to note that if you have even one rebellious bone in your body and you read, then read this book. Then find out about who Ken Kesey was. If you want to know THE axial figure who straddled the Beat Generation and MY Generation, then you must read Kesey. Is as simple as that. As an aside, I taught this book in a high school senior honors class for 14 years. Every time I read it, it was a revelation. A work of Genius. Period.
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Summary: If you haven't read this then you should now
Review: Great book, good way to start off on seeing what an amazing writer Kesey is.
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Summary: The Best Work of its Kind I Have Ever Come Across
Review: This book, put simply, shattered me. Anyone who says that they "understand" the book and think its morals are quite wrong is quite mistaken. This book does not present you with clear morals to live by, in fact, I don't think any book does. A book is nothing more than a story... it is left to you to draw from it what you like. As I reached the end, I began to realize that this book like no other shows you that some times the fog is so thick in every direction that you are not elft with any clear "right" option. When the inmates were runnig around drunk through the ward, I thought that this had to be the happy world Kesey meant to show, and that there was a clear moral to the book after all. However, my good state of mind was bashed apart immediately when Billy broke down in front of the nurse. It proved that the world is, however much we like to ignore it, a very dark place, no matter how you choose to live. So, in the end, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is probabley the best written piece of work with the best, most well-executed, and very rich story I can remember reading. It ultimately proves, to some degree, as Scanlon said, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't..."
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Summary: Okay But I preferred The Movie!
Review: I remember after having watched the movie on TV when I was a little kid finding the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in my big sister's room and reading it and liking some parts of the book and disliking others, the book was okay but I preferred the movie.
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Summary: Well done but bad morals
Review: I certainly did not like Big Nurse (BN) or her goons or what they did. However, I don't think that justifies 2 things our red haired hero did. In the end he could have escaped, instead he exposes BNs breast and strangles her. It turns the whole book into some kind of sexual struggle with the answer being given that men to be men need free sex, whores, and to physically dominate women. In addition, Chief Broom resorts to euthanasia before he gains his freedom under some flawed concept that quality of life determines whether it is worth living. The 30 something lad who egged on by some sense of nobility and a great quantity of locker room bravado indulges in a night of revelry feels real guilt when BN threatens to expose his actions to his mother. If he had really thought it was OK, he would have been able to stand up to her instead of committing suicide. He is not simply weak. Our hero is a tragic anti-hero. Tragic because he dies. Anti because instead of good morals he gambles, smokes, sleeps around, cusses, and fights when he doesn't have to. The message seems Nietzschean. The only real people are those who make their own rules, supermen. The individual vs all authority. Unfortunately authority is made up of people seeking their own also. No one is worth emulating. It is well written and presents the story from the point of view of an inmate. It also deals with deep themes. But the answers are flawed and lacking.
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Summary: An Incredible Book!
Review: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was a truly emotional book. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you feel confused. It will make you feel smart. It will do whatever it is a book has to do to keep the reader's fullest attention. Not only will you enjoy reading this book it will move you emotionally.
In this book I believe Kesey is trying to make two points:
The first one is that being a leader not only allows yourself to be great but also brings out the best in others. Secondily, never try too hard to beat or defeat something or someone who has a higher power of authority than you do. You may win some battles but never will win the war.
Kesey demonstrates these points in an enjoyable way in an incredible book. That you must read to believe!
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Summary: A Masterpiece of Social Criticism
Review: The longing to be free is an inherent human characteristic. So is distrust of authority. Author Ken Kesey weaves both of these essential human components into his masterpiece, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The setting of this novel is an insane asylum, darkly and fearfully portrayed by Chief Bromden, the book's narrator. For it is within the wall's of this harsh, bleak institution that Authority--coined the "Combine" by the Chief--controls, directs, and manipulates every aspect of the lives of the patients. Nurse Ratched, who controls the Chief's ward, is the ultimate authority figure--a menacing, cold, callous, larger-than-life authoritarian who will stop at nothing to make sure the "Combine" stays firmly in power. Kesey, through the Chief's narrative, creates a gloomy, hopeless world, a world where the facility's patients have nothing to look forward to except the inexorable clutches of insanity. Into this world appears Randle Patrick McMurphy. This character isn't insane, he's simply trying to beat a work farm rap. More importantly, McMurphy is a strong, self-willed individual; instantly, the "Combine" senses a threat to its control. The story subsequently becomes a battle of wills: McMurphy's relentless defiance against Nurse Ratched and the Establishment. Granted, McMurphy achieves a series of victories, but in the end, Authority prevails. Or does it? Kesey's allegorical tribute to the indomitable human spirit is brilliant, fascinating, and timeless. His negative social critique of authority unchecked makes ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST one of the literary masterpieces of the 20th Century, a novel most enthusiastically recommended.
--D. Mikels
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Summary: Masterpiece
Review: Kesey does not waste words. Each sentence has a deeper meaning. All the characters are unique. You will be blown away by the writing as well as the ideal behind this book. Sex, gambling, swearing... this book has it all. P.S.: There are hints of sexism, but they are minor details. This is truely an amazing book.
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Summary: Simply Divine
Review: Counterculture icon and author Ken Kesey (1935-2001) wrote his first novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," in 1960. The book was a response to the author's experiences testing mind-altering drugs for the federal government and his later tenure as a nurse's aide in the same facility. In the introduction to the novel, Robert Faggen places this seminal novel in its proper context, arguing that this book incorporates several themes of the 1950's: the Cold War, the plight of the Native Americans, the reliance on psychiatry as a cure all for social problems, and the vestigial remnants of McCarthyism. Even if you could care less about how Kesey's book fits into American cultural history, you could hardly fail to miss the overarching theme of his novel: the tensions between the individual and the state, between those trapped in an industrial society and those who wish to live in freedom. There is a film version of this book starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher that adequately captures Kesey's stark visions. The author's tale takes place in a mental asylum at an unknown time. Perhaps this is because time has little importance to the inmates in the facility. The people in this particular ward of the hospital fall into categories of 'acute' or 'chronic,' depending on whether they have hope of recovery or are irrevocably ill. The days are full of drudgery, an endless round of medications interspersed with playing cards against the background of canned polka music. Everyday the acute patients meet for group therapy that really doubles as a McCarythyesque tattling session. The name of the game is acquiescence to the myriad rules and regulations of the institution. Those inmates who violate the rules earn a trip to the disturbed ward or a quick trip to the electroshock chamber. Repeated disobedience could lead to a lobotomy. Predictably, fear is the perpetual state in which most of the patients live. But with the appearance of a nonconformist named Randle McMurphy, fear starts to give way to a burgeoning hope that life will become better in this hospital. The narrator of this story is Chief Bromden, a mixed blood Indian who is a patient in the ward. This man spends his days mopping and sweeping the floors while hearing and seeing everything that goes on around him. The Chief fears that something called the 'Combine' controls the world. For him, the 'Combine' is the machinery that fills the walls and floors of the hospital, constantly spying on and controlling the men in the ward. He believes that those who work in the asylum are actually full of cogs and gears, are part of this giant, controlling machine. Moreover, the staff and the patients believe that Bromden is a deaf mute. He isn't, but Kesey's choice of this Indian as the narrator of unfolding events is a stroke of brilliance. Since no one thinks the Chief can hear or speak, he becomes privy to every activity in the institution. The staff speaks freely around him because they feel they have nothing to worry about. His cleaning duties allow him full access to every area of the floor, including the room where the staff meets to discuss other inmates. You cannot help but like Bromden, and you quickly question whether his observations are truly the ramblings of a madman. The central figure in Bromden's 'Combine' theory is Nurse Ratched, sometimes referred to as 'Big Nurse.' This seemingly grandmotherly woman personifies the Chief's fear of control and cold aloofness. Ratched runs the floor from her little glass booth, her hands on the levers of the machinery that controls the lights, the music, the group therapy sessions, and even most of the doctors. Her voice alone controls the destiny of the inmates. Ratched enforces the rules and regulations, and she decides who receives punishment or release. Big Nurse encourages stool pigeons and belittles the patients with implied threats and stony glares, often masked under an ersatz exterior of patience and cheerfulness. With the arrival of McMurphy, Ratched prepares for a battle of wills that by extension is a war between the individual and the state. Randle McMurphy is a boisterous, tattooed, redheaded troublemaker ducking a sentence on a work farm by acting crazy. Right from the start, McMurphy undermines the rules and regulations of the hospital. He gambles for money, wonders the hall wearing nothing but towels, sings, and challenges Ratched's authority by going to the floor doctor to receive rule waivers. But far, far worse is McMurphy's effect on the other inmates in the institution. His breezy spirit and tenaciousness encourages others to demand changes in the daily routine. Randle is a subversive of the worst type, and Ratched will do anything in her power to slap down this upstart to her fascistic rule. The end of the story seems to mark a significant defeat for the concept of individualism, but if one reads closely it is apparent Kesey keeps the dream of freedom alive however ephemeral it may be. Although I disagree strongly with Kesey's career as a counterculture mainstay, I loved this book. Everything about it is brilliant, from the characterization to the tight writing style. The Penguin edition even includes pencil sketches of people Kesey drew during his work as a nurse's aide. These haunting sketches add a special dimension to the text. Ultimately, the novel works because of its messages of freedom versus entrapment and the dangers of both conformity and nonconformity to the human soul. I recommend you run, not walk, to get this book.
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Summary: An Absolutely Brilliant Read!
Review: This novel will make a big impact in your mind. It begins a little eerie, but only because the entire mental ward setting can give the reader a few chills. It is told from the point of view of one of the inmates, and you must keep in mine that he is also a bit crazy. It makes for a profound perspective. McMurffy enters the scene with his laughable character and honest and fun habits. He is truly a fun loving man, and throughout the novel the reader falls in love with him. The other characters, who began as mindless drones, develop into vivid people with the help of McMurffy. The greater part of this book will have you smiling, until you come upon the last ten pages where you want to throw the book at a wall and cry, just because you've grown to love the characters. Profound impact? I think so.
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