One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

Rating:
Summary: Should it be a classic?
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a book about an insane asylum in the mid part of this century. It is told in a distinctive style that lets you identify with the insane people (along with a few that are not quite so crazy). You can genuinely feel the power in certain events, like when Chief Bromden looks out the window for the first time.

I have never read a book dealing with mentally handicap, and it was an eye-opening reading. The idea that the handicaps were treated this way is disheartening, and the thought of continuous poor treatment is overwhelming. Ken Kesey did an exquisite job of portraying the struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched for the upper hand - an endless game where the power hungry witch eventually came out on top. Despite his selfless and somewhat blind attempts to obtain equality and respect, McMurphy was perhaps responsible for the saving of at least one life - Bromden's.

Over all I see why many people have considered this book to be a classic. With the intriguing thoughts on insane people to the intense detail that Kesey shows though out the book sets a good example of what a classic book should be like.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing1 An absolute must-read.
Review: I read this book for the first time about 2 months back and was absolutely amazed at how great it is.The characters are a treat, the story is amazing and it just begs to be read again and again. For instance theres a part about halfway through the book where the chief looks out of the window at a dog running across a lawn which is just the greatest piece of writing ever,who would have known that just a dog running across a lawn could be so moving? i took every word of this book to be the work of a genius <even the spelling mistakes>. RIP Ken Kesey. A truly great author.

Rating:
Summary: Flying Inside the Cuckoo's Nest
Review: In Ken Kesey's, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, there are four very important factors that contribute to the developement of the novel.Setting, flashbacks, ominiscient point of view, and the use of Symbolism. Like always, I feel that setting is very important to a novel. In a lot of cases, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the setting almost takes upon the role of a whole new character. The novel is set in the Pacific Northwest, in a mental institution. The mental institution has a great deal of meaning for it is the backbone of the theme. Kesey, who wrote the book in 1962, tied in a lot of his own experiences and uses, in a sense, flashbacks. Kesey grew up in Oregon and worked with patients in a mental institution. A lot of the narrative is developed from experiences in his life. The most obvious literary device, however, is the use of symbolism. Developed from where the book is set, the mental institution, symbolism is abundant. The most important is the meaning in which Kesey tries to get across. Using the setting, many will agree that he uses the mental institution to symbolize the oppression which is present in modern day society. His main idea, it to get us, the reader, to really question the meaning of sane or insane. Kesey uses the problems of today and ties them into problems that Chief, McMurphy, Billy Bibbit and even Nurse Ratched face in their lives. One thing that I thought was brilliant on Kesey's part was choosing chief as the narrator. Pretending to be deaf and dumb, he has access to information that the other patients do not. This makes him a great narrator. This demonstrates somewhat of an ominiscient point of view. I really enjoyed this novel and I love the Movie. I am sure everyone who has read it found it interesting. If you can understand the four literary devices I described, you will enjoy One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, funny, good...... but not great!
Review: And believe me, I really did enjoy it! The book is really something else.

Written in 1962 by Ken Kesey, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST establishes what people face day to day, the Establishment! We in our society deal with rules, policies, and laws -- and this book throws those same laws right back in the faces of those enforcers. The hero is Randle Patrick "Mack" McMurphy, a man sent to an Oregon state mental hospital after causing problems in a prison farm; the other is the villain (or should I say villainess) in the guise of the "Big Nurse" Mildred Ratched, who dominates the entire hospital. McMurphy fights against Ratched and her system, and eventually "waking up" the patients on the ward.

We meet other patients -- the Acutes: Harding, Martini, Scanlon, Cheswick, Sefelt, Fredrickson, the stuttering Billy Bibbit, and the narrator of the story, the supposed deaf and dumb Indian Chief Bromden, as told through his eyes.

The book takes many liberties in defining the realities of a mental hospital. But it actually is much more than that. It's about the freedom of the spirit, the right to make your own choices and not be bullied by the Establishment, or dare I say even the government! McMurphy embodies that spirit, that certain rebel within us all that will not stand by and let other dictate our lives. Of course, in the end, there is a loss felt by everyone including McMurphy, Nurse Ratched, the patients, and the entire staff of the hospital.

Needless to say, this book is very different from the 1975 Oscar-winning film that starred Jack Nicholson as McMurphy and Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, both of whom won Best Actor and Actress that year -- and the film winning Best Picture. But the film doesn't haven't the endless description by the Chief as the book has; in fact, the Chief doesn't say a word until half way through the film. Kesey even went on to denounce the film and say that it completely ruined the idea of his book. However, many would disagree that the film ruined book and vice versa. (But to be honest, I did find the film much more accessable than the book.)

My one complaint is, as always expected from a book, the endless description from the Chief about the hospital, about McMurphy's nose, about Nurse Ratched's breasts, about his papa and his boyhood in the Dalles. Does it really matter? Quite frankly, does anyone care to know this?

Here's a lesson to everyone: UNLESS YOU WANT TO PUT A FACE ON THE CHARACTERS, DO NOT WATCH THE FILM VERSION BEFORE READING THE BOOK! You'll just get bored with description and subplots.

But CUCKOO'S NEST is a very good book! I would recommend this to anyone who like that story of the underdog against the system. This book is definitely an interesting read and a good study on both the human spirit and heart.

Rating:
Summary: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is a most humorous and disturbing novel and though I can understand why it has been banned, I disagree with the ruling because this book is just too good to ignore. The book deals with themes of control versus freedom and the classic battle between good and evil with a most appalling conclusion and an unusual climax location; the book climaxes only a few pages before the book ends adding only more to the shock and horror one will know upon completion. Miss Ratched, nicknamed Big Nurse, runs a rigid schedule that is compared repetitively throughout the novel to the systematic and never changing operation of a machine. Randle Patrick McMurphy, on the other hand, is a boisterous, red-haired man with a mission of disruption and chaos for the ward and the freedom for the patients to actually be able to make some basic decisions for themselves. The humor in the book is most certainly dark, but nevertheless hilarious and makes the book quite a joy to read.

Rating:
Summary: Totalitarianism on a personal level
Review: This is a cruelly brilliant novel. And that jarring juxtaposition between cruelty and brilliance is what makes the whole thing tick.

Cruelty is personified in the book's antagonist, an Army nurse who uses her position and her bureaucratic influence to sustain a reign of quiet terror on her inmates. Brilliance is embodied by the protagonist, an irascible rebel who uses his wit and sheer zest for life to instil courage and a sense of self worth in those same inmates. The contest between them is a struggle for souls. It mirrors the larger struggle we face between the spiritual death of slavish conformity and the spiritual vitality of chaotic abandon. Sometimes, to live at all, one must live madly.

And it is all shown to us so naturally that we never know we are learning it until we pause for reflection and thought. This is the sign of a great writer.

The book also has faults. For one thing, it is sexist. The women are either emotional fascists, like Ratched; or spineless, like the other nurses and Bromden's mother; or tarts, like Candy. It would have been nice to see a woman with substance and backbone as a counterpoint to the depressing figures cut by the female characters. Moreover, there is a rather misogynistic subplot hinting at Ratched's repressed sexuality and old maid syndrome as the reason for her sadism. The women are placed in positions where they lord it over the men, from the obvious to the barely perceptible, and we are vaguely made to feel that this is against the natural order of things. Kinda cheesy, and frankly, a cheap shot by the author.

But the book was written in 1962, before writing had become stilted and sanitized by political correctness. Perhaps it is the more honest for being what it is: a story set in a men's mental institution being run by women.

This book isn't really about mental institutions or old maids or the politics of the sixties or even the virtues of rebellion. It's really about power. Power to live, power of control, power to transform and, in the end, power to escape from whatever makes us small. This theme is the skeleton. The story fleshes out the bones. In its way, it is Orwell's 1984, brought down to the level of a single institution, Big Brother replaced by Big Nurse, Winston replaced by McMurphy, and the totalitarian state replaced by the totalitarian cuckoo's nest.

It isn't a cheerful read. There is tragedy and loss. Some may find the book depressing. I found it inspiring. If you can step back from the characters, the setting and the plot, and look at the author's world as a coherent whole, Kesey is telling us that the Ratched's don't prevail. The cost may be painfully high, but if we are willing to pay it, we can triumph over the spiritual strangulation that Big Nurse wishes on us all.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Ken Kesey........
Review: ......for giving the world, through this captivating, marvelously written novel, a glimpse into the lives of patients who live in mental hospitals. Let me say that I have had two relatives and a friend who have had stays in mental hopsitals and have seen subtle abuse of patients committed in my presence. Those who live in mental hospitals will tell you of the degrading experience and what goes on outside of visiting hours. Hearing their stories, I've wanted to be able to shout out to the world these stories of horrific injustice. That's why I thank Ken Kesey for this novel, because that is precisely what this novel accomplishes.

Through real life situations and vivid, fully developed, never to be forgotten characters, Kesey brilliantly brings us onto a ward in an ordinary mental hospital. We are slowly shown the daily experience of it's vulnerable residents and how their world is a place that not only doesn't help them, but actually makes it less likely that they will ever attain mental health and a normal life again. We are taken into the personal suffering of numerous residents and we begin to understand their hopes, dreams and disappointments and thus we begin to see them as full human beings, something the staff at the hospital seems to never grasp. As the story progresses the men are motivated by a new resident in the hospital to fight for their rights and for their dignity. When they begin responding, the central conflicts in the story escalate.

By the end of the story, we see men making their last ditch attempts at self respect and it is at this point that the story comes to an amazing climax that readers will never forget and that teaches us that nothing can kill the human spirit. This book is a must read!!!

Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: Ken Kesey definitely out did himself in this book. A wonderful piece of fiction that goes throught he life stages of a con-man out there to do some good. The book is written wonderfully, and manages to keep readers entertained and involved till the very end.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous and Inspirational
Review: This novel officially ends the 4-book reading that I had set forth to get my teeth into this summer. I must say, that it truly stands out from anything I had read before it, be it this summer or anytime for that matter. Ken Kesey weaves a tale that is smart, witty, sometimes insane and ultimately tragic. Though the setting is mainly in a mental asylum somewhere in Oregon, this story has a universal appeal to it that can be felt by anyone, anwhere in this world.

R.P. McMurphy is a sane man that, due to a brush with the law, opts for being committed in a mental asylum rather than be incarcerated with hard labor. Upon his entry in the secluded world of the asylum, he strips all the barriers formed and starts laying his own rules, in his own way. This leads to problems with the head honcho of the place. A big, gruesome, and menacingly evil Nurse Ratched, dubbed Big Nurse for her huge frame and even huger bosom. The rollercoaster, that patient McMurphy takes the inmates through, finally leads them to realize the ultimate goal. That man, no matter the situation, can always hold his destiny in his hands. This knowledge, achieved in the end, does not come without a price.

Set in the late 60s, early 70s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a gem of modern literary works that came out at the time. It brought out a wonderfully-made movie, starring Jack Nicholson as McMurphy. The role defined him as an actor to be reckoned with. Though the mavie is seen through the eyes of McMurphy, the novel's perspective looks at things through the eyes of a big half white, half Native American inmate, that acts deaf and dumb in front of the asylum's staff. The narrative, because it is through the eyes of a mental patient, can at times be truly insane. That's where the fun really lies. Kesey works his magic in making us feel the insanity and despair of the patients. He can be funny, in a laugh out loud kind of fashion. He can also be tragic, when you realize what the inmates go through each passing day. The novel is a definitive treatment of the age old abode of individual versus establishment.

This is a very human story, with a lot of suffering and exploration of man's insecurities. It has become a classic that some schools have even recommended as part of their curriculum. Through all the ups and downs of the story, I was, forever inspired and ultimately liberated in mind to finally realize that you can take away a man's life, but never his freedom. The book receives my highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: Just say no to lobotomy
Review: The misogyny, the racism, the classism, the discrimation and prejudice against the mentally disturbed. This book has it all. There's a study where a researcher admitted himself to a mental institution to examine the way patients are diagnosed and treated. I wonder if Ken Kesey did the same thing or just wrote a story based on a worst case scenario. The pitch must have been something like "ok let's see, how about a rebel rousing, conniving, tough but sensitive extravert who is placed in a new environment with a bunch of men who are used to bowing to authority and let him tussle with the powers that be to prove himself to the group. Been done before? Ok, how about at a MENTAL INSTITUTION?- Hey, pay dirt!" Historically, mental patients have been treated poorly, heavily medicated and operated on to make them more docile, although that's not even the point of this story. The ideas of freedom and humanity that are portrayed here are interesting because the oppressed patients turn around and oppress others- namely the blacks and other women in this story. Dominance is gained through oppression and this book enforces the idea that only the white male has the ability to control his destiny. Don't agree? You must be a white male.