One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
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(Mass Market Paperback - Reprint)
- Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
- Pub. Date: February 1963
- ISBN-13: 9780451163967
- Sales Rank: 1,185
- Age Range: Young Adult
- 336pp
- Series: Critical Studies Series
- Edition Description: Reprint
Synopsis
A visually arresting deluxe edition of Ken Kesey's counterculture classic
Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's 1962 novel has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Now in a new deluxe edition with a foreword by Chuck Palahniuk and cover by Joe Sacco, here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned.
Library Journal
Kesey's new introduction to this anniversary edition could very well be the last thing he worked on before shuffling off this mortal coil in 2001. Additionally, 25 sketches he drew while working at a mental institution in the 1950s, the inspiration for the novel, are littered throughout. Critics are divided on the meaning of the book: Is it a tale of good vs. evil, sanity over insanity, or humankind trying to overcome repression amid chaos? Whichever, it is a great read. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
Ken Kesey (1935-2001) grew up in Oregon. His books include Sometimes a Great Notion, Sailor Song, and Last Go Round.
Chuck Palahniuk is the bestselling author Fight Club. He lives in Washington State.
Robert Faggen is Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College. His book Ken Kesey: An American Life is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Joe Sacco is the creator of Safe Area: Goražde and the American Book Award- winning Palestine.
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Reviewby Eric_Sindall
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October 23, 2008: The beginning of the story dumps you into the everyday cycle of a mental hospital that is situated within Oregon run by a retired Army nurse, Nurse Ratched. She believes it is best to rule the ward with an "iron fist" and performs shock therapy and even lobotomies if patients misbehave. It seemed to me that the novel was going to be way to confusing for my taste, but a few chapters in and I was hooked. The story is narrated by a patient at the ward, "Chief" Bromden, who is half Native American-half White and who suffers from paranoia and hallucinations. He has been at the ward longer than any other patient, about ten years. Chief Bromden pretends to be deaf so he can be left alone and isn't noticed within the ward. He refers to the outside world as "the combine" where people are forced to act all the same. Every day at the hospital is the same, continuous cycle until a guy named Randle Patrick McMurphy comes to the ward. He is introduced as big and full of tattoos, a gambling man. He had been diagnosed as a psychopath for doing to much fighting. After he learns the routine of the ward, and meets Nurse Ratched, he makes a bet that he can get Nurse Ratched to crack before she cracks him. The rest of the story persists of the two of them going back and forth with each other until Nurse Ratched finally has had enough and uses her unfair advantages.
I Also Recommend: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
A reviewerby Anonymous
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July 18, 2007: Kesey got the idea for this book after he took some LSD and thought up the character Chief broom. He wrote alot of it based on his experience from when he worked in a mental hospital in the 50's, and a few chapters he wrote when he was on peyote or LSD. For one part of the book when Chief broom is describing an shock treatment, Kesey actually tried it at the hospital so he could describe it more accurrately. It's a good book, well written, interesting, thought provoking, and i def. recommend it
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