Book 39: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

I've always liked this movie, but I've never read the source material.  Since I found a copy of the book recently I thought I'd give it a try.  I've also tried to read some other works by Ken Kesey without much luck.  I've always found him to be a little too off-kilter for me without much of a focused story. When telling people that this is the next book I'm intending to read I've been told a few times that it's really good.  So here goes...  It's about 330 pages, so that makes about 48 pages per day.

REVIEW:  I've been trying to get this book review going for a while now and I keep getting stuck.  It's just such a difficult novel to do justice to.  Let's just jump right in.

Kesey writes some extremely interesting characters.  The focus of the book is Randle McMurphy, a minor criminal, con-man and hooligan who has been given a short prison sentence and decides to feign insanity in order to serve out his term at a mental asylum, which he assumes will be comparatively easy and comfortable.  The inmates of the asylum are expertly written and very believable.  Rather than writing over-the-top, ranting and raving lunatics, Kesey has created complex characters with subtle problems that keep them from living normal lives.  The character that really shines for me, however, is that of the narrator, "Chief" Bromden.  Because everyone believes him to be deaf and mute and, therefore, harmless, he (and, therefore, the reader) is allowed access to areas normally off-limits giving a behind-the-scenes view of the hospital and the staff as well as the patients.  In addition, the Chief's inner dialogue gives realistic and sometimes disturbing views into the mind of a schizophrenic and a view of the ward from someone who probably actually belongs there.

Overall, the story is one of the individual versus the system.  Nurse Ratched has established an strict regimen in the ward and McMurphy is set up to resist and attempt to overthrow it.  It's a theme that is repeated many times in books from this era, especially the dystopic novels, in which I would nominally include this book.  The struggle of McMurphy to assert his independent nature against the authoritarian regime of Nurse Ratched is a war with battles won by both sides, though the ultimate outcome is never really in question.

The only bad things that I can think of about this book are really in comparing it to the film.  I don't really want to get into a film review here, but any review of the book would be incomplete without addressing it.  First, the novel is much better than the film.  I love the film, it is one of my all-time favorites, but there is so much in the novel that just can't be expressed visually, including the mental illnesses of the inmates.  This could be why the focus of the film shifts away from Bromden toward McMurphy.  It would be difficult, if not impossible, to effectively show the inner dialogue and conflict of the Chief.  Randle is extroverted; Bromden is introverted.  One makes for decidedly better viewing on film.  Finally, a minor gripe.  Because I'd seen the film (several times) before reading the book, I had mental images of the film characters in my head while reading.  For the most part, this didn't really bother me, but the descriptions of the characters don't necessarily match the film depictions.  Especially, in the case of McMurphy.  Great as Jack Nicholson is, he doesn't really look like Randle Patrick McMurphy.

Overall, it was an amazing book.  One of the best I've ever read.  Though it's a short book, it packs in so much that it took me a while after finishing it to process it all.  I just set down the book and sat where I was, thinking.

10 out of 10.