One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ken Kesey (Penguin Modern Classics)

An absolutely gripping read. I went in knowing it was a classic, but I didn’t expect it to hit as hard as it did. The writing pulls you straight into the ward, and the characters feel so real you almost forget you’re reading fiction. McMurphy is larger than life, Nurse Ratched is quietly terrifying, and the tension between them is unbelievably well done. What surprised me most is how funny and heartbreaking it manages to be at the same time. One moment you’re laughing at the chaos, the next you’re sitting there feeling oddly emotional about people you’ve only known for a few chapters. It’s clever, sharp, and full of moments that make you stop and think. A brilliant, powerful story that sticks with you long after the final page.

I enjoyed this book but found the style a little difficult to follow easily. The message is powerful and relatable.

Can it really be 50 years since the publication of this book, I remember my first reading in the mid 70's and it has been a great pleasure, and a walk down memory lane, to once again make the acquaintance of the residents of an Oregon Psychiatric Hospital and in particular one Randle P McMurphy. Most people will remember the 1976 movie and the electric performance of Jack Nicholson as the audacious and colourful "Mack", in a movie that won many awards. The book has lost none of its magic even now reading the it so many years later, and the emotions that it can produce are still very real. McMurphy is moved to the mental institution from a prison farm where he was serving a sentence for the rape of a 15 year old girl. Although he is not mentally ill, he is hoping to avoid hard labour and serve the rest of his sentence in a relaxed environment. The life of the rest of the inmates is now turned on its head as McMurphy proceeds to wreck havoc in an attempt to control and alter the mundane existence of lethargic and inactive inmates...."We are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psychoceramics, the cracked pots of mankind."....The only obstacle standing between Mack and his dreams is the formidable figure of the steely strict Nurse Ratched....."Her face is still calm, as though she had a cast made and painted to just the look she wants. Confident, patient, and unruffled."... The story is told in the first person through the eyes of one long term resident Chief Bromden a tall native American believed to be deaf and mute. Through a series of minor misdemeanours and coercion McMurphy is hoping to breakdown the stranglehold of power that Nurse Rached holds over the inmates, who are dulled and kept under control by the constant and daily consumption of medication. It would therefore appear that the prime function of the institution is to manage, by this use of drugs, the minds and temperaments of the residents, rather than try to rehabilitate them and reintroducing them back into society where they might once again make a useful contribution. If the use of drugs and stimulants fails to pacify the disturbed mind the institution is willing to apply electroshock therapy and in the most severe cases a lobotomy is performed. This is a book fully entrenched in the methods and institutions of its time. It is also a story of power and authority, those who wheel it and those who would attempt to question it by any means possible. It is a wonderful and colourful narration, strong and memorable characters, essentially funny yet ultimately sad. To me Randle P McMurphy is more than a comic figure, he chooses to question the reality and sense of his surroundings and by doing so set himself on the road to confrontation with the soulless Nurse Ratched and ultimately there can only be one winner, and an ending that is both shocking and captivating. Highly Recommended.

I loved this book. It took me a long time to read it; to get through the slang American dialect, but it was worth it. McMurphy has to be one of my favourite antiheroes, as he is so complex and makes me realise just how subjective and changeable morality is. In fact, most of the central characters were extremely well developed and believable, never slipping into stereotype. I've read reviews claiming this is an anti-feminist story, about the emasculation of the American ideal, but I couldn't disagree more. Some stories have great female villains too - it doesn't always mean the author had an axe to grind with his mother. For me, this is a story of anti-establishment, pure and simple. It's even in the antagonist's name - ratchet [sic] - applying pressure slowly and non-aggressively, click by click, until something is locked firmly in its place. If gender does play any part in this (other than to create a realistic setting, being the 1960's), it's to build a carnal tension between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, and a physical threat transcending mere brute strength that she (and the rest of the Combine) are not equipped to deal with. I love any story that can make me question my own morality and make me see the world in more than just black and white, and that's exactly what this book did. It toyed with me. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest had me rooting for a violent, convicted rapist and conman, as saviour against a lonely middle-aged woman whose only crime was staunchly believing that what she was doing was right. It had me applauding him as he introduced gambling, alcohol, narcotics, violence and finally prostitution into an otherwise *pure* environment. This is a story we've heard many times before... McMurphy is the devil, Ratched is God, and the ward are the innocents tempted by evil into either freedom or sin, depending on your viewpoint... but told in such an intelligent and memorable way.

Kesey has written a memorable book. The storyline is redemptive. The characters are believable as the redeemed. The book has probably done more to change attitudes to mental health and its treatment than any medical school has. Irrational authority, as personified by the "Big Nurse", gets a drubbing. Brilliant!

Re-living the events from the perspective of the Chief provides some extremely poignant and memorable moments and gives insights into the workings of 'The Machine' and the motivations of 'The Big Nurse' which are not available from the movie.

Bin lange um das Buch herumgeschlichen, da ich die ganze Irrenhaus-Thematik als zu gruselig empfunden habe, mich dann aber doch jetzt dazu überwunden und es keine Sekunde bereut! Was für ein intensives Leseerlebnis! Wie bereits erwähnt trägt sich der Großteil der Handlung in einer Irrenanstalt in den 50er Jahren zu, um genau zu sein in einem bestimmten Flügel dieser Anstalt. Zwar sind fragwürdige Therapiemethoden wie die Wassertherapie bereits abgeschafft, allerdings werden den Patienten zu ihrem eigenen Wohl auch weiterhin Elektroschocks und Lobotomien zu Teil. Der Flügel, in dem die Geschichte spielt, wird von der Großen Schwester beherrscht, das Paradebeispiel eines Blockwarts oder Nazi-Schergens, der mit Angst regiert und die Insassen untereinander ausspielt. Der Leser verfolgt die Geschichte durch die Augen eines schizophrenen Indianers, der vermutlich zu viele Elektroschocks bekommen hat, weshalb man manche Ereignisse für Ausgeburten seines Hirns halten kann/möchte. Das beschauliche Leben in dem Flügel sowie die Schreckensherrschaft der Großen Schwester und ihrer Helfershelfer geraten ins Wanken, als ein neuer Patient auftaucht, der gegen ihre Psycho-Spielchen immun zu sein scheint. Was Anfangs noch wie eine fröhliche Revolution wirkt, endet böse... Sprachlich ist das ganze für Menschen, die nicht so sicher in der Englischen Sprache sind eventuell etwas anspruchsvoll, aber dieses Buch lohnt sich definitiv! Die Anstalt und auch die Schwester stehen für bekannte Motive, die uns auch heute noch begegnen und uns Allen täte ein bisschen von McMurphys "Eiern" gut.

Extremely good book, very well written ! I highly recommand !

Let me make one thing clear right off the bat, this is a brilliant, brilliant novel and I rate it right up there with some of the finest novels of the last century. The best novels in the world force you to look at things in a way you’ve never seen them before or in fact have done your best to avoid facing. The nagging questions that are ever-present, pricking your brain like so many tiny little wooden splinters. Then along comes a book every once in a while that doesn’t mince words and is like a punch in the gut. It forces you to re-evaluate everything you believe in or thought you believed in. It’s the paradox we contend with everyday – do we conform to the well-oiled socialist and/or capitalist machinery’s norms? The society is so structured that you are either master or slave. We spend the rest of lives extinguishing the flames of our convictions, never asking ourselves the toughest questions about our existence. We find ourselves cozy little niches and occupations in a monolithic society and spend the rest of our lives behaving the way clones would, blind to all true potential that exists in every one of us. The story is set in a mental asylum some time in the 60’s and is narrated through the perspective of a Native American called Chief Bromden. Bromden is a behemoth of a man, a real giant physically but years of being institutionalized have left him in a mental state where he is scared of his own shadow and is also and alleged schizophrenic. Nurse Ratched runs the asylum with an iron-fist. She runs the asylum like a dictator and the inmates and staff are in a state of constant fear. Any deviation from set protocol results in harsh punishments. Then along comes R.P. McMurphy, the swaggering, boisterous and flamboyant red-haired con man of Irish descent, who decides to take up the cudgels on behalf of his fellow inmates to oppose Nurse Ratched’s dictatorial regime. It sheds a lot of light on horrifying practices that were practiced in the name of therapy. In fact, it presents a world seen exclusively from the perspectives of society’s so-called castoffs, who are deemed unfit to live among ‘normal’ people. The constant tug-of-war between Ratched and McMurphy make up the bulk of the novel but throughout the narrative we get to know the backstory of most of the characters and get to understand them most intimately. The ultimate lesson of the story is that the human spirit can be crushed, even defeated sometimes but it can never be annihilated. It is the one indestructible part of the self that no one can extinguish.

Good quality, fast delivery, but I haven’t read it yet.