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Sometimes a Great Notion

4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 · rating details · 9,268 ratings · 687 reviews

The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a...more

Paperback, 640 pages

Published July 28th 1977 by Penguin Books (first published 1964)

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Jun 15, 2011 oriana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: phenomenal, read-2008

after reading: Oh my. Oh my goodness what an incredible book. Absolutely stunning.

Sometimes A Great Notion (which, btw, gets its title from the Ledbelly song "Goodnight Irene") is the story of the Stamper family, renegade loggers in Oregon in maybe the fifties. It's an incredible family—Henry, the patriarch, the crazed, stubborn old goat who started the logging business; his son Hank (stoic, serious, earnest, proud, charming) and Hank's cousin Joe Ben (brimming with enthusiasm and joy and good...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Megan Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book took me quite a while to get into, but once I did, I liked it a lot.

You know how George R.R. Martin changes narrative voices between chapters? Well, this book does that, but within paragraphs. In the first hundred pages, there were a few paragraphs that had, internally, four different perspectives. And I thought, what have I gotten myself into? Is this pretentious? Is it precious?

And more to the point, can I put up with this for 700 pages?

But I stuck it out, and once I got into the r...more

20 likes · like · see review

Aug 25, 2008 Lostinanovel rated it 5 of 5 stars

I didn’t want to read this one. Its long. Its by some acidhead hippie. Its only famous because Kesey is famous. He has fans because of his lifestyle, not his literary merit. Its about a group of loggers on strike? Ugh, sounds boring. But I gave it a shot and was blown away….

The storyline didn’t grab me right away but Kesey’s writing did. He had talent and this book is creatively ambitious. Every character has a turn at first person voice and the speaker can switch several times, sometimes even w...more

17 likes · like · see review

May 21, 2008 Etta Mo rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: oregonians

I had picked up and put down this book so many times, trying, without success, to make it through the first 100 pages. It was only until a co-worker and i decided to form a "one-off" book club in order to read it before a theater adaptation by a local company that i made any real progress. even with a clearly defined reason in hand, the first 100 pages can be taxing; it's best to read slowly, savoring the flavor of the words even if you can't quite grasp all the meanings. however, hang on becaus...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jul 02, 2007 AnnaRebecca Crary rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone unafraid of a little dense prose

If V. Woolf had

a) grown up within sight of the Coastal Range, and
b) enormous, swinging testes,

then this book would be sold in a 3-pack with "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Waves" today. It's such literatoor, but it's so masculine and so blue-collar also. God I love it. The beautiful, funny slang; the creepy, right-on descriptions of the menacing landscape... It's got man vs. land and man vs. man. Who could ask for anything more?

11 likes · like · see review

Feb 14, 2008 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who reads english

So... I'm going to be 33 in April and I've read a lot of great books. I think I'm going to dedicate a huge chunk of this year into reading the most important books in my life. Sometimes a Great Notion is one of those books.
One can use words like "amazing" "enlightening" "sprawling" "heroic" and "pure" to describe this book but it barely gets at it. This book is why I read fiction. Along with other books like Infinite Jest, The Fountainhead, The Sirens of Titan, Bright Lights Big City, and Please...more

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Mar 07, 2007 adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everybody!

Hands down the most underappreciated American novel ever! I think it should be up there with "Moby Dick" "Grapes of Wrath" etc. In fact, I think it is better. it's hard to imagine Ken Kesey, hippy acid head that he was would be able to so write so poignantly and beautifully but he absolutely pulled it off, his other famous novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" doesn't even hold a candle to "Sometimes a Great Notion" It's rather long and it is written in a "Faulkneresque" style where POV's switc...more

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Sep 25, 2007 A-ron rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Men who are Men

Shelves: fiction

I hated this book for a long time. The opening is difficult to get through, and I needed to start reading it three times over the last few years just to build up enough momentum to get through it. No doubt about it, Sometimes a Great Notion is a difficult novel. But I also think it is a great novel. Once I got the hang of the stream of consciousness and how the narrator switches from character to character, I realized how worthy of a read this book is. And once I reached the middle of it I reali...more

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Aug 11, 2008 Trisha Barnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Living in the Willamette Valley I had several occasions to see Ken Kesey -- in downtown Eugene, at the MacDonald Theater, and even at the Saturday Market. He enjoyed a local following that elevated him and his friends to an almost rock-star status. My husband had gone to high school with his son and described a Ken Kesey separate from the Merry Prankster charter member and that public persona.

One late spring afternoon, we were driving from Springfield towards Pleasant Hill, and came up on a big...more

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Jan 24, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: defenestrated, owned-and-gave-away

Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion (Bantam Windstone, 1964)

I really, really wanted to like this book. An underread novel by an acknowledged American master of letters with a core of fans who consider it one of the best novels of the last century. What could be better? Well, to put it in as few words as possible, Kesey's writing style.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest works, and works so well, because it's tight. It's terse. It says what needs to be said. Kesey knows what he wants to say and says...more

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Jul 26, 2007 Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Written in that no-nonsense way that great American writers do so well, that seems effortless yet still full of similes and all the other tricks of the trade. Like sitting around a campfire listening to an old-timer telling his life story, his face taking on the expressions of every character he describes, the darkness of night around the golden fire making you edge closer and closer, mouth gaping, eyes wide. Gave me the feeling I used to get watching The Waltons on a lazy Sunday in my youth.

It’...more Written in that no-nonsense way that great American writers do so well, that seems effortless yet still full of similes and all the other tricks of the trade. Like sitting around a campfire listening to an old-timer telling his life story, his face taking on the expressions of every character he describes, the darkness of night around the golden fire making you edge closer and closer, mouth gaping, eyes wide. Gave me the feeling I used to get watching The Waltons on a lazy Sunday in my youth.

It’s the classic ‘son returns home’ novel and how he tries to fit back into his place in the family but of course he has changed during his travels and looks upon the family with a strangers' eyes and questions what he sees. He is asked to return home to help with the family logging business due to strike action and even before he gets there he is going over in his head what will happen when he sees his family again and especially his oldest brother as there are certain tensions between them. This relationship with the brother is the main story, about East meets West ideologies, and of course inherent family issues. Issues both real and imagined rise up and have to be dealt with, culminating in an amazing bar scene where the brother refuses to fight someone to prove a point but the main character takes it the wrong way and the brothers’ sacrifice seems wasted.

One of the strongest elements of the book, I think, is that we hear both brothers’ thoughts, giving the reader both sides to the story. Also showing how people believe what they want no matter how the facts look when they are in their face, the bar scene for an example of this.

There is another brother who is like a child with his never ending positivism and joy of life who I found to be one of the best characters I have ever had the pleasure to get to know.

Some people have mentioned that it is hard going, it is true to some extent, you really have to wade in as some chapters are huge and seem to be endless but the story and style keep you going for sheer pleasure. It’s not a book you can dip into, you need to make time in your diary, take the phone off the hook, disconnect the door-bell, throw the cat out and have a mountain of biscuits handy, but you will do these things willingly. My only advice is to avoid the version with the orange cover as the print is far too small for a book that size and with chapters that long.

This is my favourite book of all time!

(less)

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Jul 01, 2012 Stephanie Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I live in the Northwest. My bookish friends have said to me, “What? You live in the Northwest and you’ve never read SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION?!” Well now I have. The 628-page classic, written by Ken Kesey of the Merry Pranksters group, has become seared into my brain. Published in 1964, the plot revolves around the fictional Stamper logging family who reside along the Oregon coast.

The setting is the mid-1900s, when loyalty still meant something. The logging industry, as dangerous as ever, also fa...more I live in the Northwest. My bookish friends have said to me, “What? You live in the Northwest and you’ve never read SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION?!” Well now I have. The 628-page classic, written by Ken Kesey of the Merry Pranksters group, has become seared into my brain. Published in 1964, the plot revolves around the fictional Stamper logging family who reside along the Oregon coast.

The setting is the mid-1900s, when loyalty still meant something. The logging industry, as dangerous as ever, also faced challenges in unions and strikes. The story itself is told in an ever-changing, and sometimes challenging, POV between the main characters of Hank Stamper, the oldest son, Lee, the half-brother of Hank, and to a lesser extent Old Henry, the patriarch. In the Stamper family there swirls the permeation of orneriness, perseverance, resolution, and obliviousness, among other attributes.

The mythos of brotherly love is also put to the test. Lee, having been on the East coast since the age of twelve, returns to the family home in Wakonda as a young man bent on settling a score.

A wide variety of characters inhabit the small town of Wakonda and they all have important struggles within themselves. The local prostitute, Simone, struggles with her religious background. Willard, a quiet man with a secret, struggles with a life-altering decision. We each have our own struggles and in that, we can closely relate with some of these people.

Mr. Kesey grew up in Oregon and he describes the flora and fauna in exquisite detail:

In the deer-grass meadows the long last of the summer’s flowers take long last looks through the fall’s first frost at the dark garden of stars and wave their windy good-bys: the spiderwort and blue verrain, the trout lily and adder’s tongue, the bleeding heart and pearly everlasting, and the carrion weed with is death scented bloom. In the Scandinavian slums at the edge of town bloodroot vines reach garroting fingers for knotholes, warpholes, and window sills. The tide grinds piling against dock, dock against piling.

It was a bit disconcerting to have the POV changing so often, especially when it happened two or three times in one paragraph, but it was an interesting effect when the heat was turned up and the pace of the thoughts ran faster as well.

A build-up of a feeling of dread was pervasive about mid-way through the book and it was not unwarranted.

The characters were entirely believable and fleshed-out. Joe-Ben was a favorite goof-ball and the thoughts of bar-owner Teddy were circumspect.

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is very much worth your effort to read.(less)

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May 08, 2010 Michael Mckinney rated it 5 of 5 stars

You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Ken Kesey takes a family of Northwestern loggers, throws in some chainsaws, a drowning family of bobcats, a flood, a bible passage quoting sidekick, (who also drowns), and manages to glue it together with the artistic temperament of one character versus cuckoldry and a labor strike. It's like a big omelet.
The movie, of course, does little to transfer the raw power of Kesey's descriptive talent, nowhere more evident than the bar fight that highlights the no...more

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Feb 04, 2008 Carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lovers of rain

Recommended to Carolyn by: Matt

Rain Rain Go Away.

This is a wet novel. Set in the rainy season in Oregon you get pruned fingers flipping through the pages. It's lovely. The writing is lovely. I was constantly thinking of turning down corners to mark passages only to turn the page and find something more beautifully written.

This can come off as a man's story at first, it's about loggers and brothers, sons and fathers, but I'm not a man and I was completely caught up from the middle to the end. (You have to be patient in the b...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ken Kesey's great book is not for the faint of heart. It chronicles the lives of a logging family in the great Northwest. It is a gritty story of the complicated Stamper family and its fight to conquer adversaries as well as the tough grimy setting. In addition to providing an authentic picture of the rough and tumble setting, Kesey is a master of surprise and suspense. The motif is honest, and the characters are real, bursting off the page. Be careful - This book will leave a mark.

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May 16, 2007 Joel Barnes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: displaced children of the west / everyone

Shelves: thisyear

A tale of revenge, jealousy, self-discovery, defiance, pride, community, independence and redemption; this book has it all. Whether you identify with the prodigal Leland, the stoic Hank, or the lost Viv, Kesey's emotionally charged but ultimately unbiased portrayal of the struggle of family vs community and family vs itself will exhilarate. Through seamless stream of consciousness(es) you begin to inhabit the hive-mind of the Oregon logging community. The motivations of even the most insignifica...more

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Feb 11, 2008 Jared Carter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kesey's second novel tells the story of the Stamper family, a logging clan in the fictional Wakonda, Oregon continuing their logging work while the rest of the local industry strikes. Kesey focuses on Lee Stamper, the prodigal son who turned away from the family and their uproarious PNW boarishness to pursue Eastern intellectualism at an Ivy League university, but returns to his family with the hidden motivation of exacting revenge on his half brother Hank for engaging in forbidden congress with...more

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Dec 21, 2008 Alexia Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is mind blowingly amazing. The first 100 pages are a real slog, but once you're in the story is like a river current that won't let you go. A quintessential Northwest read, I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a moving, memorable and challenging read.

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Nov 16, 2008 Paige rated it 5 of 5 stars

Intricate, beautiful, and as tough to chew on as left-out beef jerky, this novel is an epic, EPIC piece of work that gnaws through the bullshit in life and shows the raw-ass intensity of familial issues. This glorious, soggy Oregon novel borders on Greek tragedy--the patriarchal power struggles are dramatic as hell, and the individual characters encapsulate the difficult and exhausting thing that is the human condition.

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Oct 12, 2007 Ansky rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone with a brain

By far my favorite book ever... I read it again about every 3 years. I've worn out half a dozen copies (and given away as many), and would just about trade my soul for a hardcover version -- just can't afford it. Yes, it's extremely difficult, and it took me a few tries to get going, but the opening description of the river and the Stamper house on the bank had me hooked and I kept coming back. Once I acclimated to the shifting viewpoints I could barely put it down. There is one passage of obser...more

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Oct 05, 2009 Catherine Meng rated it 5 of 5 stars

The most under-read greatest novel of the last 50 years mainly because the first 80 pages are DENSE.

My 9th grade english teacher told me to skip every other chapter of The Grapes of Wrath if I found the whole turtle-thing boring. But now when I say I've read The Grapes of Wrath I feel like I'm fibbing a bit. In retrospect I wish I'd done the hard work of crossing the highway.

So I would suggest skipping the first section if you find your attention waning...but I would also suggest, if you follow...more

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Jun 10, 2007 Shrinivasaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: pastreads

I had finished college in the spring of 2005 and had landed a job in Oregon. Coming from Wisconsin, Oregon was a foreign world to me. Over the summer before my move, I picked this book up. It does a great job capturing the essence of the Oregon coast. Kesey masterfully interweaves the small town mentalities with larger then life characters.

A recurrent theme in the book is the geese flying overhead. Kesey uses it as a harbinger of upcoming events in the book. I moved to Oregon in early fall and...more

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Jan 04, 2009 Anna Alexander rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes A Great Notion takes place not too far from the Oregon Coast in the fictional town of Wakonda, Oregon. The plot centers around the Stamper Family during a logging strike. The loggers are striking for the same pay for fewer hours due to the introduction of the chain saw. The Stampers are a hard-headed, hard-working logging family that not only decides to keep working during the strike, but agrees to supply the local mill with lumber.

The decision to keep logging is reflected through the...more Sometimes A Great Notion takes place not too far from the Oregon Coast in the fictional town of Wakonda, Oregon. The plot centers around the Stamper Family during a logging strike. The loggers are striking for the same pay for fewer hours due to the introduction of the chain saw. The Stampers are a hard-headed, hard-working logging family that not only decides to keep working during the strike, but agrees to supply the local mill with lumber.

The decision to keep logging is reflected through the Stamper family history and animosity of the striking townspeople. Henry Stamper, the patriarch, is a grizzled old logger whose motto is “Never Give An Inch.” His oldest son, Hank, is an ex-marine who works hard to keep the family business going but fails to see how his determination is wrecking his family; Leland, the youngest son, is called away from his Ivy League education and eccentric lifestyle to help with the logging. And then there’s Viv, Hank’s wife. She’s drawn to him by his bad-boy image which quickly wears thin and has her wanting more than he can give her.

The first part of the book gives a background of the Stamper Family and how the strained relationships developed. Things start really start to pick up when Leland is called home from The East Coast. Strung out on drugs and academia, Leland returns home with a chip on his shoulder and hatred for Hank. He chooses to play the Good Son and go along with Hank’s logging plans so he can get revenge. Leland’s motives aren’t always clear but his long and rambling letters to his roommate Peters serves a diary of what’s going on his head.

The narration of the book is a bit disorienting at first because you don’t always know who is talking. Kesey jumps from The Stampers to the townspeople with no announcement that he’s changed characters. This technique, however, allows Kesey to weave an intricate story for the reader to better understand the motives of the characters who otherwise don’t communicate very well.

One of my favorite passages is when one of the characters is describing the rain in Oregon: “The same old rain, and, even if not welcomed, at least accepted – an old gray aunt who came to visit every winter and stayed till spring. You learn to live with her. You learn to reconcile yourself to the little inconveniences and not get annoyed. You remember she is seldom angry or vicious and nothing to get in a stew about, and if she is a bore or stays overlong you can train yourself not to notice her."

Sometimes A Great Notion was published two years after One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Kesey has said in interviews that he feels Sometimes A Great Notion is the best book he’s written but was overshadowed by Cuckoo’s nest. Having read both books, I agree with Kesey.
This book is not for everyone. It’s a dense book and has to be read slowly or you’ll miss important details. It took me a long time to read this book because I wanted to hear the character’s voices and see the Oregon forests and hear the rain and smell the sawdust. I wanted to be there taking notes in the dark corner of the local bar. Perhaps this book will make you want to be there, too.(less)

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Dec 25, 2008 Pudge rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Like "Cuckoo's Nest", this novel is as big and as expansive as the Pacific Northwest it is set in, where Kesey spins the colorful tale of a ogging family pit by circumstance against big business and the negativity of small town America. Describhed with his usual kaliedoscopic powers of wonderfully flowing detail and color, this is a complex and multi-layered tale, with more than enough ingredients for sustained exploration and interest; passion, betrayal, the intricate inner workings of an inter...more Like "Cuckoo's Nest", this novel is as big and as expansive as the Pacific Northwest it is set in, where Kesey spins the colorful tale of a ogging family pit by circumstance against big business and the negativity of small town America. Describhed with his usual kaliedoscopic powers of wonderfully flowing detail and color, this is a complex and multi-layered tale, with more than enough ingredients for sustained exploration and interest; passion, betrayal, the intricate inner workings of an interesting family of individuals who love and need each other but at the same time want and need to stretch and grow, to be more than just who they are within the confines of that family.

In a sense this book is a almost a deliberate self-parody; Kesey shows there are many more ways to be a man than through the mere use of what are usually thought of as masculine characteristics. Thus we have a character like Hank, the ultimate bad-ass Stamper counterposed by Leland, the younger half-brother who is intellectually curious, a bit rowdy and uncertain, and who is exploring wht it means to be a "Stamper". This interesting rivalry and opposition between the brothers is used to explore a whole range of issues about what it means to be areal man and a real grown-up, and Kesey understands that in contemporary America the two hardly mean the same thing.

Yet at heart, this is a novel that lovingly but urgently explores the idea of family; what it should be, what it is, and what it should never let itself become. The Stampers beseiged are the family at their best, fighting, working, loving, and struggling together to keep it together and to define their own future and their very own version of the American dream; one they define and create, and expressly not the easy and popular one manufactured and sold politically and economically by big business and by the local townfolk themselves. This, then, is a novel that explores so many levels that it is undoubtedly will be continue to be read and interpreted and reread and reinterpreted again and again over the coming decades. May it well survive the journey, and may it well navigate its course, just as the Stampers do, through a deep understanding, love and appreciation for what it means to be an individual as well as a family member in contemporary American life, learning along the way. Ken Kesey never disappoints, but he is sometimes hard to keep up with as he chuckles his way ahead of us into the stormy rapids of life. Enjoy! (less)

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Mar 29, 2013 Hortense rated it 3 of 5 stars

I should have liked this book and I suppose I did. Even before I had migrated through zany stark pioneered places like Eugene. Even before Port Angeles, or the sagging hotel, before the primed knowledge of the great Douglas furs, the junipers, the incense of the hemlocks, the Weeping Sequoia sweeping cobwebs out of the sky, Sugar pines, twisted cedars, delighted needles. Kesey's drug unravelled prose is out of control here.

So sometimes I wonder who wrote Cuckoo's Nest. I doubt that it was the s...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Ursula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books, fiction

It's hard to know where to begin - the back of my edition proclaims, "The earthy, torrid story of a lusty, yelling, Paul Bunyan of a man and his battles with society." (In fact, it proclaims that all in caps.) That sort of describes an aspect of the book, but mostly it's kind of like those ads for action movies where they play up the love story angle to try to get the women to come and see it - you know how they cut together the 5 minutes of time actually devoted to the supposed love story and t...more It's hard to know where to begin - the back of my edition proclaims, "The earthy, torrid story of a lusty, yelling, Paul Bunyan of a man and his battles with society." (In fact, it proclaims that all in caps.) That sort of describes an aspect of the book, but mostly it's kind of like those ads for action movies where they play up the love story angle to try to get the women to come and see it - you know how they cut together the 5 minutes of time actually devoted to the supposed love story and then have a voiceover of something like, "a love that wouldn't be denied"? Like that.

Okay, let me back up and explain a little about the bones of the book. It's about the Stamper family, who came west to Oregon sometime around the turn of the 20th century. We get to know Henry, the patriarch of the family, who came to Oregon and found his occupation logging and trying to "whup" the land. He has two sons: Hank, by his first wife, and Leland Stanford by his second. The second wife eventually leaves him (she was from the east and not the kind of woman cut out for living in a shack on the shore of a river in the middle of nowhere Oregon), taking young Lee with her. Lee leaves with not much feeling at all about his father, but a hatred for Hank because Hank has been carrying on an affair with Lee's mother. Years later, Lee is a college student in New York when he receives a postcard from his family in Oregon requesting that he come back and help out with the family business. Lee comes back, much to everyone's surprise, but he returns with complex motivations.

He gets to know his family - irascible Henry; his cousin Joe Ben, who is the self-appointed ray of sunshine; Viv, Hank's wife; and of course brother Hank, who Lee immediately sets about sizing up and deciding how best to take his revenge on. Against this backdrop is the drama the family is embroiled in with the town, involving a loggers' strike and a deal the Stampers have made with a lumber company. A multitude of themes are at work in the book - what family means, loyalty, the need for every man to prove himself, whether any man can truly be an island, revenge and its price, the lines between love, obsession, and duty, strength and weakness and what defines each are just a few.

The writing style is a little confusing at times - Kesey employs a few tactics that can be difficult to follow at first. In order to cover several viewpoints, he will jump between scenes of what different characters are doing and saying at any given moment in time. He uses parenthetical or italicized text to give a character's thoughts on whatever is going on. He also switches from third-person to first-person narration at the drop of a hat, and the first-person narration is not always by the same person, even within the course of a few paragraphs. These techniques can definitely be hard on the reader, but they're very effective once you get into the rhythm of it.

I really loved this one. Recommended for: people who like stories about the wilderness and man's relationship with it, people with daddy issues, people with mommy issues, people with brother issues, lumberjacks, and people who like to read descriptions of rain.

Quote:

"This is an insidious malady chiefly common in that mythical organ that pumps life through the veins of the ego: care, coronary car, complicated by galloping fear. The go-away-closer disease. Starving for contact and calling it poison when it is offered.... Never accept candy from strangers. Or from friends. Sneak off a sack of gumdrops when nobody's looking if you can, but don't accept, never accept ... you want somebody taking advantage? And above all, never care, never never *never* care. Because it is caring that lulls you into letting down your guard and leaving up your shades...."(less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Sonja Bogart rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. What a great book - and for so many reasons.

First, there are so many themes to the story....
- The individual against society;
- How, whether it's a tree or a person, there is something about us that is fascinated by watching the biggest fall;
- Revenge - and how sometimes the best (and only) solution is to let go;
- How one character acts like he is weak, but learns to be strong - while another acts like he is strong, but learns to give - and, in the end, the reader realizes that both characte...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Idyll rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, american, audiobook

I like novels that aim high and strive for greatness and this is such a book. Kesey puts you in the landscape so thoroughly that even those of us in drier climes almost feel the rain running down the back of our necks. The characters are developed lovingly, with splendid detail and absolutely no hurry. The tension rises palpably however, and the climactic scenes are not to be forgotten.

Kesey's writing is beyond extraordinary. What he does with point-of-view could be the basis of an entire creat...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Basil rated it 3 of 5 stars

There were a lot of things I enjoyed in "Sometimes A Great Notion". I was intrigued by the fact that the narration shifted from first person to third person to first person (but from another's character's perspective) all on the same page. I loved the idea of a bar, mentioned early on, with a Woman's Christian Temperance Union "Remember...One Drink Is Too Many" sign out front (which if I ever own a bar I will definitely acquire). I loved picturing what it must be like living on this river, so is...more

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May 13, 2012 Mirek Kukla rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Without a doubt, "Sometimes a Great Notion" is one of the best books I've read in years.

This is the tale of the Stampers – a boisterous and stubborn logging family, whose dogged insistence on ignoring a local union strike alienates them from their community and fuels familial tensions. The residents of Wakonda, Oregon, push the Stampers, and the Stampers push right back – "never give an inch," goes the family creed. And while this escalating tension is central to the plot, the real drama takes p...more Without a doubt, "Sometimes a Great Notion" is one of the best books I've read in years.

This is the tale of the Stampers – a boisterous and stubborn logging family, whose dogged insistence on ignoring a local union strike alienates them from their community and fuels familial tensions. The residents of Wakonda, Oregon, push the Stampers, and the Stampers push right back – "never give an inch," goes the family creed. And while this escalating tension is central to the plot, the real drama takes place behind closed doors.

Kesey's numerous protagonists fight to resolve irreconcilable differences, struggle to come to terms with a dark family history, and constantly do battle with their own deep, invasive insecurities. The characters are as endearing as they are flawed, and against a background of machisimo, uncertainty, infidelity and revenge, Kesey crafts a tale as tragic as it is uplifting – as exhilarating as it is exhausting.

Admittedly, it takes a while for the book to hook you in; the first 50 or so pages are a bit confusing, and I found myself struggling to isolate the protagonists and fix in my mind the crux of the plot. But while Kesey's branching, perspective-hopping narrative style requires patience on the reader's part, the reward is well worth the investment of effort. Wakonda, Orgeon, is a living, breathing town – lovingly crafted, and as vivid as any place I've ever encountered in a work of fiction.

This is largely due to Kesey's willingness tear you away from the perspective of a primary character and toss you into the mind a resident nobody. One moment you're with a Stamper; the next, you find yourself inhabiting the mind the local drunkard. You're there just because he was around – to know Wakonda, you must meet its nobodies. And just as you've made yourself comfortable, Kesey whisks you away and situates you behind the eyes of the resident bartender, beneath whose servile veneer hides an individual as perceptive as he is contemptuous of the idiocy surrounding him. Everyone's story matters, and every perspective counts. There are dozens of strands to this intricately threaded tale, and you never feel like Kesey's feeding you a plot – he simply tells you what happened, no more, no less.

It's been a while since a book has captured my imagination so entirely, and I can't recall the last time I've found myself so emotionally vested in a work of fiction. With its darkly colored characters, its sweeping, heroic plot, and its vivid, unforgettable setting, "Sometimes a Great Notion" is a masterpiece, and will be filed in memory as one of my favorite books of all time.(less)

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About Ken Kesey

American writer, who gained world fame with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962, filmed 1975). In the 1960s, Kesey became a counterculture hero and a guru of psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary. Kesey has been called the Pied Piper, who changed the beat generation into the hippie movement.

Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, CO, and brought up in Eugene, OR. Kesey spent his early years hun...more

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Quotes from Sometimes a Great Notion

“Look...Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow. Truth doesn't run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface. So don't sweat it. For focus simply move a few inches back or forward. And once more...look.” — 34 people liked it

“For there is always a sanctuary more, a door that can never be forced, a last inviolable stronghold that can never be taken, whatever the attack; your vote can be taken, you name, you innards, or even your life, but that last stonghold can only be surrendered. And to surrender it for any reason other than love is to surrender love.” — 8 people liked it

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