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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey

4.19 · Rating details · 647,731 ratings · 11,583 reviews

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, US / CAN, 325 pages

Published February 1st 1963 by Signet (first published 1962)

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Nov 16, 2008 Samara Steele rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Last night, at about 2 am, I finished 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' by Ken Kesey.

I lay awake for a long time afterward, watching the bars of light on the ceiling, holding my eyes open until the pupils dilated enough to shrink the light, then I'd blink and have to start all over.

Finally I sat up and turned on the lights.

The book had done something to me. Like it'd punched me in the face and said, "Do something, you idiot!"

So I gathered up a bunch of sentimental shit from around my apartment Last night, at about 2 am, I finished 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' by Ken Kesey.

I lay awake for a long time afterward, watching the bars of light on the ceiling, holding my eyes open until the pupils dilated enough to shrink the light, then I'd blink and have to start all over.

Finally I sat up and turned on the lights.

The book had done something to me. Like it'd punched me in the face and said, "Do something, you idiot!"

So I gathered up a bunch of sentimental shit from around my apartment, stuffed it into a backpack, hiked across town, and threw it off the Morrison Bridge.

The backpack made a loud 'thunk' when it hit the water. Like a body falling from a building. I watched it float downstream: a tiny dot weaving through the rippling reflections of the city lights, until it finally sank below the surface.

I tell you this story because, in a way, throwing that bag of stuff off the bridge is the best analysis I can make of Kesey's book.

So much has been said before, what else can I say?

Chuck Palahniuk summed it up nicely in the forward for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. He explains that "'Cuckoo's Nest' tells the same story as the most popular novels of the last century," it focuses on the modern paradox of trying to be human in the well-oiled machine of a capitalist democracy, where you must be either a savior or a slave. Palahniuk points out that 'Cuckoo's Nest' shows us a third option: "You can create and live in a new system...not rebelling against or carving into your culture, but creating a vision of your own and working to make that option real."

Is there anything else left to say?

Reading this book is like being inside Fight Club. You take punch after punch, but keep crawling back for more because it's making you feel things you didn't know you could feel--and as long as you stay conscious, and don't give up or let your eyes glaze over, this book will creep into the very edges of your consciousness and give you new words for the questions you always wanted to ask, show you how to draw a map of your own, and give you a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, it is possible to rise above the machine of society and become human again. ...more

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Aug 13, 2016 Lyn rated it it was amazing

Profane, hilarious, disturbing, heartbreaking, shocking – powerful.

Ken Kesey’s genre defining 1962 novel that was made into a Broadway play and then made into an Academy Award winning film starring Jack Nicholson will inspire strong emotions. I can see people loving it or hating it.

I loved it.

First of all, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart: a book that is banned from libraries has a place on my bookshelf.

So all you amateur censurers out there – you are my enemy. I don’t like you. I de ...more

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Nov 04, 2008 Milo rated it it was ok

Shelves: general-gender, novels

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. The writing and imagery are superb and I always love a "down with tyrannical overloads, generic living, and medicalization" moral, but its other lesson leaves me cringing. In the basic knowledge I have of Ken Kesey, the book ultimately seems very misogynistic and anti-feminist. I'm all for a gender balance, but this book botches up the entire process in a method that purposely lacks tongue-in-cheek flair.

Basically, the plot seems to involve men me I have a love/hate relationship with this book. The writing and imagery are superb and I always love a "down with tyrannical overloads, generic living, and medicalization" moral, but its other lesson leaves me cringing. In the basic knowledge I have of Ken Kesey, the book ultimately seems very misogynistic and anti-feminist. I'm all for a gender balance, but this book botches up the entire process in a method that purposely lacks tongue-in-cheek flair.

Basically, the plot seems to involve men mentally castrated by a domineering woman who could just as easily be labeled "Bitch" as she could "Big Nurse." Enter main character--who, in my tattered, yellow-paged, 70's copy, directly labels him as "the hero of [the book]" on the back cover--a man that pretty much shakes the men up to the supposed feminization of American culture and how it's destroying their identities as males. (Read here: a huge characterization of the male ego is to dominate the female with opposites all around.)

How is this man so easily labeled a hero? Have we forgotten he has been charged and convicted, among other things, with rape of a female minor? And the main reason he's in the asylum is to skimp out on his prison sentence? How is that "masculine," if I am to continue on with the stereotypes the book itself perpetuates--and yet backpedals when necessary? Why do we consider him the "main character" when the story is being told in the first person by a Native American? Can you not be a man--a hero--unless you're white? Or perhaps it was because he was so docile?

In the end, the supposed hero of the book teaches men that, to cast off impending feminization, one must be violent towards women; muscle them out of the way, destroy them if they're relentless. If you are unable or fearful of doing so, you're better off killing yourself than being only half of a man. Oh, but wait, there's a special lesson for the ladies themselves, too; To steer clear of the eventual rape, assault, murder, or torture--and yes, it will happen--simply sexualize yourself. That's the only way to be safe and--isn't it convenient--securely a woman. So much for individualization and going against cultural norms, gentlemen. You're a dime a dozen.

Before we glorify such a book, we have to sit down and figure out what exactly masculinity is outside of a cultural setting before we can complain that culture itself is taking it away. Are we to allow a cowardly, violent, "looking-out-for-Number-One" individual give us this definition, fair and balanced?

It's one thing for him to say it, it's another for us to listen. ...more

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Oct 08, 2011 BAM Endlessly Booked rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1000-before-death, classic-literature, own, guardian-list, audiobooks, catching-up-on-classics, 20th-cent-reads, gilmore, book-to-movie

10/9/20. The movie is currently on Netflix and it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time in my life. I broke out the audiobook, blew off the dust, and reminded my inner McMurphy to stay strong. Im currently on medical leave from work for the third time this year. I feel bad for my psychiatrist. She’s definitely earning her money with me.

I first read this book in 2007 after I became a daytime outpatient at Our Lady of Peace, my city's mental health facility. I had a nervous breakdown afte 10/9/20. The movie is currently on Netflix and it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time in my life. I broke out the audiobook, blew off the dust, and reminded my inner McMurphy to stay strong. Im currently on medical leave from work for the third time this year. I feel bad for my psychiatrist. She’s definitely earning her money with me.

I first read this book in 2007 after I became a daytime outpatient at Our Lady of Peace, my city's mental health facility. I had a nervous breakdown after losing my teaching job. I went 5 days a week; I ate lunch there. I was so medicated they transported me. Somehow this book and movie, and especially the character of McMurphy, was how my dad related to me during this trying time. Mental health is a trigger issue with me. It's not understood today. It certainly wasn't understood in the '60s. Let's just keep them caged, sedated, and manipulated. Make them feel guilty about their problems. Take away comfort and leisure. No friends, no family, no fun, no fresh air. Yeah, that sounds healthy

Addendum 2/13/18: just bought this on audible. 50th anniversary edition read by John C. Reilly
Got me thinking of my dad asking his McMurphy how Ms. Ratchett was today. That was probably the roughest patch of my life, but I would never have changed a thing. I learned so much about myself, and became so much stronger in spirit. However, I realize that if I had lived in an earlier time period my outcome could have been much gloomier and permanent. I’ve been reading various other mental health books lately, and sadly some things never change as advanced medicine has become. We just can’t seem to grasp the BRAIN.

AUDIO REREAD # 19

How many of us "have been told dragons do not exist, then been dragged to their lairs?"

How many of us "forget sometimes what laughter can do?"

I think out of all the characters out of all the books, Billy the most breaks my heart. Tag teamed by his mother and Nurse Ratchett, he never had a chance in life. All he wants in life is love, and he proves himself to be such a gentleman.

As I drove home from work this morning listening to this book, I glanced at my speedometer; I was driving 40 mph on the interstate. It was during the gas station scene when the gang learns being insane can still mean being powerful. That’s when I finally realized how much hope McMurphy instilled in these terrified, suppressed lives, which makes the last couple of hours of the story all the more tragic. McMurphy gave these men another glance at happiness, reminded them how to be assertive, inspired a little self-worth again. He basically he showed them they were men, they were deserving of humane treatment. They were not anyone’s “ Boys” even at Billy’s age, the youngest at 31. They didn’t didn’t deserve the underhanded, demeaning manipulations and insinuations of a sadist. But these these new emotions did not germinate and bloom, only malice and grief took root.
Very few books hold my heart through years as this one does. I appreciate Kelsey’s honesty on the pages. ...more

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Jul 16, 2008 Annet rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, wow-impressive, creepy, favorites, literature-pure, have-to-read-again, wilderness-books-can-usa, fun-sad-at-the-same-time

I just watched an interview with Stephen Fry and he mentioned this book. Read it a long long time ago. Read it for highschool already I think. Remember being shocked and amazed. Scary, funny, dark and wonderful at the same time. Un-be-lievable. And I just realized this is one of the best and impressive books I ever read. Definitely a top tenner ever.

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Oct 05, 2010 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature, 20th-century, classics, 1001-book, fiction, united-states, psychology

(436 From 1001 Books) - One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human mind as well as a critique of behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Bo Goldman adapted the novel into a 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy Awards.

The book is narrated by "Chief" Bromden, a gigantic yet do ...more

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Apr 16, 2015 Shelby *trains flying monkeys* rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Shelby *trains flying monkeys* by: Edward Lorn

Shelves: favorites, liburry-book, read-2015

My friend Ed was recently updating his books with reviews on here and this book popped up in my feed. It's my husband's favorite movie/book of all time and I realized that I had never picked the book up. I've watched bits and pieces of the movie in the three thousand times that my husband has watched it, but I had never experienced it first hand.
I'm gutted.
Why have I not just sat down and watched the film that was made from this book? I'm completely off my rocker.

Randle Patrick McMurphy. Tha ...more

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Jan 30, 2018 Matt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-novels

“All I know is this: nobody’s very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.”
- Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

This is a book I had little interest in reading. A novel set in an insane asylum? No thanks.

I spent four years of my legal career defending indigent clients facing commitment before our local Board of Mental Health. It was an experience I had not trained for, prepared for, or frankly could have imagined befo ...more

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Jan 20, 2014 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a groundbreaking book and it is a manifesto about the rights of man to have an individuality…

…a guy has to learn to get along in a group before he'll be able to function in a normal society; how the group can help the guy by showing him where he's out of place; how society is what decides who's sane and who isn't, so you got to measure up.

Are you different from the others? Then we’ll correct you, make you fit and suit.

…people will force you one way or the other

...more

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Dec 28, 2015 Evgeny rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic

…one flew east, one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

This classic book gave birth to a movie which won a truckload of Academy Awards. This means the majority of readers are familiar with one or the other and I thought a very brief review would be enough; something along the lines, "The book is very good". Seeing that some people miss the point of the story I had to ramble a little more than this short sentence, sorry.

A ward of a mental hospital in Oregon was ruled by an iron hand of it ...more

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Feb 01, 2016 Brian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of."

A novel that celebrates the counterculture and the aspects on the fringes of society, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a book that mythologizes the individual (even the dishonest or vulgar individual) over the restraints of society. I have mixed feelings about that message.
The battle between being true to oneself and giving into societal expectations is identified here as the battle between one's min "There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of."

A novel that celebrates the counterculture and the aspects on the fringes of society, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a book that mythologizes the individual (even the dishonest or vulgar individual) over the restraints of society. I have mixed feelings about that message.
The battle between being true to oneself and giving into societal expectations is identified here as the battle between one's mind and the "Combine" as personified by the "Big Nurse" Ratched. The action takes place in a mental institution where most of the patients have voluntarily committed themselves, a key but often overlooked plot point, somewhere in Oregon in the early 1960s. Keeping in mind the time period is an important consideration in enjoying this text, as the book is extremely misogynistic (only 1 minor female character is presented in a halfway decent light) and the ideas of nonconformity were a much bigger deal in 1962 then they are today. To take the novel out of its original context is to loose some of the enjoyment of reading it. Be careful to not judge it by today's standards.
Ken Kesey was obviously a gifted writer, and he has some truly unique ways of crafting a text to resemble the scrambled mind of a person enduring electroshock therapy, and he was a clever user of figurative language. He was also gifted at crafting character, as the text has four (to my mind) that stand above and beyond the book they inhabit. The first is the novel's narrator, Chief Bromden, whose dry and insightful narration has the right mix of intelligence and self doubt to keep the reader on the edge of their toes. Another delightful and well rendered character is the mental ward patient Harding whose intelligence and wit serve as a nice foil to McMurphy's vulgarity and broad humor. Harding is a man who loathes what he truly is, and watching him mask that pain and self awareness is one of the most touching aspects of the novel. The "hero" and the "villain" of the piece, R. Patrick McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are nice personifications of abstract ideas and Kesey endows each with a depth and realism that is instantly recognizable to anyone who has paid even the remotest attention to human nature. The passive aggressive animosity and unhappiness inherent in Nurse Ratched is unnervingly real, and the chaos and self destructive behavior in McMurphy is equally impressive. The reason I think these two characters stand out to readers is because there are bits of both of them in most of us. The war between those two poles comprises not only the major conflict of this text, but also of many of our lives.
There is a lot to digest in this book, and it will yield rewards on rereading it years later.
Enter Kesey's world. It might not be a fun journey, but it is a worthwhile one! ...more

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Dec 13, 2020 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: oregon, worthy-of-another-read, debut, books-with-birds-on-the-cover, reading-road-trip-2020, you-ll-need-a-hankie, favorite-books

Reading Road Trip 2020

Current location: Oregon

I took a hard fall last week on a couple of steps and injured my right foot. I can't drive, and I'm walking with a cane, and, to make matters worse, it snowed for a couple of days, and both my front porch and my back porch are now covered with ice.

As if I hadn't already had two partially collapsed lungs from COVID earlier in the year, as if I haven't already been home, 24/7, with my two youngest children, since March 13, as if I didn't already have ...more

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Apr 28, 2018 Annemarie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-english

I needed some time to get used to the writing style, but letting the Chief (an outside figure, who, due to his "deafness", doesn't intervene with the main storyline too much) is certainly a stroke of genius, and after a while, I got used to his way of telling the story.
All the characters found a place in my heart, and they are what make the book so remarkable and memorable.
I thought they were some unnecessary scenes, but they were really minor, so they didn't put a huge dent into my enjoyment.
T ...more

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Jun 25, 2014 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, unforgettable

Painful and heartbreaking to witness humanity's struggle to have a decent life while living within the boundaries others set for them. Not to be a rabbit, that is the ultimate goal!

Truer than ever... ...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it

Shelves: not-the-whole-truth

Like most people who grew up in the 60s, I loved this book and, even more, the film version with Jack Nicholson. I was reminded of it yesterday when Not and I got to talking about the Winona Ryder movie Girl, Interrupted.

"Oh," said Not dismissively, "it's just a remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

But I completely disagree. In fact, I think it's the most coherent criticism I've ever seen of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and does a wonderful job of subverting the message. Throughout mo ...more

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Jun 28, 2012 F rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: seen-movie, usa

loved this.
One of my favourites.

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Jan 12, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: credshelf

Ratched Up: A Spectacle of Literature's
Power to Stand against Oppression
"I remember when, I remember ... when I lost my mind

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?"
Gnarls Barkley, Crazy, 2006.

The monotypic, iconoclastic novel illustrating the evils of unbridled government oppression in institutional forms within a democracy, both subtle and ruthless. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest evinces the fortisimmo force of literature as a "monument of wit" that "will survive the monuments of ...more

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Aug 23, 2009 K.D. Absolutely rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Time 100, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)

Shelves: time-100, 1001-core, hospital-drama

"Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes,
She’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens
Wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock
One flew east, one flew west
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
O-U-T- spells out… goose swoops down and plucks you out."

The title of the book was taken from a nursery rhyme but the first 3 and last lines were from the book, i.e., thoughts inside the head of the schizophrenic narrator, Chief Bromden as the nursery rhyme was used to be sung to him by his grandmother when he was young. “Cuckoo” here is used to refer to insane people and “flying over the cuckoo’s nest” means either going too far or leaving the nest. It is also known that cuckoos lay their eggs in other bird’s nests, and do not have nests of their own. The cuckoo, upon hatching, throws the other birds out of the nest out of instinct. (Source: Wiki)

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I was 11 years old when the 1975 movie by Milos Forman was shown. Jack Nicholson starred as Randle Patrick McMurphy, a criminal sentenced on a prison farm for statutory rape and transferred to an Oregon asylum because of his insanity plea. Cuckoo’s Nest was the 2nd time a film won all the five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay) following It Happened One Night in 1934 and followed by The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. Both of which I saw also. Freaking, movie addict! Despite the major awards of Cuckoo’s Nest and despite the fact that the movie was faithful to the book in terms of the sequence and the events contained in it, the emotion and the impact of the book is totally different from that of the movie. The funny antics incorporated in the brilliant performance of Jack Nicholson gave an interesting and comedic taste to the movie eclipsing or diluting, in my opinion the book’s wake-up shocking message – that some mental wards are not designed to cure their patients but rather serve as instruments of oppression. The character of sane-yet-confined-in-the-mental-institution McMurphy is the first irony in the movie. As he is sane, he fights against the wrong methods and stands up against Nurse Mildred Ratched aka Big Nurse who, being an obsessive compulsive lady, wants to have everything in order and done by the tick of the clock. Hers is the second irony in the story as, unlike the prison in say Shutter Island, there is no conventionally harsh kind of discipline here. The setting is also not as dark as the scary cells in The Silence of the Lambs. In fact, in this asylum, the patients watch the TV, play cards, roam in the basketball court and at one time they even go out for fishing! The rest of the story shows their constant power struggles as they try to outwit each other. The ending is tragic and almost feels like not the right ending because it does not offer any hint of resolution to the revealing message. However, as one of my friends here in Goodreads has explained in one of my previous reviews, offering a solution may not be the author’s objective. Rather, it may be just to present the issue so people will be aware of what’s going on.

This thought made sense to me since Wiki also stated that the book was a direct product of Kesey’s time working the graveyard shift as an orderly at a mental health facility in Menlo Park, California. So, he, Ken Kesey (1935-2001) knew and probably experienced some of these things.

One can get lost in amazement reading (book) or watching (movie) McMurphy and Nurse Ratched especially with their Oscar-worthy performances. However, what makes this book different in a great way, is the narration. Just like Nellie in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Chief Bromden is also not a reliable narrator. Nellie has a crush on Heathcliff or Edgar and the feeling tainted her actions as a housemaid and her story as narrator. Similarly, the Chief is unreliable because he is a schizophrenic but Kesey made use of this to come up with a strangely beautiful interesting narrative. Come to think of it, had this been narrated in a straightforward manner, i.e., sans insanity and scattered prose, the novel would not have the same impact. Time Magazine included this novel in its “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005” and it is an achievement that Kesey deserves even without the Oscar awards of Nicholson and Forman.

For its shocking revelation and its brilliant loony narrative, reading this book should send shivers down your spine… ...more

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Aug 19, 2020 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | EW.com

I was very familiar with the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Jack Nicholson, but I had never read Ken Kesey's novel. I am happy to have changed that! I don't know why I didn't think about whose viewpoint the story was being told from when I watched the movie, but this perspective in the book added another dimensi ...more

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Jan 28, 2018 Dannii Elle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-captivaton

This renowned classic is a slow-paced read and an intense character study, set in the enclosed environment of a psychiatric hospital. Nurse Ratched rules her ward with a tyranny and a close-scrutiny that has the patients bent to her will and fearful of any misstep they might make to upset her. That is until a new character joins their ranks and threatens to usurp Ratched's rule. In their fight for dominance the inhabitants of the ward begin to understand a little something about personal freedom This renowned classic is a slow-paced read and an intense character study, set in the enclosed environment of a psychiatric hospital. Nurse Ratched rules her ward with a tyranny and a close-scrutiny that has the patients bent to her will and fearful of any misstep they might make to upset her. That is until a new character joins their ranks and threatens to usurp Ratched's rule. In their fight for dominance the inhabitants of the ward begin to understand a little something about personal freedom and the part they have been entrusted to play in the well-oiled machine of the ward.

The casual racism and the horrific treatment of the psychiatric patients was so hard to read about, but was a necessary evil in delivering the power inherent in this tale. Without the reader garnering a deep understanding about the horrors that abound on a psychiatrist ward and the norms that were accepted during this time period, this would not have remained such an influential, relevant and much-studied text.

It was interesting that a perspective was garnered through the eyes of one of the patients. This lent an untrustworthy air to the events relayed and the reader could not be certain of all they were told. This, as well as the philosophical nature of the text kept the reader an active participant of the story, as they had to work hard at untangling the narrative to get to the truth buried inside this series of anecdotes.

Despite the subtle power in all aspects this tale, I enjoyed, on a baser level, some scenes more than others. Those that moved beyond the confines of the ward lost some of their interest, for me, despite how moving and educational they still remained. They became a little less compelling when action took a more central focus and character studies and societal insights were removed to the background. The ending, however, returned to the philosophical insights I earlier appreciated and I ended up really appreciating how this novel made me think about all the subject matters and events discussed in an entirely new light. ...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-20th-century, books-loved-2014, best-books-ever, postwar-fiction-class

So, I re-read this book for my postwar fiction class. Read it first when I was 21, working at Pine Rest Christian Hospital (in Grand Rapids, MI) as a psych aide, very shaped by it in many ways, I now realize in reading it some 40 years later. I think (because how can I know for sure?) I liked this book better this time than I did when I first read it. As I said, it shaped my view of myself, of institutions, of psych hospitals and psychiatry in general, of madness, of Society, of the need for Fre So, I re-read this book for my postwar fiction class. Read it first when I was 21, working at Pine Rest Christian Hospital (in Grand Rapids, MI) as a psych aide, very shaped by it in many ways, I now realize in reading it some 40 years later. I think (because how can I know for sure?) I liked this book better this time than I did when I first read it. As I said, it shaped my view of myself, of institutions, of psych hospitals and psychiatry in general, of madness, of Society, of the need for Freedom, man, and the process of self-knowledge itself. I think now it feels very much like a period piece, an experience of the late Beats to early hippie sixties, from On the Road with the Merry Pranksters to Woodstock, or to maybe something Kesey realized Woodstock would never deliver. It feels horrific and cartoonish and a little too easily separating the good from the bad for much of it, but then it changes very very quickly at the end (spoiler alerts all over the place) and becomes more sixties nightmare than romantic dream of peace and freedom. Yes, for me it was also reading as autobiography, as, like Randle in some respects, I also made a mess of my life (and others) leading from the joyful end of the sixties to the terrible end of the seventies. I think I may have cried at the end of the book when I completed it at 21, still romanticizing Randle McMurphy as a symbol of freedom, nature, and the visceral life I had not known as a young Calvinist going to church twice on Sundays. He was wild, unbridled, laughed heartily, lived lustily, joked inappropriately, raged passionately, loved life; he was my Uncle Lee, my Dad's brother-in-law, who was unlike any of my family members, smoking 4 packs a day, drinking constantly, swearing hilariously, fighting with my Aunt Ag publicly, frighteningly. He picked the young me up when he saw me and sang, too loudly, "Davey, Davey Crockett, king of he wild frontier!" I didn't want to be him, exactly, at 300+ profane pounds, but I loved parts of him. I wanted his sense of freedom, as he drove truck all over the country.

Now I read Randle as, yes, a symbol of Freedom and Nature and Laughter vs Ratched's sterile Institutional authority, but now not so innocent, as I realize I think about myself. I read it with some self-reflective regret as he crashed and burned and hurt others as in some ways I crashed and burned for a few years there. I did and do come, too, to appreciate Randle for the good he tried to do even as so much bad happened because of and in spite of him. At first I thought this was a cartoon--Nurse Ratched is so evil as to not be believed (are there any believably good women in this book? Nope. Ratched is Rat-shit, a ratchet wrench for cogs in a machine, monstrously Anti-woman, and then there are Candy and Sandy, the prostitutes). In that sense, it feels like a very (male, most definitely) adolescent fantasy of "The Man" or Society, or the Adult World (never trust anyone over 30!); it's like Ferris Buehler's ride with all the cartoonish adults you always find in YA films and books, only a ride that makes a sharp turn to Hell, as the one who strays from the flock MUST be destroyed. It's a romp of sorts, for much of the book, as Randle takes on the evil Big Nurse with an intent to destroy her in the name of fun and freedom.

What is Society to the Beats and Hippies? Squareness, Order, 5,000 white picket fence suburban homes with 5,000 identically dressed suburban children playing on identically manicured lawns (cue David Lynch's Vision of suburbia in Blue Velvet, opening sequences, here). And what does the straight life, the life of business and capitalism and science and technology lead to, as we recall in postwar America? To the Holocaust, to millions dead in countless wars, to suicidally unhappy rich people accumulating wealth beyond imagination, to the destruction of the Chief's Indian lands and culture for profit, trading Paradise for a Shopping Mall. So what do On the Road's Dean Moriarty and Randle do (and literally did, as Neil Cassidy literally drove Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus?!!)? Why, they go on a road trip, as Randle does to go salmon fishing in the Sound with several lovable crazies from the psych hospital and Candy. Who's NOT in? Who doesn't want in his card game, his various challenges to authority (why CAN'T they watch the World Series, damn it?! Rules, argh!!!), his partying? To say no is to become a Vegetable or to be part of the Problem, a Cog in the Machine, dude!

But the power struggle turns dark, at the end (spoiler alert, I said!) when, at the high point of the drunken party at the hospital (this time with Candy and Sandy) and Billy has lost his virginity and his authoritarian-Mom-induced stutter, and in maybe ten pages of a 280 page book. it all unravels quickly: Ratched, (The Satan of this Miltonic struggle between Good and Evil) shames Billy, and he kills himself in despair; Randle beats up and rapes Big Nurse in retaliatory rage (prefiguring Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, where she shows us rape is about destructive male power and control over women, accomplished through sexual means); she retaliates by making sure Randle gets a lobotomy (chalk one up for Society, who always crushes individuals who are want to be "different"); Big Chief kills Randle to save him from becoming Ratched's ward symbol of destructive freedom, and our amazing narrator Big Chief (and he IS amazing, one of the great voices in American literature, I think) smashes down the walls, lets the Moon in, and escapes the psych hospital. Randle is not so innocent, no hippie freedom lover, he becomes violent and rapes and nearly kills Ratched, he is out of control with his freedom, no flower child, finally, and by the way, where did all the flowers go, finally? To Vietnam, to Wall Street, and for me to divorce and some lost years. But we have hope when the Chief is on the road, at the very end, after many years maybe able to live his life in the woods again, and in many ways, I took my chance to remake my life as well. I have my kids and loving wife and picket fence, with humble thanks that I am still here and able to still learn and still try to some good in the world if I can.

But I was talking about Kesey's book, wasn't I? Well, I really liked this book, second time around. I liked the sketches in this edition from Kesey himself, the cover pages done by Joe Sacco, the preface on the sixties from Kesey, the introduction on madness and psychology seen through a sixties lens… all very good. The images of the psych hospital early on were horrific, then there were an increasing number of darkly hilarious and often insightful episodes about institutional control that seem to be still relevant (even if still comically exaggerated) today, and finally the comedy turns amazingly and effectively to tragedy, though in the coda we are again a little hopeful that a return with Chief Broom to the Garden (or, the Rez, in this case) (and Music and Art and Nature) may still offer us some possibilities. . . so as we hitch a ride with him Home. ...more

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Jun 13, 2007 Ann rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: justdamngood, literatureandfilm, good-bad-guys-bad-good-guys

This is one of the most fantastic novels of individualism pitted against the vast depersonalization of industrial society ever written. Ken Kesey has an extraordinary grasp of the challenges faced by us all in modern civilization, and he is able to convey his ideas through some of the richest imagery I have ever read. My favorite line in the novel, when Chief Bromden (the paranoid schizophrenic narrator) says, "But it's the truth, even if it didn't happen," sets the reader up from the very begin ...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

I thought this was one of the best books I had ever read years ago. (just could not stop thinking of it)....

THEN....I went to see the stage play in S.F. (young maiden in High School) --

Powerful Classic!

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Dec 15, 2015 Aj the Ravenous Reader rated it it was ok

Recommended to Aj the Ravenous Reader by: Parthiban Sekar

Shelves: emotionally-intense, not-for-me, classic, psycho, overrated-books

Really unpopular opinion coming your way. Escape while you can.^^

How much of life is defined by choices and how much is determined by fate? Or is really fate that directs life’s order or is it people’s thirst for power, to remain strong? Does the rabbit live in a hole because the wolf decided so? What happens when the rabbit decides to challenge the wolf?

Such thoughts are provoked by this widely read and loved classic novel. The messages buried in an unexpected setting (a mental institution re
Really unpopular opinion coming your way. Escape while you can.^^

How much of life is defined by choices and how much is determined by fate? Or is really fate that directs life’s order or is it people’s thirst for power, to remain strong? Does the rabbit live in a hole because the wolf decided so? What happens when the rabbit decides to challenge the wolf?

Such thoughts are provoked by this widely read and loved classic novel. The messages buried in an unexpected setting (a mental institution revealing the grim aspects of such an institution), striking metaphors and symbolism which I detected early on in the first part of the story, the part I genuinely enjoyed.

Meeting Mc Murphy (the rabbit that challenged the wolf) felt like listening to the wisest philosophy teacher explaining juicy stuff about life with expertise, wit and charm and reading the story in the perspective of Chief Bromden, a patient feigning deafness made it even more interesting. It's clear to me why several of my friends loved the novel. Let me link you to their excellent reviews: Partheeey's, Nina's and (Ate) Shelby's.

Unfortunately, the significant themes of the novel for me were overwhelmed by the strong sexist and racist undertones until the actual meanings of the story got lost behind the chauvinistic approach. I found the story ironic because instead of feeling empowered by a woman character who is “the boss” at a mental institute where majority of population are males, she is depicted as a controlling, unreasonable and heartless freak with over-sized chests in a “matriarchal world” where all the women are no good unless they provide sexual service.

It was very saddening and frustrating because I believe the author was driven by a conscious effort when he deliberately wrote/insinuated such messages in his novel. The demoralizing climax added insult to injury and ultimately the reason I went for two stars. It would have been just a star if not for the redeeming although really depressing conclusion answering the most important of the above questions.

In the battle between the rabbit and the wolf, it’s the bird who fled for freedom that wins.

I should have just read Harry Potter 2.
...more

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Oct 22, 2017 emi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5

"He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy."

This was one heck of an intelligent, gripping and daring novel. Whilst, Ken Kesey's work is classified as a classic - it definitely does in no way correlate to that of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. It was vulgar and uncomfortable and, definitely, controversial at the time of its publishing - but, man, was it a complex, mind-numbing, page-turne ...more

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Apr 24, 2018 Glenn Sumi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: guardian-1000, contemp-classics

Thoughts after reading Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest:

1. Jack Nicholson (from the movie version) is physically NOTHING like Ken Kesey’s Randle Patrick McMurphy, who’s described as a big, barrel-chested, red-headed guy with beefy hands and a big scar over his nose. Everyone knows the story, right? McMurphy escapes a prison farm sentence by pretending to be mentally ill; he imagines a stay at a mental ward will be much easier than hard labour. Little does he know he’s going to meet hi ...more

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Oct 25, 2019 Nat K rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Nat by: Ron

Shelves: mental-health, makes-you-think, 2019-books, contemporary, buddy-reads

"I never been in a Institute of Psychology before."
- Randall P. McMurphy

"... but you do understand: everyone...must follow the rules."
- Nurse Ratched

I'll start this review by saying that yes, I did see the movie. Though it was such a long time ago, I can't pretend to remember a lot about it. Vague scenes flash through my mind: the maniacal grin of Jack Nicholson's character, the quiet grace of the giant Indian chief who at some point loses it, the absolute menace of the nurse.

When Ron suggested ...more

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Oct 01, 2009 Justin rated it really liked it

I’ve mentioned in a previous review (The Enchanted, I think it was) how much I love stories about incarceration. There’s probably something psychological there I need to work through, some deep-rooted issue I’m ignoring, but who cares! I loved this book, just like I loved The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, The Enchanted, that one show on HBO, etc.

This is also an amazing movie that I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it already. Jack Nicholson is just fantastic in it, and all of the suppor ...more

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Oct 26, 2016 Mariah Roze rated it really liked it

Shelves: diversity-in-all-forms-book-club

I was listening to it on audio CD and had a lot of problems with it, so I needed to take many day breaks in-between listening…. so I got a little behind!

I read this book for the goodreads book club Diversity in All Forms! If you would like to participate in the discussion here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I found this book fascinating. What I am really focused on right away was the nicknames everyone had and how that represented where they stood, their importance. The BIG ...more

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Apr 07, 2018 Robin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, 1001-before-you-die, literary-fiction, debut, american

I really wish I'd read this before seeing the film.

Because all I could think about while reading, was him:

and, her:

and, of course, this guy:

It's a case of a brilliant movie sucking the life out of its original source. I was pleased to learn that the movie was true to the book, but it was SO true, I didn't find I got much out of this that I hadn't already. I have to give kudos to Ken Kesey for creating a fantastic trio of characters - McMurphy is a complex and compelling protagonist, Chief Bromd ...more

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About Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey

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Ken Kesey was 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. He spent his earl Ken Kesey was 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. He spent his early years hunting, fishing, swimming; he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out, joined the counterculture movement, and began experimenting with drugs. In 1956 he married his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby.

Kesey attended a creative writing course taught by the novelist Wallace Stegner. His first work was an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they traveled the country and used various hallucinogens. Their bus, called Furthur, was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.

At a Veterans' Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid as a volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as a part-time aide at a psychiatric hospital, LSD sessions - and a vision of an Indian sweeping there the floor - formed the background for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, and continuing in the footsteps of such writers as Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception, 1954), and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, 1959), Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden. Into his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of the institution, ruled by Nurse Ratched.

The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.

Kesey's next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of "Merry Pranksters", set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassady, Kerouac's travel companion. Dressed in a jester's outfit, Kesey was the chief prankster.

In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he bought farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published Kesey's Garage Sale (1973). His later works include the children's book Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear(1990) and Sailor Song (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. Last Go Around (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. In 2001, Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cance ...more

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