One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Part 4

[Jenn]

I finished the book today. For me, this was one of those books that gets better as it goes. When Bromden began gaining more clarity, and later, his voice, I thought it was much better and easier to follow. Overall, I think this was a good book and I probably would not have read it if it hadn't been our March group pick, so I'm glad we chose it.

[Karma]

This was my first group read and my first time reading this book. I was a little apprehensive about it as I saw the movie years ago and it left me feeling sick to my stomach. In fact, I remember nothing about the movie except the last couple of scenes. I was quite disturbed. Now I want to see it again to compare the two. And McMurphy was always Jack Nicholson in my head. I thought the book was great -- a bit slow starting, but good once it got going.

[Melissa]

I definitely agree that this book gets better as it goes along. I was really into it at the beginning, then it was a little ho-hum for awhile but about midway through it picked up and then just wow! I saw the movie a long time ago and I really didn't remember the end at all and I am glad I didn't. Now I'm interested in seeing the movie again to compare. Very good overall - I gave it 4 stars when at one point I was ready to give it 2.

[Melissa]

Karma wrote: "This was my first group read and my first time reading this book. I was a little apprehensive about it as I saw the movie years ago and it left me feeling sick to my stomach. In fact, I remember ..."

McMurphy was also Jack Nicholson throughout for me too. I don't know how they could have cast that any better - facial expressions and all.

[Karma]

I'm interested in some opinions on this. Bromden talks about the war that the big nurse is fighting and about McMurphy winning battles, but never being able to win the war. So, who do you think ultimately won? I think the obvious choice is that Nurse Ratched won, but I also feel like McMurphy was able to wake up the other patients and get them to try to live their lives outside of the hospital. In doing so, he really shook up the nurse's ordered world.

[Clare L]

I finished the book this past weekend, and this was the first time reading it for me and I have never seen the movie. I enjoyed the book, but I didn’t love it. Took me a bit to get into it, and some parts of the book just didn't interest me. I agree mid-way to the end is where it picked up for me as well.

I read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden last month and it was fun to compare the two since both books were published in the early 1960s and takes place in a mental institute. So that made the book more enjoyable for me in that I could compare between the two mental institutes, mental patients, law and order, society perception of the mentally ill, the struggles of the mentally ill in that time period, etc.

Overall, I really liked the book. Taking the book from a perspective of a mental patient was confusing at times, especially when Bromden went on and on about machinery, his childhood and obviously the “fog”. However the fact he was presumed deaf and dumb by everyone made him a good fly on the wall. A part of me was hoping he’d spill everything he knew to McMurphy once he started talking. The characters were interesting, favorite being McMurphy. I found it hard to sympathize with Nurse Ratched. Her job is very hard yes and there needs to be rules, and having someone come in and throw all order aside would be frustrating. But the “therapeutic” measures such as belittling and teaming up against a patient at the meeting, and playing with people’s lives she can’t control through shock-therapy and lobotomies was appalling. This was my first group read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have been meaning to read this one for a while now.

[Clare L]

Karma wrote: "I'm interested in some opinions on this. Bromden talks about the war that the big nurse is fighting and about McMurphy winning battles, but never being able to win the war. So, who do you think ul..."

I think you can argue both. In my opinion I still think McMurphy won the war. Nurse Ratched may have won the last battle but she had to go to extreme measures to do so. McMurphy as you mentioned really shook up the Nurses ordered world that she worked so hard to build, and you could see that with patients signing themselves out or transferring and Bromden act of defiance at the end. While she may have killed the man, I think what he stood for will last much longer. She wasn't pure evil, and McMurphy was no angel, so there are a lot of grey areas. Overall though she lost a bit of the power she once had over the patients and the doctors. Also, based on her writing at the end, does that mean she can no longer talk? Or could just be a temporary thing. If that is the case, if McMurphy took her voice (which is horrible that he tried to strangle her) then one can say he took one of her most powerful weapons.

[Jordan]

This book was too heavy for me. it was disturbing.

[Lori]

I feel ancient, I read this book in the mid-1970s, when I was a teenager. The book is in personally disturbing, as it was very commonplace in asylums to perform lobotomies on patients over which they had little control. If the book makes you uncomfortable, then it has done it's job! I saw this movie with my parents when it came out. It disturbs me as much now as it did then.

[Valerie]

Watched the movie after finishing the book and enjoyed it but found the last part almost unbearable to watch. Extremely disturbing. I found the nurse came across as being quite evil in the movie, and McMurphy quite likeable whereas I didn't feel that while reading the book.

[Brianna Andreda]

I loved this book. It was interesting to watch how the characters evolved as the story progressed. I felt like constantly the Big Nurse blamed McMurphy for of the patients, behaviors that people in society act in. I thought that McMurphy was helping the patients to be able to survive and live in society better than the Big Nurse did. It seemed as if she was making them feel bad about things they had done in their past, instead of trying to get them to reflect on them. It was like she was trying to keep them there till they died, without anyone thinking she was because most of them were there voluntarily. It was interesting how McMurphy's disturbances ended up giving most of them the courage to leave the ward. I thought it was unfair how the Big Nurse blamed Chet and Billy's deaths on McMurphy being that in the end it was her rules and doings that upset then the most. Billy only slit his throat because the Big Nurse was going to tell his mother about the incident with the girl. She did that because she wanted him to be afraid, not realizing that he'd be so afraid he'd kill himself.

[❦Dawn❦]

Brianna, enjoyed your insight into the book I tooI absolutely LOVED this book and am shelving it as one of my favorites. Having spent time on a Psych Ward (as a psychologist not patient, LOL) I really enjoyed the machinery descriptions from the inner voice of a paranoid schizophrenic. I also enjoyed the historical value of the acceptable treatments that were involved, EST and Lobotomies, for the treatment of a broad array of issues. Not to mention the excessive use of tranquilizers since most psychotropic meds were not invented yet. I also found it interesting to use this novel to come up with diagnosis for each of the characters based on the limited information. McMurphy may be considered narcissistic with conduct disorder, socially maladjusted and possible oppositional defiant disorder, diagnosis' that would not normally be treated in adults today unless secondary to something else going on. Obviously there was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety disorders, possible borderline personality and bipolar and much depression, but I wonder which came first the depression or the egg LOL! ...I could keep going but I am afraid I am indulging in my psycho babble.