Sometimes a Great Notion - Kesey

[Kristel]

My second novel by Ken Kesey and the author's second novel published in 1964. It tells the story of a logging family in Oregon. They are a small logging operation that works independent of larger operations selling to a local mill. This is set in the fifties/sixties and there is movement to unionize and the Stamper family is blocking progress in the opinion of the people in the community.

Kesey took the title from the song "Goodnight, Irene", popularized by Lead Belly.

Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in the town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an' drown

I enjoyed this study of family, of Oregon, and of logging. The book features the father Henry who started the operation and his two sons, half brothers Hank and Leland. There is a long standing animosity between the two brothers. Leland, who has lived out east, has returned to exact revenge on his brother Hank.

The story is a bit hard to follow perhaps as there are many shifting POV. I listened to the audio, read by one person, and that made it a little harder at times to know who was speaking (or thinking) but over all I was able to engage with this story. I think I like it even better than his well known novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Rating 3.57

[Jessica]

I read this as the 1st book of the TBR Takedown 2020. HEre's my Review. I rate it somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars.


This book had been sitting on my shelf for probably close to 15 years. I had previously read Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I really enjoyed, so I picked up this one at a used book sale way back... and it sat and sat on my shelf. It takes a special motivation for me to pick up a 700+ page book so this one sadly sat and sat. WELL, this year it got picked for me in the Reading 1001 TBR Takedown challenge, so it finely got its time in the sun!

Firstly, this was a challenging read, but in the end, it was rewarding. It was constantly changing narrative perspective, sometimes even within a single paragraph. Perspective would change from one character to another and from first person to third person. The three main characters are Hank and Leland Stamper, who are half-brothers and their father Henry. The Stamper family lives in the fictional town Wakonda, Oregon (not to be confused with the Black Panther's home nation of Wakanda) and work as a logging family. Then there is a logging strike and Hank and Henry need help so reach out to the younger brother, Leland who had moved to the east coast to go to college. Leland journeys home looking to help his family AND also seek revenge on his older brother hank.

And so picks up the strongest part of the story (for me) the tension and family dynamics between the Stampers. The book was a lot of work to read but there were definite highlights for me. I enjoyed reading the back stories of how Hank met his wife Vivian and the side story of local movie theater owner Willard Eggleston. There was also some sweetness with Leland and Vivian bonding over books.

This was definitely one of the more challenging books that I've read in awhile, but I am glad that I finally got to it.

[George P.]

Many years ago (46?) I read Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and have finally read a second book of his. Great Notion requires a lot more time to get through and has had far fewer readers but I think it's also an excellent story with an enjoyable style. Overlong? Probably, but I say that about a lot of the longer books. The characters were very well-developed, three-dimensional as they say.

[Jamie]

Since I read a bit about Ken Kesey in a few other books last year, I was curious about this book. The author himself seemed like a bit of an asshole, but his writing turned out to be ok. He is great with imagery, anyway. Otherwise his novel was awfully disjointed and hard to follow. It also felt too long. But, it was not terrible, and some of his descriptions were quite lovely.
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads.

[George P.]

After reading the novel I wanted to watch the film made of it years ago. Paul Newman directed it and played "Hank Stamper". Lee Remick played his wife and Henry Fonda as Henry Stamper. It was enjoyable, although it just hit the major plot points and otherwise had little similarity to reading the novel. Remick seemed too classy and nice for her role.

[Gail]

Sometimes a Great Notion is a family saga that also captures a time, in the early 1960's, and a place, a small logging town on the coast of Oregon. Henry Stamper, a crusty old character, builds a gyppo logging business into a small family empire. His two sons, from two different mothers, are extremely different in education and temperament and the book is largely about their clash. Hank is smart and insightful but we only learn that through his interior dialogue with himself. To the rest of the world he is a hard headed, simple masculine legend. Lee is a passive/aggressive needy and manipulative victim. Both of the sons mature and change over the course of the novel. However, we are also treated to a whole family full of personal dynamics, some delightful secondary characters and some quite beautiful descriptions of the rain fueled Oregon watershed and forests. I particularly enjoyed the insights of the town's bar owner's observations and musings about fear. The book is laced with the n______word and is typical of its time in relationship to woman's place and racial dynamics. It does not ignore the issues however, which was a relief.
I first read this novel when I was in high school and remembered being 'in love' with both of the main characters and living in the book while I was reading it. I didn't remember anything about the plot except that I knew from the get go that things were going to build to a head between the two brothers and between the family and the town.
Rereading the book now, I still enjoyed the two characters but no longer loved either of them which made it both a better book and a worse read. I found Kesey's ability to dance back and forth between third person and first person, internal dialogue and external dialogue, sometimes changing the speaker in mid sentence was masterful.
I gave it 4 stars.

[Diane]

Rating: 4 stars

This is the story of the Stampers, an Oregon logging family. It is set in the 1960's. The narration of the book switches back and forth between both first person narrators and omnicient narrators, and is told from multiple points of view. I liked this structure because it allowed me to truly learn about the characters and the intricacies of the story.

Overall, a very innovative and intricately plotted novel.

[Amanda]

Really enjoyed this one overall, when I got accustomed to the somewhat tricky structure that other people have mentioned. It did a great job in conveying tension and resentment between: individuals in families, those who leave small towns for formal education and those who stay, people with a sense of community solidarity and those who always 'look out for #1', union reps and other higher class activists/leftists and the actual working class people they are advocating for, poor white people and people of colour in rural America, men and women, etc. It does a remarkable job with exploring the messy interconnections and motivations within all of these forces as well, contributing to a larger theme of what happens when there is a sense of limited glory to go around.

I gave it 4 stars.