World Famous Comics: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
By: Ken Kesey Publisher: Penguin Classics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Penguin Classics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: November 27, 2007
Product Description: A visually arresting deluxe edition of Ken Kesey’s counterculture classic
Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Now in a new deluxe edition with a foreword by Chuck Palahniuk and cover by Joe Sacco, here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned.
An Excellent Read Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a whirlwind of eccentricity and brilliance. In a plot that is completely character-driven, Kesey skillfully manipulates stock characters to reflect on larger ideas regarding the individual and his place in society (both on the ward, and at large). The evolution of character and self - highlighted by the "reality" of life on their ward - is fascinating; Kesey attempts to prove that insanity is a product of contemporary culture, and that reality is not as fixed as those in power would have the masses believe. I am currently teaching this novel in an introductory-level English class, and it has proved to be through-provoking and inspiring - even to students who otherwise have no interest in reading novels. This is a novel everyone should read at least once.
Ken Kesey refused to see the film of his book On can understand how Ken Kesey would say, "I will not go to see what they did to my book." "They" was a crew led by Milos Forman and the film, "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest", won all of the major Oscars that year: Best Picture, best director, best actress, best actor. Only one other time has a film done that-1992, "Silence of the Lambs" And it is interesting that both of these films differ who tells us the story from his own perspective-on of a very small and unimportant manner from the book in the same way.
"One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" is a book that sustains itself by allowing the reader to be inside the head of one of the characters and it is he, a very large Indian who everyone believes to be mute and deaf, that we learn about life in a mental health institution in the 1950's. The book is a masterpiece, an American Classic. So is the movie. both are remarkable works of art but if you have seen the film you have not read the book. And if you've only read the book, you've not seen the film. The two stories teach different things-or rather approaches different parts of our soul to teach the sam thing. I am not sure which.