One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1963) - Plot & Excerpts
I have no obvious vices like smoking or drinking but this year, there were two books so far which had compelled me to indulge in these things. Upon finishing Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer two months ago, I immediately went to the nearest convenience store and bought a single cigarette stick to corrupt my lungs with; even just for that night because the reading experience was quite exceptional and I needed the taste of nicotine in my mouth to preserve it somehow. Now, as I write this review, I suddenly had this overpowering craving to drink booze, and vodka, I find, has always had a soothing effect on me which was exactly what I needed to suckle on once I did finish the end of this novel. "The story is always about someone, a man or woman, who didn't seem to fit into the world and always shocked people by misbehaving. There is the rebel who tries to destroy the social order and the follower who tries to please it. And then there was the witness; one who is transformed and enlightened from all this. The rebel, the follower and the witness. The two extremes and the resulting compromise."I suppose like most people, I know of this book because of the movie starring Jack Nicholson in the lead role but I barely remember that film adaptation now because I think it had almost been a decade since I last saw it; which was great because at least I get to read this book with fresh eyes with only remnants of what I have watched from the movie sometimes resurfacing when I read a particular scene that I can somewhat recall seeing before. Nevertheless, reading Ken Kasey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has been really thrilling in spite of the narrative's slow-burn tendencies. Told in the first-person perspective of the Native American Chief Bromden, the book reads like a journal of personal experiences and interactions of this said character with the people he is co-existing with inside the 'loony bin' where the story majorly took place. There were even quick sketches of certain in between the pages which gives the narrative an authentic 'diary' feel to it.Chief Bromden as the narrator for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is someone I would consider the most reliable of all the unreliable narrators out there (if that even makes sense). Because of his heritage, he usually keeps to himself, content on people assuming he's either deaf, mute or dumb--or all of the above. This is a man who prioritizes self-preservation and keeping up with the status quo, more so than any character in this book and that's mostly because he knows first-hand how being different will get one into trouble. He had been in several other mental institutions before and know of the small horrors and limited compensations that people who are considered 'unfit' have to undergo. Through his eyes, readers get to acquaint themselves with the overall routine and the ridiculously inhibiting way of life that patients at the mental hospital he is currently committed in have no other choice but to live by. In charge of all this is the middle-aged re-inforcer of the most precise of rules, Nurse Ratched, whose staunch ways re-define a whole new level of totalitarian matriarchy.I find Bromden's descriptions of her physical appearance, habits and eccentricities to be rather chilling since he always compares her to something of a detached automation than an actual living, breathing person with feelings of her own. Because of this limited perspective and insight, we never really get to see any kind of vulnerability or sympathetic trait from Nurse Ratched unless of course her perceived weaknesses are interpreted rather antagonistically not necessarily by Bromden himself but by the other male characters. If this was truly a nest of cuckoos then Nurse Ratched may as well be their mother bird and she governs every facet of their life and she often demonstrates her power and influence in the most gratingly passive-aggressive manner ever imaginable. There is certainly a matter of questioning the author's intent that somewhat demonizes female authority and I personally can encourage that discussion because any criticism regarding its chauvinism towards its only main female character can now be raised and argued by readers of my generation. I do think Nurse Ratched is portrayed in a harsher light than needed. It's worth a discussion most probably because of her gender and what she directly (and in latent terms) symbolizes in relation to that.Like any promising and compelling story on overthrowing the oppressive regime or taking away the control from the most inhumane of overlords, this book's knight-in-shining-armor is a less pristine version of said trope and this is realized in no other than Randle Patrick McMurphy, a gambler and recently diagnosed 'psychopath' who is all kinds of charming and disarming, much to the initial dread and eventual relief of the other patients including Bromden. McMurphy's very role and participation in the book is to create a shift in power dynamics among Nurse Ratched and her blabbering, passive and frightened patients. Through McMurphy's carefully cultivated chaos, the other male characters of this book started to recognize the seemingly small injustices and that they shouldn't have to put up with Nurse Ratched's deliberate manipulations. The maltreatment they are suffering was often described as rather mundane or inconsequential--such as the lack of enough free time to do other activities, or the refusal of the staff to cater to some more humane methods to pacify them--but their rights are still being violated little by little until these men are reduced into spineless fools who would quiver at the sight of Nurse Ratched's shadow as it passes them by.Clever and more than a match to Nurse Ratched's imposing authority, McMurphy quite literally gets the patients riled up, waking up these men from their once restful and lethargic states so they can have a more meaningful purpose than just take whatever the medical staff would give them, mediation or otherwise. McMurphy is not a saintly liberator, however, and Bromden recognizes that there is ego and impulse in every action that McMurphy commits; sometimes he deliberately tries to rattle the one in charge either to know that he could or to reap whatever kind of benefits he will receive if he did succeed. Nevertheless, Bromden becomes fond of him and so do the other patients because for the first time in a long time they have someone to look up to, someone to defend them and someone they can consider their friend against a nameless, overreaching system that oppresses them and makes them feel less human and more burdensome creatures who can never fully function outside the confines of the facility.It's a rather poignant affair especially when McMurphy realizes what he meant to these men and that he himself is beginning to care about them beyond seeing them as an audience he can perform his anarchist tricks for. Bromden also grows midway through the book, realizing that he doesn't have to hide under 'the fog' anymore, not when McMurphy has shown him that the only person standing in the way of his freedom and self-esteem issues is himself and once Bromden overcame his insecurities and fears, his trauma of his past concerning his father has lessened, and he began to fight back against the same oppression that has him kneeling down for a very long time. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has some riveting social commentary regarding the function and tension of power constructs that also happens to include a scathing indictment of the health care system back then when it came to treating mentally damaged patients. The book also examines in a quite humorous but still piercingly philosophical way this inherent inclination of humans to rebel against an authority or refuse a system they perceive as demeaning and aggressive. There are plenty enough layers in this novel that readers can freely discuss and argue about for days. Deceptively slow in establishing its key players and moments, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is guaranteed to be very satisfying midway and until the very unexpected end.RECOMMENDED: 8/10DO READ MY REVIEWS AT
i. Lost the damn book! Shit.ii. Found it!iii. Finished, but I need some time to let this sink in. The review is coming. iv. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about non-conformity. It is also about the horrors of the mental health system circa the late ‘50s & early ‘60s. I am sure it is about some other things I didn’t pick up this time around. But it is also about metaphor, and that was the theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that most spoke to me. Chief Bromden is the narrator, you see, and he is schizophrenic. Some would say he is an unreliable narrator because of his hallucinations. I think those people are wrong. I don’t see his opening statement as an admission or a warning: I been silent so long now it’s going to roar out of me like floodwaters and you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.I see this as a declaration that just because he is schizophrenic, just because he sees the world differently from you, doesn’t invalidate what he’s seen and what he’s been through. It is a declaration of his reliability, and one that I heeded throughout my reading.Because, you see, like many schizophrenics, Chief is aware that all the things he sees may not be there, or aren’t there for everyone. He knows that people around him will call him crazy when he is fogged in or trying to clean the green filth from the walls of the meeting room. He knows that people will shun him for the way he sees the world, so he – or Ken Kesey – needs you to know that he recognizes your biases before he even starts telling this story, and he needs you to hear him despite that, not just listen with a condescending head pat for the poor crazy Injun. Some of the things he sees may intrude on what you call reality, but reality is still there amidst the "crazy" stuff.And oh! what he sees. He isn’t just witness to a battle of dominance-submission-freedom. He isn’t just a witness to sadism and selfishness. He isn’t just a witness to hope. He isn’t just a witness to change. He is gifted the ability to see metaphor. For you, metaphor is a tool with which you understand the world. Your brain takes some input, filters it through metaphor, and out comes your meaning. But the Chief takes some input and that input suddenly becomes the metaphor and that meaning is the metaphor. Perhaps that’s what all schizophrenics see. Perhaps that’s their “illness.” Perhaps it’s their gift. An ability to see metaphor as a physical construct, for metaphor to cease being a filter and become reality. And that was the book for me. Despite all the great characters, despite the battle for control that rages between Ratched and McMurphy, despite the damage done and the control won and lost and won and lost, I was totally focused on the journey through Chief’s mind. I get him. And I love him. And I still love Milos Foreman’s film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest -- good thing too since I named my son after Foreman -- because the film and the book are two completely different works. They are akin. No doubt. And they are both beautiful. But they are too different (in delivery) to be considered the same.My mind was blown.v. I guess I'll have to add this to my "crazier-than-a-lobotomized-mcmurphy" shelf, even thought it isn't crazy at all.
What do You think about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1963)?
Such a brilliant book, I'll say that up front, and that the truth of a brilliant novel just has to be internally logical, which this is. A parable of rebellion, of the spirit of rebellion, the book depicts a charming rebel who falls afoul of the strictures of society, is branded "crazy" and ends up in an even stricter environment, a mental hospital whose sole interest is to crush the spirit of rebellion. Funny, clever, poignant and engaging, everyone should read this book at some time. It embodies the spirit of the Sixties to the nth degree.On the other hand, from the perspective of 2015, we've seen the collapse of the mental hospitals and the dumping of truly ill, vulnerable, psychotic people onto the streets of America. It occurred to a certain degree under the influence of this book, whose underlying message is that crazy people aren't really ill, they're just being oppressed by the System for thinking different. This basic tenet of the Sixties has proven patently false. So reading this book becomes a layered experience, knowing that we're reading a great novel, but also understanding that it is a cultural artifact as well. (MILD SPOILER AHEAD!!)Something I admire in this book is what I've come to call the "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" ending--where, although the noble hero is crushed as a result of the purity of his rebellion, passes on the spirit of rebellion to someone else who had never thought to oppose the system. Thus the tragedy is redeemed.
—Janet
This strikes me as so overrated, and disappointingly juvenile in its fundamental point of view -- "THEY" are out to get you, everyone in concert, just to spoil your good time. Ball-cutters are bad; hookers who fly their breasts free on a fishing boat are good; real men know the difference. None of these characters seem real, and the concerns of the novel -- freedom, social limits, the individual and the machine -- are presented so stupidly, in such a high schoolish manner, that it's hard to take it seriously. There is very little that's human here.The prose here -- as in Kesey's other overrated novel, Sometimes a Great Notion -- manages to veer from muscular and moving, to overwrought and ridiculous, sometimes in the same paragraph.It's unsurprising that this book would be popular with high school and college students. What's baffling to me is that it's held in higher regard by others, taught as a modern classic, etc.
—Shawn
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.
—Milo
