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A review by books_n_bananas
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
4.0
It would have been so easy to hate this book. To be honest, there's a lot of misogyny and the female characters are not very respectable aaaand it's a bit racist, but I couldn't hate it.
I love when I read a classic and it is so obviously a classic for a reason.
This book, like 'Animal Farm' or 'Clockwork Orange' or '1984' was just so well done in that it is clearly about so many things, not just patients on a mental ward.
Out of these, I see a strong resemblance to 'Animal Farm,' and yet, instead of pigs rebelling against humans, it's mental patients rebelling against the big nurse. There's just so many interesting facets of symbolism here.
Nurse Ratched is society, the big symbol of the "Combine" as the main character would say -- the norm pushing people to sit down, shut up, and fit in. She humbles the strength, and differences in the patients.
Then there's McMurphy, who is the hero in this tale. Fun-loving, sticks up for the guys around him. He's the popular guy who gets the girl, but who tries to empower those around him even when it negatively impacts him. And yet, he's a con man, a misogynist, and a guy so lazy that he checked himself into a mental ward to avoid working.
And then there's Billy, in effect a man-child, who is fine until put next to his mother who is holding him into this belief of being a child.
I don't have all the answers of what this book was going for, but I love thinking about the intricacies of it and I think that's what a true classic does.
Yes, it has its issues with the way the characters are represented, but because of how metaphorical this book is, those characters are simply tools to get across some larger observations of the human condition.
I love when I read a classic and it is so obviously a classic for a reason.
This book, like 'Animal Farm' or 'Clockwork Orange' or '1984' was just so well done in that it is clearly about so many things, not just patients on a mental ward.
Out of these, I see a strong resemblance to 'Animal Farm,' and yet, instead of pigs rebelling against humans, it's mental patients rebelling against the big nurse. There's just so many interesting facets of symbolism here.
Nurse Ratched is society, the big symbol of the "Combine" as the main character would say -- the norm pushing people to sit down, shut up, and fit in. She humbles the strength, and differences in the patients.
Then there's McMurphy, who is the hero in this tale. Fun-loving, sticks up for the guys around him. He's the popular guy who gets the girl, but who tries to empower those around him even when it negatively impacts him. And yet, he's a con man, a misogynist, and a guy so lazy that he checked himself into a mental ward to avoid working.
And then there's Billy, in effect a man-child, who is fine until put next to his mother who is holding him into this belief of being a child.
I don't have all the answers of what this book was going for, but I love thinking about the intricacies of it and I think that's what a true classic does.
Yes, it has its issues with the way the characters are represented, but because of how metaphorical this book is, those characters are simply tools to get across some larger observations of the human condition.