One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey; narrated by Tom Parker | 2005; originally published 1962 | Blackstone Audio | Audiobook $ 15.75
You’ve never met anyone like Randle Patrick McMurphy. He’s a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the ward of a mental hospital and takes over. He’s a lusty, profane, life-loving fighter who rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Big Nurse. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and at every turn, openly defies her rule.
The contest starts as sport, with McMurphy taking bets on the outcome, but soon it develops into a grim struggle for the minds and hearts of the men, an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Big Nurse, backed by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Big Nurse uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story’s shocking climax.
I added this title to my to-read list for two reasons; first, I was supposed to have read it in high school but skipped it, and second, because I enjoyed watching the award-winning film version of the story and wanted to finally give the source material a try after all.
I would not have guessed from the film that the narrator of the book version of the story is not the tale’s “hero” McMurphy (as one might also expect from the book blurb itself), but is in fact the titular character who eventually flies over the cuckoo’s nest, so to speak — Chief. I feel like having this character’s unique and questionably reliable point-of-view as the main but slightly-apart vantage point of all the actual action of the story makes it an interesting contrast to the film version, and makes the book well worth reading for comparison to the film.
Apparently the author himself so disliked the altered perspective and other changes made in the screenplay that he never even watched the movie based on his book. I can sympathize, but as a somewhat more neutral audience for both, I have to say that I don’t think the film version is so wildly removed from its source material as to be offensive. The book and movie are just different enough that if you’re a fan of one, it’s probably worth seeking out the other just to get a corresponding-yet-distinct take on the story.
I particularly appreciated reading the story from the POV of Chief, in large part because he is so clearly mentally unwell and yet is made to be an incredibly sympathetic character (as are, by extension, most of the rest of the inmates of the psych ward). He suffers from delusions and is nearly incapable of direct social interaction — in part, it seems, due to some pretty serious trauma — but he is also a hyperperceptive observer of the people around him. He offers the reader the experience of really being part of a madhouse and experiencing the whole wild story at a slightly warped remove, as though “through a looking glass, darkly.”
I suppose the book has not aged well in some respects; there is plenty of racist and misogynistic language, that’s for sure. And yet, it offers a particularly empathetic treatment of people with mental illness and (somewhat surprisingly, given the aforementioned racism) Native Americans. The problems of individual isolation and systemic suppression apply to both populations, of course; Chief’s particular experiences serve to highlight this connection.
I would recommend this book to anyone who’s enjoyed the film version, of course, but also to anyone who might be interested in a story of finding some form of liberty despite overwhelming limitations — in the internal form of mental illness or the external form of an oppressive prison-like environment (or both).
Links:
- Biography of Ken Kesey from the Oregon Encyclopedia
- Interview with the author at NPR
- Interview with the author at The Paris Review
Publication information: Kesey, Ken. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Ashland, Oregon: Blackstone Audio, 2005. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Overdrive/Libby.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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